Project Plans Flashcards
What is a work breakdown structure?
Groups project elements that organize and define total scope of the project
Levels - each lower level is more detailed by breaking down into more tasks
What is the basis for development of the WBS for a project?
The scope of the project
What happens to the WBS if the scope of the project changes?
The wbs has to change to fit the new scope
What is “scope change control” or “configuration management”?
Procedures by which the project scope may be changed
When can scope creep occur?
No clearly defined requirements
No defined scope change control
Constituent elements of a WBS should be described in terms of ___________
Why?
Tangible, verifiable results
To define when a task is complete
To introduce measures and performance analysis
The lower level elements of a WBS should be both necessary and sufficient for __________
completion of the decomposed upper level item
Why can future elements often not be decomposed in WBS?
Impossible to estimate things about the future accurately
Is it better to have lots of small milestones or few large milestones?
Lots of small
What is the optimum number of people to assign to each small task?
Why?
1
More likely to get done
What is the ETDVX model?
A generic compliance model
What does ETDVX stand for?
Entry - pre conditions to be met before the task
Task - what is to be done, by who, where etc.
Deliverable
Validation - assurance of the quality of the task
Exit - post conditions
What is a dependency/precedence table?
Table that shows tasks, durations and predecessors of tasks
What is an activity network?
A visual diagram of the precedence table
Nodes represent activities
Connections show dependencies
What does a node in an activity network look like?
A = task
5 = duration
A : 5 |
What is the end prodct of the task decomposition process?
Activity network diagram
What should the activity network diagram be accompanied by?
Narrative to explain dependencies
What is effort?
The total time spent by all resources on a specific task
What is activity duration?
How long it will take to complete the activity (elapsed time)
What is a path in CPA?
Sequence of activites that starts with a beginning activity, travels through series of intermediate successors, and ends with an ending activity
What is a critical path?
Any path whose length is equal to the maximum possible length in a network
How is the length of a path defined?
The total time it takes to go through the complete path
How do you calculate the forward path in CPA?
Calculate the earliest start time and earliest finish time for each task
What is the EST for the beginning activity?
0
How do you calculate the EFT for an activity?
The maximum EFT of its predecessors plus its duration
What do you calculate in the backward path in CPA?
Latest start and finish times
How do you calculate the LST for an activity?
The LFT minus the duration
How do you calculate the LFT for an activity?
The minimum LST for all of its successors
What is Slack in CPA?
The amount of time that an activity can be delayed beyond its EST or EFT without delaying the project
How do you determine which activities are on the critical path?
The activities with the minimum slack
How do you calculate slack?
LFT - EFT
or
LST - EST
Why is critical path important?
Delay on critical path means delay on project completion
Improvement of total project duration is usually due to improvement on critical path
What is fast tracking?
Performing activities in parallel instead of sequentially
More incremental development
Increased rework
What is crashing? (compression method)
Adding more/reassigning resources
Not always realistic
Increased costs
What are the 5 key stakeholders in a project?
Organisation - employs the programmers
Project Manager - manages the project
Customer - will use the product
Team members - Do the work on the project
Sponsor - funds the project
What is the effort of a task?
The total time spent by all resources on a task
e.g. how many programmer days
Duration does not include _______ days
non-working
What is resource?
The amount of work that can be done per day from all of the resources assigned to the task
What is the “formula” for duration?
Duration = Total effort/Resource
What impact can dependencies have on duration?
Can increase it - not all resources may be able to work on the same task at the same time because some might have another task to do first
What is effort measured in?
person weeks, person months, person days, person hours etc.
What are the 6 steps of the estimation process?
Establish scope - error margin, time it is required
Allocate resources to do the estimation
Pin down requirements
Obtain key indicators - facts and measures
Use independent techniques - different tools, methods
Consolidate differences between results
What are some useful indicators?
System size - e.g. lines of code
Quality attributes - reliability, maintainability
Productivity factors
Costs
How can staff affect productivity?
Motivation, capability, experience, teamwork
How can organisation affect productivity?
Methodology, decision mechanism, stability, communications, process model, location
What are the 3 rules for time recording?
Completeness: all project time even unpaid
Honesty: not influenced by anything
Compatibility: agreed units
What are 4 approaches to effort estimation?
Estimating by analogy
Algorithmic model
Expert Judgment/Guesses
Price to Win
What is estimation by analogy?
What is the danger of it?
Using results of similar projects from the past as the basis of the estimate
possibility of false analogy due to projects not quite matching up, lack of formal method
What is the algorithmic model of effort estimation?
Effort expressed as function or logarithm of one or more variables
What is the Delphi method of estimation?
Get wide number of experts with relevant experience to make initial estimate
Second round where each expert revises his decision based on other experts decisions and inputs
Take the median
What is price to win method of effort estimation?
Taking the cost and time expectation of the sponsor without actually validating it; i.e. winning the contract at whatever cost
What is resource leveling?
Limiting the differences in the level of resources between time units by e.g. splitting activities, using alternative dependencies, extending the project..
What is Finish-to-Start task dependency?
B cannot start until A has finished
What is start-to-start task dependency?
B cannot start until A starts
What is finish-to-finish task dependency?
B cannot finish until A has finished
What is start-to-finish task dependency?
B cannot finish until A has started
