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Project Management > Chapter 7 - Time and resource planning > Flashcards

Chapter 7 - Time and resource planning Flashcards

1
Q

What should a project overview include?

A

What should be done and in what order –> schedule

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2
Q

Why should those performing the work be included in planning?

A
  • Reduces misjudging required time and resources

- The PM can’t know everything; delegate to the team members who’ve been selected for their competence

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3
Q

What is a project management plan?

A

A governing document that gathers all information necessary to execute the project.

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4
Q

What are possible headings in a project plan?

A
  1. Executive summary
  2. Background, purpose and goals
  3. Scope and delimitations
  4. Requirements specification
  5. Delivery and implementation
  6. Situational analysis and stakeholders
  7. Organization and staffing
  8. Communication
  9. Milestones
  10. Activities
  11. Schedule
  12. Budget and benefits assessment
  13. Risk analysis
  14. Routines for change management
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5
Q

What is the projects baseline?

A

The original project plan, which is the reference for any changes. It’s the point against which the project progress is measured.

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6
Q

Which are the four development principles?

A

Predictable
Iterative
Incremental
Adaptive

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7
Q

Describe the predictable development principle.

A

Predictable - Few deliveries and likely small need for changes. Traditional approach, early planning. Decreases uncertainty and complexity

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8
Q

Describe the Iterative development principle.

A

Iterative - Unclear requirements, small need to divide the delivery in parts. Test your way forward with multiple loops, gradually improve.

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9
Q

Describe the Incremental development principle.

A

Incremental - Known requirements, multiple deliveries preferred. Many small sub-deliveries of functional results that can be used right away.

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10
Q

Describe the Adaptive development principle.

A

Adaptive - Combination of iterative and incremental, to refine the work and deliver i stages. Early feedback means you learn during process.

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11
Q

Which of the four development principles are agile?

A

Adaptive, Incremental, Iterative

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12
Q

What are the steps in the planning chain?

A
  1. Determine the purpose and goal.
  2. Define the scope of the project in a wbs.
  3. Compare with requirements.
  4. Create a logical network
  5. Break down the work packages into activities.
  6. Assess the resource usage, work hours and duration of each activity.
  7. Create a schedule by entering the activities into a calendar
  8. Analyse the project’s resource needs in a resource histogram.
  9. Create a budget
  10. Optimize the plan.
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13
Q

What is an activity plan?

A

An activity plan is a logical network showing the order in which the project activities will be performed.

Activity-on-node: Activities are shown as boxes, and dependencies as arrows. (Most common)

Activity-on-arrow: Activities are arrows between nodes, which are the dependencies.

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14
Q

What is the milestone method?

A

A simplified planning method suitable for smaller projects, where milestones are known. Start with the milestone plan, for each milestone assess which activities must be performed to reach the milestone. Activities are then planned between the milestones

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15
Q

Give examples of resources.

A

Project members, equipment, materials, time, money

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16
Q

What is a resource management plan?

A

The resources needed for each activity is specified and compiled into a resource management plan. Basis for budgeting and resource provision.

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17
Q

What is the critical path?

A

The critical path is the sequence of activities that determines the earliest possible finishing time for a project, and the total duration.

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18
Q

What is total float/slack?

A

Activities that are not on the critical path have float or slack - if they get delayed it doesn’t delay the entire project. Activities on the cp don’t have float. Float changes as the project moves along.

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19
Q

How do you identify the critical path?

A

The path that takes the longest is the critical path. In large projects, start with stating the earliest possible start and endpoints for each activity.

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20
Q

What is LS, LF, ES, EF?

A

LS - late start
LF - late finish
How long you can wait to start an activity without affecting the total duration of the project.

ES - early start
EF - early finish
When the earliest possible starting time is for an activity

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21
Q

What is PERT?

A

Program Evaluation and Review Technique

An analysis method to calculate the uncertainty for each time and cost estimate. (oklart, s. 174-175)

22
Q

What is an activity list?

A

It contains information on resources, time estimates, and dependencies on other activities and milestones. Used to de-clutter the activity plan?

23
Q

What is a Gantt chart?

A

A schedule is an activity plan with a timeline, usually a gantt chart is used. In a Gantt chart the activities are illustrated as bars, milestones as dots and dependencies as arrows. (Hur man skapar ett s.180)

24
Q

PMBOK

A

The Project Management Body of Knowledge is a set of standard terminology and guidelines (a body of knowledge) for project management.

25
Q

What are the four different dependencies between activities?

A
  1. Finish-to-start
  2. Finish-to-finish
  3. Start-to-start
  4. start-to-finish
26
Q

Explain Finish-to-start

A

The previous activity must be finished before the following activity starts. (Most common)

27
Q

Explain Finish-to-Finish

A

The previous activity must be finished before the following activity is finished.

28
Q

Explain start-to-start

A

The previous activity must start before the following activity may start.

