Chapter 6

Question 1

Why plan at all is things may not happen exactly as planned?

Answer 1

Plan is a proof of feasibility, by planning you describe the procedure on how the project objective can be achieved.

Question 2

Illustrate planning, monitoring and controlling cycle with a diagram

Answer 2

Planning ➡️ Monitoring ➡️ Controlling

Adapt: From Controlling back to planning.

In Planning, you determine nominal values for your project, in monitoring, you compare the nominal values with actual values

Question 3

What are two approaches that can be used for project planning?

Answer 3

1. Top-down approach, starts with rough cut plan, and later detailed plan. Planning can be started with the project charter as it outlines the project deliverables and the overall software engineering approach to use.
2. Backwards

Question 4

Rule of thumb for planning

Answer 4

• 1 person-month is about 20 persons-day
• 1 person-year is about 200 persons-day or 10 persons-month

Note: In Germany and many European countries, 200 days are the working time that is left after subtracting vacations and holidays, average number of expected sick days, professional development.

7 persons constitute a team and requires a project leader.

Maximum team size should not exceed the expected effort in person-month i.e
Team size <= Square Root (person-month)

Question 5

What is milestone in project planning?

Answer 5

A milestone designates a certain state of your project, a project result that is achieved.

Question 6

What is activity?

Answer 6

Activity has to be carried out by one or several project members.

Question 7

What is activity charter?

Answer 7

It contains the objectives, results, quality criteria, and dependencies of the activities and all their sub-activities.

Question 8

Two types of charts used in project planning are

Answer 8

1. Gantt chart: Gantt chart visualise the chronological sequence of a project plan.
2. Network chart: is a graphical representation of a project’s activities, milestones and their dependencies.

Question 9

Name two types of network charts?

Answer 9

1. Activity on Arrow (AOA): the graph nodes represent certain states of the project. The arrows represent activities transforming the project from one state to another.
2. Activity on Node (AON): the nodes represent activities here while the arrow between the nodes visualise dependencies.

Question 10

What is critical path in project planning?

Answer 10

Critical paths is a sequence of activities with no slack.

A delay of an activity on the critical path will delay the finish time of the whole project.

Question 11

Terminologies used in Metra Potential Method, an application of Activity on Node network chart

Answer 11

1. Early Start Time(ES): earliest possible date on which the activity can be started
2. Early Finish Time(EF): Earliest possible date on which an activity can be finished
3. Late Finish Time(LF): the latest possible date on which an activity has to be finished
4. Late Start Time(LS): the latest possible date for the activity to be started
5. Slack: the time execution of the activity can be delayed.

Question 12

What are the strengths of project planning tools?

Answer 12

They support activity dependencies, hierarchical decomposition of activities and many other hidden management features. They also support different views on the project.

For these tools, it is often not transparent how they work and how the effects of schedule change are determined.

Question 13

The most important thing for a project leader is to

Answer 13

have up to date project schedule, without a project schedule you are not able to control your project.

Question 14

Design rules for planning

Answer 14

1. Minimize dependencies
2. One person, one job
3. Activities should be clearly defined
4. Important activities first
5. Open activities first