Final Study

schedule management plan

(like the scope management plan) can be informal and broad or formal and detailed. a schedule management plan includes the following information:

1. Importance of Project cost management Pg. 286

- IT projects have a poor track record in meeting budget goals - 1/6 projects contained a "black swan" - unusually large proportion incur massive overages - most managers have been focusing on averages instead of damaging outliers

a few tools and techniques for schedule development include the following

- a gantt chart is a common tool for displaying project schedule information - critical path analysis is a very important tool for developing and controlling project schedules - critical chain scheduling is a technique that focuses on limited resources when creating a project schedule - PERT analysis is a means for considering schedule risk on projects

precedence diagramming method (PDM)

- a network diagramming technique in which boxes represent activities - useful for visualizing certain types of time relationships

critical path method (CPM) OR critical path analysis

- a network diagramming technique used to predict total project duration - helps you combat project schedule overruns

activity list

- a tabulation of activities to be included on a project schedule - should include activity name, an activity identifier or number and a brief description of the activity

different symbols on the gantt chart

- black diamond represents a milestone - thick black bars with rectangles at the beginning and end represent summary tasks - light blue horizontal bars represent the duration of each individual task - arrow connecting the symbols show relationships or dependencies between tasks

discretionary dependencies

- defined by the project team. - ex) a project team might follow good practice and not start the detailed design of a new information system until the users sign off on all of the analysis work. - discretionary dependencies are sometimes referred to as a soft logic and should be used with care because. they may limit later scheduling options

intangible costs or benefits

- difficult to quantify, they are often harder to justify - often include items like goodwill, prestige, and general statements of improved productivity that an organization cannot easily translate into dollar amounts

4. Controlling Costs Pg 306-311

- includes monitoring cost performance, ensuring that only appropriate project changes are included in a revised cost baseline, and informing project stakeholders of authorized changes to the project that will affect costs - project management plan, project documents, project funding requirements, work performance data, and organizational process assets are inputs for controlling costs - outputs of this process are work performance information, cost forecasts, change requests, project management plan updates, and project documents updates

mandatory dependencies

- inherent in the nature of the work being performed on a project. they are sometimes referred to as hard logic. - ex) you cannot test code until after the code is written

3. Sequencing activities Pg. 248 Dependencies Pg. 249, Fig 6-3 Pg 251

- inputs to the activity sequencing process include the project management plan, project documents (like activity attributes, activity list, assumption log, and milestone list), enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets - the sequencing process involves evaluating the reasons for dependencies and the different types of dependencies

internal dependencies

- involve relationships between project activities that are generally inside the project team's control. - ex) if software is developed by the team, they can create dependencies such as performing unit testing before system testing

external dependencies

- involve relationships between project and non-project activities - ex) the installation of a new operating system and other software may depend on delivery of new hardware form an external supplier - even though delivery of the hardware may not be included in the scope of the project, you should add an external dependency to it because late delivery will affect the project schedule

calulating critical path

- involves adding the durations for all activities on each path through the network diagram - longest path is the critical path

milestone

- is a significant event that normally has no duration on a project - takes several activities and a lot of work to complete a milestone, but the milestone itself is a market to help in identifying necessary activities - useful tools for setting schedule goals and monitoring progress -milestones are the most important and visible events

1. Importance of Project Scheduling Pg. 242

- managers need to deliver projects on time - time is the variable with least amount of flexibility - individual work styles and cultural differences may cause schedule conflicts - once a project schedule is set people remember the projected completion date, anyone could estimate schedule performance by subtracting the original time estimate from how long it really took to complete the project

3. Estimating Costs Pg 294-298

- managers prepare several types of cost estimates for most projects - rough order or magnitude, budgetary estimate, definitive estimate - tools and techniques available to assist in creating a good cost estimate are expert judgement, analogous cost estimating, bottom-up estimating, three-point estimate, parametric estimating, the cost of quality, project management estimating software, vendor bid analysis, and reserve analysis

2. Basic Principles of Cost Management Pg. 288

- many IT projects are never initiated because IT professionals do not know how to develop a financial justification for them - many projects that are started never finish because of cost management problems - project managers need to be able to present and discuss net present value. analysis, return on investment, and payback analysis

2. Defining activities Pg. 246

- often necessary to describe activities in more detail as part of schedule management - involves identifying the specific actions that will produce the project deliverables in enough detail to determine resource and schedule estimates -project team reviews the project management plan, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets to begin defining activities -outputs of this process include an activity list, activity attributes, a milestone list, change requests, and project management plan updates

