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The Management of Projects involves 3 phases

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1. Planning: This phase includes goal setting, defining the project, and team organization 2. Scheduling: this phase relates people, money, and supplies to specific activities and relates activities to each other 3. Controlling: Here the firm monitors resources, costs, quality, and budgets. It also revises or changes plans and shifts resources to met time and cost demands.

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The Management of Projects involves 3 phases

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Planning, Scheduling, Controlling

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Planning

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This phase includes goal setting, defining the project, and team organization

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Scheduling

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this phase relates people, money, and supplies to specific activities and relates activities to each other

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Controlling

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Here the firm monitors resources, costs, quality, and budgets. It also revises or changes plans and shifts resources to met time and cost demands.

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Project Organization

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An organization formed to ensure that programs (projects) receive the proper management and attention

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Projects can be defined as

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a series of related tasks directed toward a major output

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The Project organization may be most helpful when:

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1. Work tasks can be defined with a specific goal and deadline 2. The job is unique or somewhat unfamiliar to the existing organization 3. The work contains complex interrelated tasks requiring specialized skills 4. The project is temporarily but critical to the organization 5. The project cuts across organizational lines.

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Planning the project (before project)

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Set the goals (time, cost, performance), define the project, develop work breakdown structure, identify team resources

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Scheduling the Project

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sequence activities, assign people, schedule deliverables, schedule resources

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Controlling the Project (during project)

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monitor resources, costs, quality; revise and change plans; shift resources

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Project managers are responsible for

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1) making sure all necessary activities are finished in proper sequence and on time 2)making sure the project comes in within budget 3)making sure the project meets its quality goals 4)making sure the people assigned to the project receive the motivation, direction, and information needed to do their jobs Project managers should be good coaches and communicators, and be able to organize activities from a variety of disciplines

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Ethical issues Project Managers deal with

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1) offers of gifts from contractors 2) pressure to alter status reports to mask the reality of delays 3) false reports for charges of time and expenses 4) pressures to compromise quality to meet bonuses or avoid penalties related to schedules

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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

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a hierarchal description of a project into more and more detailed components

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Work breakdown levels

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1) project 2) Major tasks in the project 3) Subtasks in major tasks 4) Activities (or "work packages") to be completed

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Gantt Charts

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one popular project scheduling approach is this. they are planning charts used to schedule resources and allocate time. they help managers make sure that (1) activities are planned, (2) order of performance is documented, (3) activity time estimates are recorded, and (4) overall project time is developed

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Gantt charts do not adequately illustrate the interrelationships between the activities and the resources

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yeah

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PERT and CPM, the two widely used network techniques, do have the ability to consider precedence relationships and interdependency of activities

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yeah

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PERT and CPM have and edge over the simpler Gantt charts

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yep

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Project scheduling serves several purposes

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1) it shows the relationship of each activity to others and to the whole project 2) it identifies the precedence relationships among activities 3) it encourages the setting of realistic time and cost estimates for each activity 4) it helps make better use of people, money, and material resources by identifying critical bottlenecks in the project

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PERT/CPM programs like HP Project, Microsoft Project, etc produce a broad variety of reports including

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1 detailed cost breakdowns 2 total program labor curves 3 cost distribution tables 4 functional cost and hour summaries 5 raw material and expenditure forecasts 6 variance reports 7 time analysis reports 8 work status reports

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PERT stands for

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Program evaluation and review technique

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Program evaluation and technique (PERT)

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a project management technique that employs three time estimates for each activity

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CPM stands for

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Critical Path Method

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Critical Path Method (CPM)

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A project management technique that uses only one time factor per activity

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both PERT and CPM were developed in 1950's. CPM arrived first, and PERT developed in 1958 for US Navy

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yeah

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PERT AND CPM both follow 6 BASIC STEPS

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1 - define the project and prepare the work breakdown structure 2 - develop the relationships among the activities. decide which activities must precede and which must follow others 3 - draw the network connecting all the activities 4 - assign time and/or cost estimates to each activity 5 - compute the LONGEST time path through the network. this is called the CRITICAL PATH 6 - use the network to help plan, schedule, monitor, and control the project

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Critical Path

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the computed LONGEST time path(s) through a network. tasks on this path must be completed on time. no slack allowed.

