5: Managing Projects

Question 1

What is a project? What’s it characterized by?

Answer 1

A project is a sequence of tasks required to achieve a particular goal within a fixed amount of time

a project is characterized by a clear goal, well defined start, and well defined end

Question 2

There are 4 stages to a project: what are they and what are they key parts of each stage?

Answer 2

Define
- involves determining what must be accomplished by the end, aka, SCOPE
- due dates and such should be defined
- projects should be done ASAP and efficiently to avoid penalties and lower direct / indirect costs

Plan
- break up the plan into a series of tasks
- Gantt Charts can be used here

Manage
- requires constant progress review and adjustments
- Gantt Charts are used here

Close
- all deliverables need to be provided to the relevant parties
- all records must be properly archived
- project teams should debrief
- reflect at the individual, team, and organization level

Question 3

What is the scope of a project? How is it established? How is scope and target completion time connected

Answer 3

Scope:
- what must be accomplished by the end
- established through discussion and negotiation with a client
- involves establishing requirements, key deliverables, timelines and milestones

Scope and target completion time are interconnected:

Question 4

What are direct / indirect costs?

Answer 4

Direct: resources, salaries, time

indirect: lost opportunity on (revenue-generating) work

Question 5

What are tasks? how do you properly set them? Sources of error?

Answer 5

Task:
- a unit of work or activity that needs to be completed within a specific amount of time in order to complete a project

tasks should align with key phases of the project
must be specific enough to support planning and directing the work, but general enough to warrant allocating resources

Sources of error?
- omission of tasks
- failing to anticipate delays and setbacks

Question 6

What is a contingency?

Answer 6

contingency:
- extra time or other resources set aside to account for uncertainty in a project

Question 7

What is a Gantt chart? What is a critical path? What is slack?

Answer 7

Gantt Chart:
- a timeline that encodes the duration of each task and the dependencies between them.
- tasks on y axis
- time on x axis
- dependencies are indicated with arrows connecting tasks
(some tasks cannot begin until a previous task is complete, other can run in parallel)
- milestones are marked
- responsibility for tasks is indicate next to each time-bar

Critical path:
- the sequence of tasks that defines the minimum time in which a project can be completed
Slack:
- the amount of time a task can be delayed without delaying the completion of the overall project

Question 8

What can be done if a project is behind schedule?

Answer 8

• allocating additional resources
• adjusting or removing tasks on the critical path
• shifting the project end date

Question 9

What is a technique that can be used in the closing stage a project to help with reflection?

Answer 9

Start, Stop, Keep technique

start:
- what things would improve efficiency, quality, or enjoyment

Stop:
- what things are reducing work efficiency, quality, or enjoyment?

keep:
- what things are working well now?