Transcript Chapter 1

Planning the Project
Key Concepts
Planning Process
Project Plan
Work Breakdown Structure
1
Project Management
• Concerned with activities involved in
ensuring that “project outcome” is delivered
on time and on schedule and in accordance
with the requirements of the organisations
• Project management is needed because
“special activities” are always subject to
budget and schedule constraints that are set
by the organisation developing the new
product or service
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Management Activities
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•
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Proposal writing.
Project planning and scheduling.
Project costing.
Project monitoring and reviews.
Personnel selection and evaluation.
Report writing and presentations.
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The Elements
of a Project Plan

Overview
 Objectives
 General Approach
 Contractual Aspects
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
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

Schedules
Resource Requirements
Personnel
Evaluation Methods
Potential Problems
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Two Key Elements
Resource requirements
a) Personnel elements of a project plan
b) Physical resources
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Project Staffing
• May not be possible to appoint the ideal people
to work on a project
– Project budget may not allow for the use of highlypaid staff;
– Staff with the appropriate experience may not be
available;
– An organisation may wish to develop employee
skills on a project.
• Managers have to work within these constraints
especially when there are shortages of trained
staff.
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The Planning Process
Pproject Manger’s First Job
• Understand the expectations that the
organisation has for the project.
• Identify who among senior managers has
a major interest in the project.
• Determine if anything about the project is
atypical.
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Developing Invitation List
• At least one representative from senior
management.
• Managers from functional areas that will
contribute to the project.
• Perhaps highly specialised technical
experts.
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The Launch Meeting
• Senior Management Introduces PM
• PM Chairs Meeting
– develop general understanding of the functional
inputs the project will need
– may brainstorm the problem
– may develop preliminary plan
• Important Results
– scope understood and temporarily fixed
– functional managers understand their
responsibilities and have committed to developing
the initial plan
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Project Planning
• Probably the most time-consuming project
management activity.
• Continuous activity from initial concept
through to system delivery. Plans must be
regularly revised as new information
becomes available.
• Various different types of plan may be
developed to support the main software
project plan that is concerned with schedule
and budget.
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Types of Project Plan
Plan
Description
Quality plan
Describes the quality procedures and standards that will be
used in a project.
Validation plan
Describes the approach, resources and schedule used for
system validation.
Configuration
management plan
Describes the configuration management procedures and
structures to be used.
Maintenance plan
Predicts the maintenance requirements of the system,
maintenance costs and effort required.
Staff development
plan.
Describes how the skills and experience of the project team
members will be developed.
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Project Planning Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Establish the project constraints
Make initial assessments of the project parameters
Define project milestones and deliverables
Draw up project schedule
Initiate activities according to schedule
Review project progress
Revise estimates of project parameters
Update the project schedule
Re-negotiate project constraints and deliverables
If problems arise, then Initiate technical review and possible revision
End
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The Project Plan
• The project plan sets out:
– The resources available to the project;
– The work breakdown;
– A schedule for the work.
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Project Plan Structure
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•
•
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Introduction.
Project organisation.
Risk analysis.
Hardware and software resource
requirements.
• Work breakdown.
• Project schedule.
• Monitoring and reporting mechanisms.
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Sorting Out the Project
• Hierarchical Planning Process
– begin with project’s objectives
– list major activities needed to achieve
objectives (Level 1 Activities)
– delegate level 1 activities to individuals or
functional areas to develop list of Level 2
activities …
– degree of detail should be same within a
given level
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Creating the Project
Action Plan
• Project activities identified and arranged in
successively finer detail (by levels).
• Type and quantity of each required resource
identified for each activity.
• Predecessors and durations estimated for
each activity.
• Milestones identified.
• Individual or group assigned to perform the
work identified for all activities.
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Using the Project Action Plan
• Project Master Schedule created by
combining milestones, durations, and
predecessors
– used to compare actual and planned
performance
• Use of Templates
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The Work Breakdown Structure
Simple Approach for Creating the WBS
• Gather Project Team
• Provide Team Members with Pad of
Sticky-Notes
• Team Members Write Down all Tasks
They can Think of.
• Sticky-Notes Placed and Arranged on
Wall
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Work Breakdown
Structures
Work Breakdown Structure Diagram
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Work Breakdown
Structures
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Task 1
Subtask 1.1
Work Package 1.1.1
Work Package 1.1.2
Work Package 1.1.3
Subtask 1.2
Work Package 1.2.1
Work Package 1.2.2
Work Package 1.2.3
Task 2
Subtask 2.1
Work Package 2.1.1
Work Package 2.1.2
Work Package 2.1.3
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Work Breakdown
Structures
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WBS - Buy A House
`
BUY A HOUSE
LOCATION
FINANCING
1
- Criteria
2
- Visit
Locations
3
- Determine
affordability
FIND
HOUSE
6
- Type of