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The major difference between PERT and CPM is that PERT employes 3 time estimates for each activity

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yeah

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PERT AND CPM differ in terminology and in the construction of the network, but their objectives are the SAME

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yea pretty much

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PERT AND CPM can help answer these questions

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1 - when will the entire project be completed? 2 - what are the critical activities or tasks in the project-that is, which activities will delay the entire project if they are late? 3 - Which are the noncritical activities - the ones that can run late without delaying the whole project's completion 4 - what is the probability that the project will be completed by a specific date? 5 - at any particular date, is the project on schedule, behind schedule, or ahead of schedule? 6 - on any given date, is the money spent equal to, less than, or greater than the budgeted amount? 7 - are there enough resources available to finish the project on time? 8 - if the project is to be finished in a shorter amount of time, what is the best way to accomplish this goal at the least cost?

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Activity-on-node (AON)

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A network diagram in which nodes designate activities

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Activity-on-arrow (AOA)

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A network diagram in which arrows designate activities

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The basic difference between AON and AOA is that the nodes in an AON diagram represent activities. In an AOA network, the nodes represent the starting and finishing times of an activity and are also called EVENTS. So nodes in AOA consume neither time nor resources.

answer

yea

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Critical Path Analysis

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a process that helps determine a project schedule

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Earliest Start (ES)

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earliest time at chichi an activity can start, assuming all predecessor have been completed

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Earliest Finish (EF)

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earliest time at which any activity can be finished

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Latest Start (LS)

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latest time at which an activity can start so as to not delay the completion time of the entire project

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Latest Finish (LF)

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latest time by which an activity has to finish so as to not delay the completion time of the entire project

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ES and EF are determined during the forward pass and the LS and LF are determined during the backward pass

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yeah

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Forward Pass

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a process that identifies all the early times

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Before any activity can start, ALL its immediate processors must be finished

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duh

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If an activity has only a single immediate predecessor, its ES equals the EF of the predecessor

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yeah

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If an activity has multiple immediate predecessors, its ES is the maximum of all EF values of its predecessors. That is: ES = Max (EF of all immediate predecessors)

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yeah

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Earliest Finish Time Rule: the earliest finish time EF of an activity is the sum of its earliest start time (ES) and its activity time. That is: EF = ES + Activity time

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Yep

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Backward Pass

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An activity that finds all the late start and late finish times

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Latest Finish Time Rule

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- If an activity is an immediate predecessor for just a single activity, its LF equals the LS of the activity that immediately follow it - If an activity is an immediate predecessor to more than one activity, its LF is the minimum of all LS values of all activities that immediately follow it. That is: LF = Min(LS of all immediate following activities)

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Latest Start Time Rule

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The latest start time (LS) of an activity is the difference of its latest finish time (LF) and its activity time. That is: LS = LF - Activity time

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Slack Time

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Free time for an activity. Also referred to as free float or free slack

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Slack Equation

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LS - ES or LF - EF

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The activities with zero slack are called

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CRITICAL ACTIVITIES

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The critical path is a continuous path through the project network that:

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starts at the first activity in the project terminates at the last activity in the project includes only critical activities (with no slack time)

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When two or more noncritical activities appear successively in a path, they share total slack

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yea, true

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The 3 time estimates in PERT

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Optimistic Time (a) Pessimistic Time (b) Most Likely Time (m)

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Optimistic Time (a)

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time an activity will take if everything goes as planned. In estimating this value, there should be only a small probability (say, 1/100) that the activity will be < a

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Pessimistic Time (b)

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time an activity will take assuming very unfavorable conditions. In estimating this value, there should also be only a small probability (also 1/100) that the activity time will be > b

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Most Likely Time (m)

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most realistic estimate of the time required to complete an activity

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To find the expected activity time, t, the beta distribution weights the three time estimates as follows:

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t = (a + 4m + b)/6

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To compute the dispersion or variance of activity completion time, we use the formula

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Variance = [ (b - a) / 6 ] squared

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PERT makes two assumptions

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1) total project completion times follow a normal probability distribution and 2) activity times are strategically independent

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Crashing

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Shortening activity time in a network to reduce time on the critical path so total completion time is reduced.

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We can shorten an activity by adding extra resources (equipment, people) to it. Hence, it is logical for the crash cost of an activity to be higher than its normal cost.

answer

yea, true

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When choosing which activities to crash, and by how much, we need to ensure the following:

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- The amount by which an activity is crashed is, in fact, permissible - taken together, the shortened activity durations will enable us to finish the project by the due date - the total cost of crashing is as small as possible

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Crashing a project involves 4 steps

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Step 1: compute the crash cost per week (or other time period) for each activity in the network. If crash costs are linear over time, the following formula can be used crash cost per period = (crash cost - normal cost / normal time - crash time) Step 2: using the current activity times, find the critical paths in the project network. Identify the critical activities Step 3: If there is only one critical path, then select the activity on this critical path that (a) can still be crashed and (b) has the smallest crash cost per period. Crash this activity by one period. If there is one critical path, then select one activity from each critical path such that (a) each selected activity can still be crashed and (b) the total crash cost per period of all selected activities is the smallest. Crash each activity by one period. Note that the same activity may be common to more than one critical path. Step 4: Update all activities. If the desired due date has been reached, stop. If not, return to step 2.

