Transcript Oxford Brookes University - Lo Chi Wing's Personal Web Site

Oxford Brookes University
U08096 Project
Note 2
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Supervisor
Vincent Ching
Email
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Note 2
Project Management, Log & Deliverables
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Project Management is Important!!
Project Phases
Cost Management
Time Management
Resource Management
Quality Control
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Project Phases
Project ideas, consider resources available
Proposal
Literature search
Practical works (depends on type of project)
Setting report format
Report writing
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Practical Works Example
(Development Projects)
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Testing
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Importance of Time Management
Beginning : Time is more than enough
Middle : Time is still enough
Near Deadline : Why all assignments, tests /
examinations come together? WHY??
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How to avoid delay?
Take care of assignments, tests &
examinations in schedule. Near Deadline is
always a Peak Period
Try to use tools which are familiar and do
some trials as soon as possible. It is too late to
try the tools after design is finished.
Project Planning
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PROJECT PLANNING
Planning is about turning your aims and objectives into actions
in the sense that a plan assists you in identifying the work you
have to do and how you will achieve it. There are six steps:
Identification of tasks
Estimating the duration of each task
Identifying milestones
Identifying the order in which tasks are completed or may run in
parallel
Scheduling your time
Re-planning to fit the time available
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PROJECT PLANNING
There are several techniques for the above elements
but the most common are:
Work Breakdown Structures (WBS),
Activity Networks,
Gantt Charts.
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Refinement of Major Tasks
Refining a major scheduling task into smaller
activities needed to create a detailed project
schedule.
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Defining a Task Network
Building a task graph or activity network is
the key to building a feasible schedule. The
task graph represents inter-task dependencies
very clearly.
This allows to determine which tasks may be
done in parallel and which tasks need to done
first.
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Critical Path Method (CPM)
CPM was developed in 1957 by J.E. Kelly of
Remington Rand and M. R. Walker of DuPont.
CPM assumes the completion time of an
activity can be determined with certainty
which only depends on the amount of money
allocated to the activities.
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Critical Path Method (CPM)
The first step is to identify the work
breakdown of the project and the precedence
relations between them. An Work Breakdown
Structure (also named Activity List /
Precedence Relations Chart) can be used to
identify the separate activities of the project
and their precedence relations. Then a Task
Network Diagram of the project can be
constructed.
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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
It is a list of all the tasks in the project, which
includes the task dependency, duration and the
human resource required.
It breaks down your project into a series of
identifiable tasks and sub-tasks. They are
constructed by looking at your aim and then
using the objectives to define the main tasks.
Once that is done the main tasks can be
refined into a series of subtasks.
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Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)
It is always difficult to decide the level of detail required
and if you are not careful you will find yourself defining
tasks that take a few minutes. It is best to think of a
task as being something that you will deliver as a
complete entity for your project.
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Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)
Typically, this will mean that the smallest task will last
about 1 week. Alternatively you can use the following
'rule' to decide whether the task needs further
breakdown or not.
If the task was carried out incorrectly, would it affect project
quality? If the answer is yes, then you need to consider
whether there are any meaningful subtasks.
Is it absolutely obvious how to carry out the task? If the
answer is an honest yes, then there is probably no need to
look for subtasks.
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Example
Here is an example using
a text breakdown rather
than a diagram.
It is usual to put the tasks
in the order in which they
would be done but this is
not essential and in any
case many tasks will be
done in parallel.
Also you may number the
tasks if you wish.
 1.0 Stock Market Project
 1.1 Literature Survey
1.1.1 Literature Search
1.1.2 Literature Review
 1.2 Develop Prototype
1.2.1 Investigate
1.2.2 Design
1.2.3 Build
1.2.4 Test
 1.3 Get Stock Data
 1.4 Evaluation
1.4.1 Train Users
1.4.2 Use Stock Market Models
1.4.3 Analyse Results
• 1.4.3.1 Decide on statistical tests
• 1.4.3.2 Evaluate results
– etc.
 1.5 Write Report.
Time Estimates
Once you have identified the tasks it is important that you
estimate how long each one will take. Such estimates are
normally continually revised as the project proceeds.
A good way to deal with time scales is to use milestones and
time boxes. A milestone is a significant step towards
completing the project and a time box is the period of time
leading up to the milestone but with the clear intention of
delivering a significant and well-defined project element. The
actual estimates may be added to the WBS or for ease of
calculation you may draw up a simple linear list of activities
and their time estimates.
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Work Sequencing
The usual way to do this is to construct an activity
network. Activity networks are simple diagrams that
show relationships between tasks in that they link
activities together based on sequence and timing.
Activity diagrams also allow for parallel activities to
take place.
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Activity Network
There are two ways to draw a network
diagram. In the first figure, arcs are used to
represent activities while in the second figure,
nodes are used to represent them.
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Some notation has more information on the
node:
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Scheduling
Scheduling is usually done using a Gantt chart
where the main purpose is to show explicitly the
duration of activities and identify explicitly when
tasks can be performed simultaneously.
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Gantt Chart
To track the progress of a project is one of the most
important responsibilities of project managers. A
common tool for this purpose is the Gantt Chart.
The Gantt Chart was developed by Henry L. Gantt in
1918 and it is used to display and monitor the project
progress. In a Gantt Chart, time is measured on the
horizontal axis and each activity is listed in the
vertical axis, a bar is drawn corresponding to its
expected completion time. For different purposes,
Gantt Chart can be drawn with earliest start & finish
time, or latest start & finish time.
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Re-planning
Do not be afraid to re-plan your work as the project
proceeds - this is essential since it is very rare that
everything goes without a hitch.
You must also resist the temptation to improve the
deliverable and this can lead you into exceeding the time
estimate for the task. The usual way to avoid falling into the
trap of trying forever to improve a deliverable is to use the
fitness for purpose criteria - will the deliverable suffice?
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Dealing with Problems
All projects will experience problems - software
does not work, your supervisor is not available,
your industrial sponsor goes into liquidation and so
on. The key to dealing with problems is to tackle
them objectively, professionally and systematically
with the aid of your supervisor.
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MANAGING YOUR TIME
There are just 7 days in a week and 24 hours in a
day. Some of this time is not serviceable by you for
your project, it therefore follows that you have to
manage your time. We are all different - some
people are good at managing their time and
shutting out unwanted activities or interruptions
whilst other seem to 'bumble' along just managing
to complete things, usually right on the deadlines.
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MANAGING YOUR TIME
We can define the time management process as follows.
1.0 Decide what you want to do.
2.0 Analyse what you want to do.
3.0 Improve the way you do things:
 3.1 By improving your own efficiency.
 3.2 By prioritisation.
 3.3 By elimination:
This looks quite simple and indeed the first two steps are
relatively easy but changing one’s work habits is itself
stressful.
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Deliverables
what exactly you will be delivering at the end of the
project.
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Logbook
It should contain information concerning
items such as:
Strategic decisions, accompanying reasons,
Practical design considerations,
Experimental data,
References to articles & other work
Useful addresses etc.
You will find it useful when writing your
report.
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