Four Elements of Project Management

Project Management
Reviewer 1. PROJECT TEAM
- made up of individuals from various areas and
Topic 1 departments within a company.
What is PROJECT?
Matrix Organization – a team structure with members
 A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken from functional areas, depending on the skills required.
to accomplish a unique product or service with
a defined start and end point and specific Matrix – derived from the two-dimensional
objectives that, when attained, signify characteristics of this type of organizational structure.
completion.
 A unique, one-time operational activity or * Vertical – the company’s normal organizational
structure for performing jobs.
effort.
* Horizontal – the special functional structure required
What can go wrong in a Project? by the project.

 The major cause of project failure is not the Project Manager – most important member of the
specifics of what went wrong, but rather the project team. Often under greater pressure that the
lack of procedures, methodology and standards other team members.
for managing the project.
2. PROJECT PLANNING
- objectives must be clearly defined so the manager and
the team know what is expected.
History of Project Management

 In 1917 Henry Gantt developed the Gantt chart Statement of Work – project scope. It is a written
as a tool for scheduling work in a job shops. description at the goals, work and time frame of a
project.
 Modern project management began with the
Manhattan Project (circa 1943), which led to the Activity – the performance of an individual job at work
development of the atomic bomb. effort that requires labor, resources and time and that is
subject to management control or supervision.
 In 1958, the Navy pioneered the use of PERT
network charts. Precedence Relationship – the sequential relationship of
activities in a project.
 In 1970s, the military began the broad use of
project management software, as did the Network – where the precedence relationship is visually
construction industry. displayed in the form of a graph.
Elements of Project Planning
 By the 1990s, virtually every industry uses some
form of project management. 1. Define project objectives.

2. Identify activities.
How Project Management Can Help?
3. Establish precedence relationships.
 Single point of contact and accountability for
the overall success of the project 4. Make time estimates.

 Focuses on meeting customer needs and 5. Determine project completion time.

ensuring satisfaction
6. Compare project schedule objectives.
 Improves performance in time, cost and
technical areas. 7. Determine resource requirements to meet
8. objectives.
 Focuses on managing project scope and
controlling change 3. WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE

 Helps avoid disasters by managing risks - method for project planning.

- organizes the work to be done on a project.
- breaks down a project into components,
 Strengthens project teams and improves
subcomponents, activities
internal morale.
and tasks.
- good way to identify activities and to determine the
individual task, module and project workloads and
resources required.
 The Critical Path
4. PROJECT CONTROL - Is the longest path through a network; it is the
- includes making sure all activities are minimum project completion time.
identified and included and making sure the
activities are completed in the proper sequence. Activity Scheduling
Resource needs must be identified as work is
initiated and completed, and the schedule must ES – the earliest time an activity can start.
be adjusted to reflect time changes and EF – the earliest start time plus the activity time.
corrections. In most cases the primary focus of
control is on maintaining the project schedule Forward Pass – starts at the beginning of a CPM/PERT
and budget, and making sure the project is network to determine the earliest activity times.
completed on time. LS – the latest time an activity can start without
delaying critical path time.
GANTT CHART LF – is the latest time an activity can be completed and
still maintain the project critical path time.
-A graph or bar chart with a bar for each project activity
that shows the passage of time. Backward Pass – determines latest activity times by
starting at the end of a CPM/PERT network and working
-A traditional management technique for scheduling forward.
and planning small projects with relatively few activities
andprecedence relationships. PROBABILISTIC ACTIVITY TIMES

-Has been a popular project scheduling tool since its Probabilistic Time Estimates
inception and is still widely used today. -Probabilistic time estimates reflect uncertainty of
activity times. In the PERT-type approach to
-It is the direct precursor of the CPM/PERT technique. estimating activity times, three time estimates for
Slacks each activity are determined, which enables us
- is the amount of time an activity can be to estimate the mean and variance of a beta
delayed without delaying the project. distribution of the activity times.

Critical Path Method > Beta Distribution – is a probability distribution

- activities are shown as a network of precedence traditionally used in CPM/PERT.
relationships using activity-on-node network
construction. Three Time Estimate for each activity
-With CPM, a single estimate for activity time was used
that did not allow for any variation in activity times – 1. Most likely time (m) – a subjective estimate of
activity times were treated as if they were known for the activity time that would most frequently
certain, or “deterministic”. occur if the activity were repeated many times.

Project Evaluation and Review Technique 2. The optimistic time (a) – the shortest possible
- activities are shown as a network of precedence time to complete the activity if everything went
relationships using activity-on-arrow network right.
construction.
-With PERT, multiple time estimates were used for each 3. Pessimistic times (b) – the longest possible time
activity that allowed for variation in activity times – to complete the activity assuming everything
activity times were treated as “probabilistic” went wrong.

CPM/PERT uses a network to depict the precedence Probabilistic Network Analysis

relationships among activities. -Probabilistic analysis of a CPM/PERT network is the
determination of the probability that the project will be
Activity-On-Node (AON) completed within a certain time period given the mean
- node represent activities and arrows show precedence and variance of a normally distributed project
relationships. completion time.

Activity-On-Arrow (AOA) Microsoft Project

- arrow represent activities and nodes are events for Microsoft Project is a very popular and widely use
points in time. software package for project management. It is also
relatively easy to use.
Event
- reflects the branches represented the activities and Crashing
the nodes in between. - is reducing project time by expending additional
resources.
Dummy
- it is inserted into the network to show a precedence
relationship, but it does not represent any actual
passage of time.
Project Crashing
- is a method for shortening the project duration by
reducing the time of one (or more) of the critical project
activities to less than its normal activity time.

Crash time
- is an amount of time an activity is reduced; crash cost
is the cost of reducing activity time.

-The goal of crashing is to reduce project duration at

minimum cost.

-Crashing costs increase as project time decreases;

indirect costs increase as project time increase.

Topic 2 Phase 3: Proposal Writing

Project Cycle
Steps for writing a project proposal
1. Decide the Appearance of your proposal
Phase 1 Visioning
2. Add a description of o the business case
-Visioning brings energy to the group
3. Highlight the Problem Opportunity involved in the
-Allows all the involved stakeholders to express their
project
wishes regarding future development.
4. Describe the Goals & Objectives
-The visioning process should be implemented before
5. Add Details of Project P Managemeric Plan
decisions are made.
7. Describe Project's Communication Plan
8. Include any Project Risks
Phase 2: Planning and Design
9. Mention Timeline
-Is an early phase of the project where a project's key
10. Include Budget of Proposal
features, structure, criteria for success, and major
11. Include Next Steps
deliverable are all planned out.
12. Add Details of Appendix
The design process includes defining:
-Measurement
Phase 3: Project Review and Approval
-The Monitoring Method
-Status reporting protocols
-Evaluation criteria
-Design of the ultimate processes and outputs
implementation schedules