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Advantages of PERT

answer

1. especially useful when scheduling and controlling large projects. 2. straightforward concept and not mathematically complex 3. graphical networks help highlight relationships among project activities 4. critical path and slack time analyses help pinpoint activities that need to be closely watched. 5. project documentation and graphs point out who is responsible for various activities. 6. applicable to a wide variety of projects 7. useful in monitoring not only schedules but costs as well.

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Limitations of PERT

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1. project activities have to be clearly defined, independent, and stable in their relationships. 2. Precedence relationships must be specified and networked together 3. time estimates tend to be subjective and are subject to fudging by managers who fear the dangers of being overly optimistic or not pessimistic enough 4. there is the inherent danger of placing too much emphasis on the longest, or critical, path. Near-critical paths need to be monitored closely as well.

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Perhaps the biggest advantage of using software to manage projects is that it can track the profess of the project.

answer

yep

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Project organization

answer

an organization formed to ensure that programs (projects) receive the proper management and attention

question

(WBS) Work breakdown structure

answer

Defines a project by dividing it into more and more detailed components

question

Project scheduling serves several purposes:

answer

1) is shows the relationship of each activity to others and to the whole project 2) it identifies the precedence relationships among activities 3) It encourages the setting of realistic time and cost estimates for each activity 4) it helps make better use of people, money, and material resources by identifying critical bottlenecks in the project

question

Computerized programs produce a broad variety of PERT/CPM reports, including:

answer

1) detailed cost breakdowns for each task, 2) total program labor curves, 3) cost distribution tables, 4) functional cost and hour summaries, 5) raw material and expenditure forecasts, 6) variance reports, 7) time analysis reports, and 8) work status reports

question

PERT and CPM both follow 6 basic steps

answer

yea, true

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The activities on the critical path will delay the entire project if they are not completed on time

answer

yea, true

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Activity on node AON

answer

network diagram - nodes designate activities

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Activity on arrow AOA

answer

network diagram - arrows designate activities

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In an AOA network, the nodes represent the starting and finishing times of an activity and are also called EVENTS

answer

yep

question

Dummy Activity

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an activity having no time that is inserted into a network to maintain the logic of the network

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A Dummy ending activity can be added to the end of an AON diagram for a project that has multiple ending activities

answer

yep

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Critical Path Analysis

answer

a process that helps determine a project schedule.

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To calculate the critical path, we calculate two district starting and ending times for each activity:

answer

Earliest Start (ES) - earliest time at which an activity can start, assuming all predecessors have been completed Earliest finish (EF) - earliest time at which an activity can be finished Latest start (LS) - latest time at which an activity can start, without delaying the completion time of the entire project Latest finish (LF) - latest time by which an activity has to finish so as to not delay the completion time of the entire project

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Forward Pass

answer

a process that identifies all the early start and early finish times ES = Max {EF of all immediate predecessors} EF = ES + Activity Time

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backward pass

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a process that identifies all the late start and late finish times LF = Min {LS of all immediate following activities} LS = LF - Activity Time

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Free time for an activity

answer

Slack Time

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LS - ES or LF - EF

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Slack Time equation

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the activities with zero slack time are called _______ ______ and are said to be on the critical path

answer

critical activities

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a continuous path through the project network that starts at the first activity in the project, terminates at the last activity in the project, and includes only critical activities

answer

critical path

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(a)

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Optimistic Time

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Optimistic Time (a)

answer

the "best" activity completion time that could be obtained in a PERT network

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Pessimistic time (b)

answer

the "worst" activity time that could be expected in a PERT network

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Most likely time (m)

answer

the most probable time to complete an activity in a PERT network

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Expected activity time (t)

answer

t = (a +4m +b)/6

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Shortening activity time in a network to reduce time on the critical path so total completion time is reduced

answer

crash cost per period = Crash cost - normal cost ------------------------------- Normal time - crash time

SDSU MIS 302 CH. 3 Project Management – Flashcards

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