29
Q

Explain start-to-Finish

A

The previous activity must start before the following activity may finish. (more a theoretical possibility)

30
Q

What is a resource histogram?

A
  • Visualizes the number of resources needed
  • it shows the resource usage over time.
  • It presents the capacity of individual resources and the project as a whole.
  • Shows if there’s too many resources needed during some time periods
31
Q

How can you solve a resource conflict?

A
  • Delaying the start of an activity
  • divide it into multiple starts
  • appoint more resource
32
Q

What does it mean that a project is front-loaded?

A

A project is front-loaded if the major time and resource-consuming activities are at the start of the project

+ :

  • Gives solid control over progress
  • get early indication of problems that might delay or increase cost.
  • :
  • get costs at an early stage, bad from a liquidity perspective
33
Q

What does it mean that a project is back-loaded?

A

A project is back-loaded if the major time and resource-consuming activities are at the endof the project

+ :

  • in a quickly developing industry it can be good to wait with crucial parts until very end, to avoid them becoming unusable due to external factors.
  • costs comes at a later stage
  • less possibilities for flexibility and re-planning

Not recommended.

34
Q

What is free float?

A

The time by which an activity can be delayed without delaying the start of the next activity.

35
Q

What is lag?

A

Some activities have a delay determined by factors outside the project manager’s control. E.g. delivery times for orders, reset times for processes, curing or drying times

36
Q

What is lead?

A

When two activities, which according to the activity plan should be performed consecutively, can overlap by a certain amount of time, this time is called lead.

37
Q

What does crashing mean?

A

Shortening the project time by identifying the activities on the critical line which will be the cheapest to shorten is called crashing.

38
Q

Explain sequential development

A

This is called the waterfall method: no activities needs to be performed at the same time. Takes longer but gives more control over the performance

39
Q

Explain concurrent development

A

Shorten the project by scheduling so that as much as possible is done at once. Can increase risks.

40
Q

Explain rolling wave planning

A

Focus on the closes time period of the project. Things done at an early stage are planned in detail, later things are planned at a general level. Plan as you go. This avoids creating a plan that will become outdated, since things change.

41
Q

When should you use an agile approach?

A
  • A result that can be used quickly is desired
  • It is hard to tell what the final product will look like
  • the requirements are unclear
  • the situation is dynamic
  • most people work full-time on the project
  • the project is performed in a single geographical location
42
Q

Explain planning poker

A

Used in agile projects for time estimates in groups. on the playing cards, different amounts of time are written in hours. each person selects the amount of time they think the activity will take. everyone reveals their cards at the same time, to avoid anyone being influenced by someone else’s pick. If there is a wide spread, the task should be broken down into smaller parts

43
Q

What is the points game?

A

A method for estimating the complexity of tasks, used in agile projects. also called “count the bananas”. Activities are given points (bananas) depending on how complex they’re estimated to be in execution. As a comparison, you also estimate ho many points you can handle during a sprint

44
Q

How is a sprint planned?

A

The product owner should prioritize what in the product backlog should be done during the sprint, which is then entered into the sprint backlog. The number of tasks in the sprint backlog depends on:

  • how large the tasks are (points)
  • the delivery capacity of the team
  • how long the sprint is
45
Q

What are story points?

A

The team and the product owner evaluates the difficulty of each task, by defining story points. Can use planning poker to do this.

46
Q

What is the teams velocity?

A

The capacity of the team for a sprint, measured in the amount of story points the team estimates they will take during a sprint. This is updated continuously, used to simplify forecasting for future sprints

47
Q

What is MVP?

A

Minimum viable product, the lowest level of functionality a product can have in order to satisfy the needs of those who will start using it.

48
Q

Describe an incremental agile approach

A

It’s usually possible to plan several sprints at once, when the requirements are known. Need to define MVP for each partial result.

49
Q

Describe an iterative agile approach

A

Cannot be planned ahead, the method is based on trying to achieve a goal that gradually becomes clear in a cyclic process: Plan -> develop -> test -> feedback -> adapt -> plan

Learn on the way about what is needed and what works.

50
Q

Describe a typical sprint

A

The first half day is spent on sprint planning, the last day is spent on showing the results.

  1. Prioritize what’s included in the sprint
  2. transform the product backlog into tasks
  3. plan an decide who should do what
  4. follow up on work every day
  5. test before delivery
  6. show results and deliver
  7. evaluate (retrospective) what can be done better
  8. prioritize and plan the next sprint
51
Q

Explain Big Room planning

A

If the project involves several team, they need to coordinate, methods for this includes Large Scaled Scrum and Scrums of Scrum.

SAFe lifts this to another level with PI Planning (Program Increment Planning), which is a so-called Big Room planning meeting. Here several teams get together to create a joint overall plan for what is to be developed. (s. 197)

Project Management (7 decks)

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