House
4
- Determine
mortgage
provider
7
- Find Real
Estate
Agent
5
- Lockup
mortgage
commitment
8
- Look for
House
9
- Make
Offer, P&S
Agreem't
10
- Closing
Top Down Decomposition, Elemental Tasks
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Buy a House
Simple Gantt Chart View
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Organisational Diagrams
• Work breakdown structure (WBS): Shows
hierarchy of work products
• PERT chart: Shows the order in which
activities must be done (a partial order)
• Gantt Chart or Schedule: Shows scheduling
of work products as a function of time
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Creating Work Packages
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
– Break up project into activities (phases, steps)
and tasks.
– The work breakdown structure does not show
the interdependence of the tasks
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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Diagram
Build communications software
System planning (1.0)
System design (2.0)
Review specification(1.1)
Top-level design (2.1)
Review budget (1.2)
Prototyping (2.2)
Review schedule(1.3)
User interface (2.3)
Develop plan (1.4)
Detailed design (2.4)
Coding (3.0)
Testing(4.0) Delivery (5.0)
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Source: Pleeger, ch. 3
Concurrent Engineering
“The simultaneous performance of product
design and process design. Typically,
concurrent engineering involves the formation
of cross-functional teams. This allows
engineers and managers of different disciplines
to work together simultaneously in developing
product and process design.”
Foster, S. Thomas. Managing Quality: An Integrative Approach.
Upper Saddle River New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001.
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Concurrent Engineering
“Concurrent engineering methodologies permit
the separate tasks of the product development
process to be carried out simultaneously rather
than sequentially. Product design, testing,
manufacturing and process planning through
logistics, for example, are done side-by-side
and interactively. Potential problems in
fabrication, assembly, support and quality are
identified and resolved early in the design
process.”
Izuchukwu, John. “Architecture and Process :The Role of Integrated
Systems in Concurrent Engineering.” Industrial Management
Mar/Apr 1992: p. 19-23.
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Concurrent Engineering
• Carrying out steps concurrently rather
than sequentially
– also referred to as simultaneous engineering
• Key Advantages
– helps minimise conflict across functional
groups
– reduces project duration
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Concurrent Engineering
• Concurrent Engineering is about;
-Doing things simultaneously
-Focusing on the Process
-Converting hierarchical organisations
into teams
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Concurrent Engineering
• Basic Goals of Concurrent Engineering
-Dramatic improvements in time to
market and costs
-Improvements to product quality and
performance
-Do more with less
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Concurrent Engineering
• Concurrent Engineering = Teamwork
-The more communication exists, the
better the project outcome
• Balances Needs
-Customer, Supplier, Engineers,
Marketing, and Manufacturing needs.
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Concurrent Engineering
• Management
-Good management is vitally important
-Encourage communication
-Strong management support
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Concurrent Engineering
•
3 Main Areas to Concurrent Engineering
1) People
2) Process
3) Technology
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Concurrent Engineering
• Concurrent Engineering: Simultaneous
development of product and process.
• Most important aspect is communication
and formation of teams
• Management support is vitally important
• Don’t be afraid to change current
processes and technologies
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Activity Organisation
• Activities in a project should be organised
to produce tangible outputs for
management to judge progress.
• Milestones are the end-point of a process
activity.
• Deliverables are project results delivered
to customers.
• The waterfall process allows for the
straightforward definition of progress
milestones.
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Milestones
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Project Scheduling
• Split project into tasks and estimate time and
resources required to complete each task.
• Organise tasks concurrently to make optimal
use of workforce.
• Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays
caused by one task waiting for another to
complete.
• Dependent on project managers intuition
and experience.
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The Project
Scheduling Process
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Scheduling Problems
• Estimating the difficulty of problems and
hence the cost of developing a solution is
hard.
• Productivity is not proportional to the number
of people working on a task.
• Adding people to a late project makes it later
because of communication overheads.
• The unexpected always happens. Always
allow contingency in planning.
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Bar Charts
and Activity Networks
• Graphical notations used to illustrate the
project schedule.
• Show project breakdown into tasks.
Tasks should not be too small. They
should take about a week or two.
• Activity charts show task dependencies
and the the critical path.
• Bar charts show schedule against
calendar time.
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Task Durations and
Dependencies
Dependencies
Activity
Duration (days)
T1
8
T2
15
T3
15
T4
10
T5
10
T2, T4 (M2)
T6
5
T1, T2 (M3)
T7
20
T1 (M1)
T8
25
T4 (M5)
T9
15
T3, T6 (M4)
T10
15
T5, T7 (M7)
T11
7
T9 (M6)
T12
10
T11 (M8)
T1 (M1)
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Activity Network
8 day s
1 4 /7 /0 3
15 da y s
M1
T3
15 da y s
T9
T1
5 day s
4 /8/03
T6
M4
2 5 /7 /0 3
4 /7 /0 3
star t
M3
2 5 /8/03
M6
7 day s
2 0 day s
15 day s
T11
T7
T2
25 /7 /0 3
10 da y s
M2
T4
10 day s
M7
T5
5 /9/03
11 /8/03
T10
1 8 /7 /0 3
M8
15 da y s
10 da ys
T12
M5
2 5 day s
Finish
T8
19 /9/03
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Activity Timeline
4 /7
11 /7
18 /7
2 5 /7
1 /8
8 /8
1 5 /8
22 /8
2 9 /8
5 /9
12 /9
1 9 /9
Star t
T4
T1
T2
M1
T7
T3
M5
T8
M3
M2
T6
T5
M4
T9
M7
T10
M6
T11
M8
T12
Finish
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Staff Allocation
4 /7
Fred
1 1 /7
18 /7
2 5 /7
1 /8
8 /8
15 /8
2 2 /8
2 9 /8
5 /9
1 2 /9
19 /9
T4
T8
T11
T12
Jan e
T1
T3
T9
Ann e
T2
T6
Jim
Mary
T10
T7
T5
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