Sem 1 Week 8 part 2 Flashcards
Project management
What is a project?
a planned set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period, with a specific due date, and within certain cost and other resource limitations.
What are the features of a project?
-Temporary
-Unique
-Sponsored
What is project management?
The science of preparing for, delivering and controlling a bounded piece of work
What does project management involve?
Assessing / controlling the scope, time and resource demands of implementation
Where can project management techniques be applied to?
-University Work
-Placements
-Applied innovation
-Discontinuous company improvement work
What is project planning and Management typically used for?
Tactical resource planning of one-off production, installation, construction and creation projects.
What are key issues in project Planning and management?
-Work breakdown
-Determining the duration of the project
-Delays
-Effect of limited resources
-Uncertainty
What is identified to create a project plan
-Scope of project
-Timescales available
-Resources available
What is a work breakdown structure?
A deliverable-oriented breakdown of a project into smaller components
What structure is used for a WBS?
A hierarchical structure
What is included in the Work Breakdown Structure?
- Create a tasks and Assemblies List
- Create a list stemming from the Tasks and Assemblies called the Sub-Assemblies and Sub-Tasks
3.Continue until the lowest level of detail needed to plan and implement the concept is reached
What does the level of detail depend on in the Work Breakdown Structure?
-Complexity of the project
-Available resources for the project planning and management
-Type of project
What are the guidelines for the Work Breakdown Structure?
-Too much detail may cause problems
-Tasks should not overlap
-Subtasks should not extend in more than one task
What is the Theory of Constraints?
-You are only as fast as your slowest element
-You should pay attention to managing the critical path if you have to choose resources
-You should revise and update the critical path as more information becomes available to you
What process does the theory of constraints use?
Five focusing steps to identify and eliminate constraints
What are the five focusing steps?
-Identify the constraint
-Exploit the constraint
-Subordinate and synchronize to the constraint
-Elevate the performance of the constraint
-Repeat the process
What are milestones?
Key events that are occurring and are useful reminders to include on plans.
What are deliverables?
Describes the quantifiable goods or services that must be provided upon the completion of a project. They can be tangible in nature
What is the Critical Path Method?
A technique for planning complex projects to allow them being completed in the shortest time possible by identifying tasks that can be carried out simultaneously
What are the advantages of the critical path method?
-Reduces risks and costs of complex tasks
-Improves efficiency
-Encourages careful assessment of the requirements of each task in a project
-Helps to identify tasks with some time flexibility
What are the Disadvantages of Critical Path Method?
-Reliability depending on the accuracy of estimations made
-Limited usefulness on large, complex and highly innovative projects
-Does not guarantee the success of a project
-Too many activities may require to break the project into sub-projects
What are the sequence of steps for the Critical Path Method?
- Break down the Project
- Estimate Task Duration
- Establish Dependencies between tasks
- Add End Points
- Draw the Network Diagram
- Identify the critical Path
- Update the critical Path to show progress
What is float?
the amount of time that a task in a project can be delayed without causing a delay to subsequent tasks( free float) and the planned project completion date (Total float)
What is the equation to find the total float?
Latest Start Date - Earliest Start Date
What are the two equations for calculating free float?
(Earliest start Date - Earliest Finish Date) - 1
Earliest Start Date - ( Earliest start date ( current task) + Duration of current task)
How can you tell if you are on the critical path?
The total float will be 0
What is a Gnatt Chart?
a graphical representation of the duration of tasks with progression as time goes by.
What are advantages of Gnatt Charts?
-helps coordinate activities for multiple parties
-Gives investors/managers confidence in the ability to coordinate the delivery of a product or project
-Helps to state with confidence when a product/ project will be delivered
