Project Management

Olaf Diegel

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The Work breakdown Structure
• The larger a project is, the more difficult it can be to
comprehend all it's complexities.
• Therefore we break them down into smaller pieces, making
them easier to comprehend.
• A $10,000,000 project can be regarded as a lot of smaller
$10,000 projects joined together.
• The Work Breakdown Structure provides a framework to tie
all these elements together.
• The WBS is the basis for communication, scheduling, cost
management, and estimating resource requirements

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What is the Work Breakdown Structure
• The WBS is a product-oriented family tree
composed of hardware, software, services,
data, and facilities.
• It is used to graphically break up a project
into manageable elements reflecting all
products to be delivered and services to be
performed by the project.
• It relates the elements of work to be
accomplished to each other and to the end
product.
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What is the Work Breakdown Structure

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Constructing a WBS
• It should be compatible with how the work will
be done and how costs and schedules will be
managed.
• It should help to identify and give visibility to
important or risky work elements.
• It should ultimately act as a map of all
requirements, plans, testing, and deliverables.
• As it is primarily a communication tool, it should
foster clear ownership by managers and task
leaders.
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Constructing a WBS

• It should give data for performance

measurement and historical databases that
can be used in future projects.
• It must make sense to the workers,
accountants and all others involved in the
project.
• The WBS should include as many levels as
necessary to fully define the work at hand

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Going on vacation

You and 3 of your friends (Tom, Dick and

Harry) have decided to go on holiday.
The holiday will officially start on the Monday
after the end of first semester exams. After
preparing and packing you will drive to the
holiday place.
The problem is to select a location and take all
the necessary steps to successfully get to the
holiday place in a minimum of time after the
holiday officially starts.
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Vacation Tasks
• Obtain travel brochures
• Obtain road maps
• Decide money limits
• Select holiday place
• Book holiday place
• Service car
• Arrange house-sitter
• Pack clothing and gear
• Prepare travel snacks
• Drive to holiday site

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Holiday WBS
H O L ID A Y ! ! !

D r iv e t o h o lid a y
s ite

A rra n g e B o o k h o lid a y P a c k c lo t h in g
S e r v ic e c a r
h o u s e -s itt e r p la c e and gear

O b ta in r o a d S e le c t h o lid a y P r e p a re tr a v e l
m aps p la c e snacks

D e c id e m o n e y
lim its

O b ta in t r a v e l
b ro c h u re s

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Time Management
Time management involves
• Establishing the sequencing and
relationships of all activities (typically by
developing a project network),
• Estimating how long each activity will
take (which depends on resources
available and allocated)
• Developing a project schedule

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Sequencing: Project Networks
• An activity is any identifiable task that must
be performed within the project.
• These activity definitions most commonly
come from the Work Breakdown Structure.
• Activity sequencing, at its very simplest, is
simply a list of activities, and the order in
which it is planned they will be executed.
More commonly however, this is done in the
form of network scheduling of which 4 main
types are commonly used
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Precedence List
Number Activity Precedence
1 Obtain travel brochures Must precede 4
2 Obtain road maps Must precede 4
3 Decide money limits Must precede 4
4 Select holiday place Must precede 5,8,9
5 Book holiday place Must precede 10
6 Service car Must precede 8
7 Arrange house-sitter Must precede 10
8 Pack clothing and gear Must precede 10
9 Prepare travel snacks Must precede 10
 
10 Drive to holiday site
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Activity Time Estimates
Earliest start Latest Finish Time Required
Number Activity Time (days)
Time
   
1 Obtain travel brochures 1.0
   
2 Obtain road maps 1.0
   
3 Decide money limits 0.1
   
4 Select holiday place 1.0
   
5 Book holiday place 1.0
   
6 Service car 1.0
   
7 Arrange house-sitter 0.5
   
8 Pack clothing and gear 1.0
   
9 Prepare travel snacks 0.5
   
10 Drive to holiday site 1.0
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Critical Path Methods (CPM), Arrow Diagramming

Arrows represent activity (activity-on-arrow network)

Nodes represent point in time
Dummy arrows used to transfer logic but have no duration 14
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)

Nodes represent activity (activity-on-node network)

Arrows represent flow between activities
PDM does not require Dummy arrows 15
Program Evaluation Review Technique

PERT chart
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Gantt charts

• Shows all activities as a bar chart

• Gives a graphical representation of the
activities against time
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Critical paths and float

• The critical path is the path (sequence)

of activities that represent the longest
total time required to complete the
project. A delay in any activity in the
critical path causes a delay in the
completion of the project
• Float is the amount of time that an
activity can slip past its duration without
delaying the rest of the project
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Theory of constraints

• A troup of boy scouts is on a field trip

• The path is only wide enough for a
single file
• All the scouts travel at different speeds
• As always, there is a slow kid. Lets call
him Herbie.
• Depending on where Herbie is, different
things happen…
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Herbie in the middle?

Herbie at the back?

Herbie at the front?

Herbie unloaded & all holding hands?

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Theory of constraints steps
Step 1: Identify the system's constraints.
Step 2: Decide how to exploit the
system's constraints.
Step 3: Subordinate everything else to
the above decision.
Step 4: Elevate the system's constraints.
Step 5: Avoid Inertia - go back to step 1
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Don’t forget…

• Slides and study guide can be

downloaded at:
• www.massey.ac.nz/~odiegel

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