Lecture 6 - Planning and Scheduling Flashcards
What is planning/scheduling?
Refining project goals & documenting the best way to achieve them
A variety of project plans are produced. The most common include:
- Project timeline, cost & budget plan, risk plan (identification, assessment, analysis, management /response, monitoring), quality plan
What answer do we need to know?
- What work must be performed?
(Identifies all required tasks) - How long will each task take?
(Determines the task duration & effort) - What resources can perform the work?
(Determines what resources – human & physical – should be assigned) - How much investment is required?
(Determines what budget is needed)
What are the steps of project planning from the scope?
As highlighted, the scope should provide welldefined, achievable project goals & a road map for achieving them
Completion of project scope statement ( i.e. Project description & justification; goals & objectives; deliverables (output); milestones; assumptions; project success criteria; TBL, …)
Project manager to secure formal scope approval by key stakeholders
Next step, is to divide the scope into activities - i.e. Work components that can be planned, estimated, scheduled & assigned to project team members
These activities should be grouped into a hierarchical, deliverable oriented decomposition: The work break down structure (WBS)
The WBS should be formally approved for the project manager to proceed to the next phase
What factors influence the WBS?
▪The information captured by the charter & scope(inclusions & exclusions)
▪The complexity of the project
▪The extent of quality definitions, standards & requirements
▪The degree of risk involved & the risk profile of the stakeholders
▪TBL and life cycle requirements
What are the Adv and DisAdv of the WBS
Advantages
➢Captures tasks to complete the project
➢Identifies tasks relationships
➢Easy to read in the table format
➢Makes possible to visualize a complex project
➢Ties the project together
Disadvantages
➢Time consuming
➢No timeline
➢Potential inconsistency between table & effective schedule
➢Potential discrepancy between projected & effective resources;
What are the 7 common estimating techniques
Analogous estimating (history) (strong similarity with
previous projects in the database) – easy to use but
appropriate assumptions needed
Using resource unit rates ( the lower the unit rates the more resources you get with your money)
Bottom-Up estimating - each task is broken down into smaller components. The estimates for the smaller individual components are then aggregated to develop a larger estimate for the entire task as a whole
Expert judgment/Educated guess = Opinion or a judgment based on expertise/specialized knowledge
Vendor bid analysis – obtaining written bids from vendors (eg. Expression of Interest (EOI) minimum 3 vendors)
Three point estimate/Wide band Delphi (weighted average): Involves team discussions – team members correct one another way that
helps avoid errors & poor estimation. Very common for software projects
Parametric estimating (metric), statistical/mathematical modeling
How do you calculate the 3 point estimate?
Te = (To + 4Tm + Tp) /6
To - optimistic time
Tm - probable time
Tp - pessimistic time
As estimates are not accurate, what should be recorded?
So, given that no estimates will ever be entirely accurate, we should record:
-How the calculation was determined
-All underlying assumptions and impacting constraints
-The confidence level (+/-) ………(we should already know the acceptable tolerance level
-The optimistic, pessimistic & most likely range
-All source data
-Details of all stakeholders involved
Identify the resource capabilties
The following information about the resources should be identified in detail:
➢Resource name—individual name or generic label (e.g. plumbers)
➢Resource type—labour, material,…
➢Resource group—the group to whom the resource belongs
➢Resource capability—skills, expertise, prior experience, …
➢Resource rate—what is their normal rate, or other fixed/variable costs
➢Resource location—the physical (geographical) location
➢Resource quantity—how many will be required
➢Resource availability—the actual ‘free’ time they have to allocate
➢Resource calendar—what dates are excluded throughout the project
➢Resource report—who does the resource currently report to
➢Resource development—will any additional training be required
➢Resource evaluation—performance evaluations from past projects
What are the 4 experimental sequences?
The development of the project schedule is driven by these activity-toactivity relationships in determining when activities start and finish.
1.Finish – Start: one activity finishes to start the other activity;
2.Start – Start: one activity starts to start the other activity;
3.Finish – Finish: one activity finishes to finish the other activity;
4.Start – Finish: one activity starts to finish the other activity.
Scheduling lag time (delay)
What is some of the understanding of developing a schedule?
From WBS to PERT = the need for building a project picture
A work breakdown structure is not a schedule
Network diagrams and/or Gantt charts create schedules
Schedules often represent intent, not necessarily reality unless they are updated regularly
What is PERT?
Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) network diagram
The PERT illustrates:
➢The project’s logic and how it is tied together
➢The relationships between required tasks
➢The flow of work throughout the project
➢Where the critical path lies throughout the project
➢The potential bottlenecks
What are some Adv and DisAdv of PERT?
Advantages
Excellent visual & interactive graphic to demonstrate the schedule
Participative decision making
Joint risk identification & response strategy
Shows Critical Path
Disadvantages
Difficult to read if the project is large
No timeline
Difficult to monitor & report performance
Not always easy to understand
What is Critical Path Analysis (CPA)?
The longest path (task) through the network, critical to be completed on time to prevent project delays – a delay in critical tasks means project delay
➢The shortest project completion time
➢The path with no ‘float’ (no delay)
➢The tasks that must start & finish as scheduled for the project to finish as scheduled
Critically important for good reason
➢Tasks that must be closely managed
➢No delays possible
➢Accurate estimates
➢Regular performance reporting
➢Timely corrective action
➢Contingency actions required
What is a Gannt Chart?
A valuable scheduling tool
➢Details activities, order of completion & establishes completion times
➢Visualizing actual & planned output over time
➢Control tool to identify deviations
➢Different task relationships are possible (i.e. finish-start; start-start; finishfinish; start-finish) which offer varying degrees of flexibility & complexity in relation to time, resources & costing