4. Estimating activity duration Pg. 253

- project team members must also update the estimates and the project progresses - most important consideration in making activity duration estimates is the availability or resources, especially human resources - outputs of activity duration estimates include the estimates themselves, the basis of estimates, and project document updates - duration estimates are often provided as a discrete number, such as four weeks; as a range, such as three to five weeks; or as a three-point estimate

gantt charts

- provide a standard format for displaying project schedule information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in calendar form - sometime referred to as bar charts because the activities' start and end dates are shown as horizontal bars - the activities on the gantt chart are driven by the deliverables on the WBS, and should coincide in turn with the activity list and milestone list - MS Project allows you to filter information displayed to easily show specific tasks - often do not show dependencies

slack OR float

- the amount fo time an activity may be delayed without delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date

critical path

- the series of activities that determine the earliest time by which the project can be completed - it is the longest path through the network diagram and has the least amount of slack or float

5. Developing the schedule Pg. 255 Gantt Chart (MS Project) Critical Path Pg. 259

- uses the results of all the preceding project schedule management processes to determine the start and end dates of the project and its activities - ultimate goal of developing a realistic project schedule is to provide a basis for monitoring project progress for the time dimension of the project - main outputs of this process are a schedule baseline, project schedule, schedule data, project calendars, change requests, project management plan updates, and project documents updates

Four Processes for project cost management

1. planning cost management 2. estimating costs 3. determining the budget 4. controlling costs

SMART criteria

Specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, time-framed

finish-to-start

Task B cannot start until task A finishes

tracking gantt chart

a gantt chart that compares planned and actual project schedule information

"black swan"

a high-impact event that is rate and unpredictable, but not improbable in retrospect

to-complete performance index

a measure of the cost performance that must be achieved with the remaining resources to meet a specific goal, such as the BAC or EAC To meet the current EAC: TCPI=(BAC-EV)/(EAC_AC) To complete on plan or meet the BAC: TCPI=(BAC-EV)/(BAC-AC)

cash flow analysis

a method for determining the estimated annual costs and benefits for a project and the resulting annual cash flow

activity-on-arrow (AOA) OR arrow diagramming method (ADM)

a network diagramming technique in which activities are represented by arrows and connected at points called nodes to illustrate the sequence of activities

earned value management (EVM)

a project performance measurement technique that integrates scope, time and cost data

network diagrams

a schematic display of the logical relationships among project activities and their sequencing

mangagement reserves

allow for future situations that are unpredictable (sometimes called unknown unknowns)

contingency reserves

allow for future situations that many be partially planned (sometimes called known unknowns) and are included in the project cost baseline

activity / task

an element of work normally found on the work breakdown structure (WBS) that has expected duration, cost, and resource requirements

estimate at completion

an estimated cost of completing a project based on performance to date

tangible costs or benefits

are categories for determining how well an organization can define the estimated costs and benefits for a project

indirect costs

are not directly related to the products or services of the project, but are indirectly related to performing work on the project

profits

are revenues minus expenditures - to increase profits, a company can increase revenues, decrease expenses, or try to do both

triple constraint of project management

balancing scope, time, and cost goals

direct costs

can be directly related to creating the products and services of the projects

reserves

dollar amounts included in a cost estimate to mitigate cost risk by allowing for future situations that are difficult to predict

rules of performance measurement

for example, if team members are expected to track the percentage of work completed this section specifies how to determine the percentages

three-point estimate

includes an optimistic, a most likely, and a pessimistic estimate - 3 point estimate is required for performing PERT estimates and for performing Monte Carlo simulations

duration

includes the actual amount of time worked on an activity plus time elapsed

project cost management

includes the processes required to ensure that a project team completes a project within an approved budget

bottom-up estimates

involve estimating the costs of individual work items or activities and summing them to get a project total - the size of individual work items and the experience of the estimators drive the accuracy of the estimates - using smaller work items increases accuracy of the cost estimate because the people assigned to do the work develop the cost estimate instead of someone unfamiliar with the work - drawback, usually time-intensive and therefore expensive to develop

three-point estimates

involve estimating the most likely, optimistic, and pessimistic cost for items

determining the budget

involves allocating the overall cost estimate to individual work items to establish a baseline for measuring performance. the main outputs of the cost budgeting process are a cost baseline, project funding requirements, and project document updates

5. developing the schedule

involves analyzing activity sequences, resource requirements, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule

6. controlling the schedule

involves controlling and managing changes to the project schedule

controlling costs

involves controlling changes to the project budget. the main outputs of the cost control process are work performance information, cost forecasts, change requests, and project management plan updates, and project document updates.

