Project Management

Ross L. Fink

Definition of Project

A project is a specific, finite task to be accomplished.

Brief History

Modern Project Management can be traced to the “Manhattan” project.

Early project management dealt with large complex projects or R&D (weapons systems)

Today -- Project management is more important than ever.

Importance of Project Management Today

More customization in manufacturing Shorter product life cycles Use in service organizations Nonprofit sector

Why Project Management? Better control Better customer relations Shorter development time Lower costs Higher quality and reliability Higher profits Better interdepartmental

coordination Better worker morale

Characteristics of a Project

One-time focus Specific purpose and desired results Identifiable start and finish Time fence (or due-date) for completion Involvement of cross-functional work team Limited set of resources Logical sequence of events A clear client (user, customer) of results

Project Management Tools

Major tools developed in the 1950s PERT - Program Evaluation and Review

Technique - Polaris Missile (NAVY) CPM - Critical Path Method (CPM) -

DuPont and Remington Rand - Maintenance of Chemical Plant

Project Performance Objectives

PCT Objectives “Good, Fast, Cheap”

Performance

Cost Time

Reason for Project Failures

Unrealistic expectations Poor project leadership Poor project planning

The Project Manager is Responsible to

Superiors Team Customer or Sponsor of project

A Project Manager Needs to: Communicate -

Importance of projectRole others play in project Importance of their contributionWith customers

Understand project dimensions -TechnicalCulturalPolitical

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Breaks the Program (or Project) into smaller

and smaller units of work. The following are common levels of work:ProgramProjectTaskSubtaskWork Package

Why Use WBS

Provides a logical means of identifying the activities of a project

Provides structure to the project plan Different levels of WBS can be used for

control by different individuals

Types of WBS

Outcome (things) Task Task-outcome

WBS Procedure

Simply ask “What will have to be done in order to _________ “

Don’t worry about sequencing at this point

Stopping Rules For WBS

Level of detail is too great to be useful Control to smallest time unit used for

control Typically, no more than 5 to 6 levels is

appropriate For large project, no more than 20

PERT Diagrams

PERT (or Network) diagrams showing the relationship between activities

There are more than one way of constructing these networks, we will use what is called activities-on-the-node (AON) or activities-in-the-box. This is the same as MS Project

PERT Diagram Notation

Box or circle (node) represents the activity Arrow (arc) represents the relationship

between activities

ExampleActivity Immediate

Predecessor

A --

B A

C A

D B,C

E C

PERT Diagram

A

B

C

D

E

Modeling Time

Simple model assumes times are deterministic (constant)

More elaborate models allow stochastic representation (most common being one that uses 3 time estimates)

ExampleActivity Immediate

PredecessorTime

A -- 4

B A 3

C A 5

D B,C 4

E C 5

Total 21

Example - Maximum Time

Sequential Sum of all task times In our example: 21 periods

Finding time

ES and EF go forward through PERT diagram (ES + Time= EF)

LS and LF go backwards through PERT diagram (LF - Time = LS)

Slack is LS - ES or LF - EF

PERT Diagram

A

B

C

D

E

PERT Diagram with Times

4

3

5

4

5

4 9

4 9

C

0 4

0 4

A

9 13

10 14

D

9 14

9 14

E

4 7

7 10

B

A

B

C E

D

EndProject completion

time = 14

Critical Path

A-C-E Significance--critical path determines

project completion time

Example in MS Project