Planning cost management

involves determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will be used for planning, executing and controlling project cost. the main output of this process is a cost management plan

1. planning schedule management

involves determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will be used for planning, executing and controlling the project schedule

estimating costs

involves developing an approximation or estimate of the cost estimating process are activity cost estimates, basis of estimates, and project document updates.

4. estimating activity durations

involves estimating the number of work periods that are needed to complete individual activities

3. sequencing activities

involves identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities. requirements, a resource breakdown structure, and project documents updates

2. defining activities

involves identifying the specific activities that the project team members and stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables

project schedule management

involves the processes required to ensure timely completion of a project. six processes are involved in project schedule management

cost overrun

is the additional percentage or dollar amount by which actual costs exceed estimates

planned value

is the authorized budget assigned to scheduled work

cost variance

is the earned value minus the actual cost, if its a negative number it means that performing the work cost more than planned

cost performance index

is the ratio of earned value to actual cost; it can be used to estimate the projected cost of completing the project, if CPI is equal to one, or 100%, then the planned and actual costs are equal

profit margin

is the ratio of profits to revenues - if revenues of $100 generate $2 in profits, there is a 2% profit margin

actual cost

is the realized cost incurred for the work performed on an activity during a specific time period

project schedule model development

many projects include a schedule model, which contains project activities with estimated durations, dependencies, and other planning information that can be used to produce a project schedule

sunk cost

money that has been spent in the past

bursts

occur when two or more activities follow a single node

merge

occurs when two or more nodes precede a single node

earned value management

one the the key tools and techniques for controlling project costs

dependency / relationship

pertains to the sequencing of project activities or tasks. several types of dependencies

activity attributes

provide schedule-related information about each activity such as predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and assumptions related to the activity

life cycle costing

provides a big-picture view of the cost of a project throughout its life cycle - helps you develop an accurate projection of a projects's financial costs and benefits - considers the total cost of ownership, or development plus support costs for a project

slipped milestone

represented by a white diamond

finish-to-finish

task B cannot finish until task A finishes

Start-to-finish

task B cannot finish until task A starts

start-to-start

task B cannot start until task A starts

schedule variance

the earned value minus the planned value, a negative schedule variance means that it took longer than planned to perform the work

schedule baseline

the entire approved planned schedule

earned value

the measure of work performed expressed in terms of the budget authorized for that work, it cannot be greater than the authorized PV budget fora. component as it is calculated as the sum of the PV of the completed work

effort

the number of workdays or work hours required to complete a task

Budget at completion (BAC)

the original total budget for the project

baseline dates

the planned schedule dates for activities

schedule performance index

the ratio of earned value to planned value; it can be used to estimate the projected time to complete the project, an SPI of one or 100% means than the project is on schedule

process descriptions

the schedule management plan also describes how all of the schedule management processes will be performed

node

the starting and ending point of an activity

reporting formats

this section describes the format and frequency of schedule reports required for the project

level of accuracy and units of measure

this section discusses how accurate schedule estimates should be and determines whether time is measure in hours, days, or another unit

project manager's job

to satisfy project stakeholders while continuously striving to reduce and control costs

analogous estimates OR top-down estimates

use the actual cost of a previous, similar project as a the basis for estimating the cost of the current project - requires a good deal of expert judgement and is generally less costly than other techniques, but is also less accurate

parametric estimating

uses project characteristics (parameters) in a mathematics model to estimate project costs - most reliable when the historical information use to create the model is accurate, the parameters are readily quantifiable, and the model is flexible in terms of the project's size

control thresholds

variance thresholds, such as +-10 percent, are established for monitoring schedule performance

budgetary

when done: early, 1-2 years out why done: puts dollars in the budget plans typical range: -10% to +25%

definitive

when done: later in the project, less than 1 year out why done: provides details for purchases, estimates actual costs typical range: -5% to +10%

rough order of magnitude

when done: very early in the project lifecycle, often 3-5 years before project completion why done: provides estimate of cost for selection decisions typical range: -50% to +100%

learning curve theory

when many items are produced repetitively, the unit cost for those items decreases in the regular pattern as more units are produced