Project Time Management - Chapter 6

A black diamond: a milestones Thick black bars: summary tasks Lighter horizontal bars: durations of tasks Arrows: dependencies between tasks

Gantt Chart Symbols

Resource breakdown structure

Hierarchical structure that identifies the project's resources by category and type

Sequencing activities

Identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities

Mandatory dependencies

Inherent in the nature of the work being performed on a project, sometimes referred to as hard logic

External dependencies

Involve relationships between project and non-project activities

Activity definition

Involves developing a more detailed WBS and supporting explanations to understand all the work to be done so you can develop realistic cost and duration estimates

Sequencing activities

Involves reviewing activities and determining dependencies

Specific Measurable Assignable Realistic Time-framed

Milestones should be

Critical Path Method

Network diagramming technique used to predict total project duration

Crashing

Obtaining the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least incremental cost

Resources

People, equipment, and materials

Slide 19 - look for bursts and nodes

Process for creating AOAs

empowerment incentives discipline negotiation

Project managers should use

Gantt Chart

Provide a standard format for displaying project schedule information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in a calendar format

Activity attributes

Provide more information such as predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and assumptions related to the activity

Expert judgement, analytical techniques, and meetings

Schedule management plan inputs

Network diagram

Schematic display of the logical relationships among, or sequencing of, project activities

Milestone

Significant event that normally has no duration; useful for setting schedule goals and monitoring progress

Meyers-Briggs

Slide 5

Free slack/float

The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start of any immediately following activities

Total slack/float

The amount of time an activity may be delayed from its early start without delaying the planned project finish date

Slack/float

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

Critical Path

The series of activities that determines the earliest time by which the project can be completed; the longest path and has the least amount of slack

Arrow & Precedence Methods

Two main forms of network diagrams

Schedule issues

What are the main reason for conflicts on projects, especially during the second half of project?

PERT and Monte Carlo simulations

What are three-point estimates needed for?

Delivering projects on time; because time has the least amount of flexibility

What do managers often cite as one of their biggest challenges? Why?

Slide 9

What does a schedule management plan include?

The activity name An activity identifier/number A brief description of the activity

What does the activity list include?

dependencies

You must determine ____________ in order to use critical path analysis

Theory of Constraints

a management philosophy developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and introduced in his book The Goal

Feeding buffer

additional time added before tasks on the critical path

Project buffer

additional time added before tasks on the critical path

Buffer

additional time to complete a task

Probabilistic time estimates

duration estimates based on using optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimates of activity durations, or a three-point estimate

Defining activities

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

Duration

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

Effort

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

PERT

network analysis technique used to estimate project duration when there is a high degree of uncertainty about the individual activity duration estimates

Dependency/relationship

sequencing of project activities or tasks

Murphy's Law

states that if something can go wrong, it will

Parkinson's Law

states that work expands to fill the time allowed

Activity/task

An element of work normally found on the WBS that has an expected duration, cost, and resource requirements

-Adding more resources or changing scope -Crashing -Fast Tracking

3 main techniques for shortening schedules

- Finish-to-Start - Start-to-Start - Finish-to-Finish - Start-to-Finish

4 types of Task Dependencies

Critical change scheduling

A method of scheduling that considers limited resources when creating a project schedule and includes buffers to protect the project completion date

Activity list

A tabulation of activities to be included on a project schedule

Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM) Activity-on-Arrow (AOA)

Activities are represented by arrows; nodes or circles are the starting and ending points of activities; can only show finish to start dependencies AKA?

Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)

Activities are represented by boxes; arrows show relationships between activities; more popular than ADM method and used by project management software; better at showing different types of dependencies

Three-point estimate

An estimate that includes an optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimate; such as three weeks for the optimistic, four weeks for the most likely, and five weeks for the pessimistic estimate

Developing the schedule

Analyzing activity sequences, activity resource estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule

Resources

Before estimating activity durations, you must have a good idea of the quantity and type of ________ that will be assigned to each activity

Controlling the schedule

Controlling and managing changes to the project schedule

Discretionary dependencies

Defined by the project team; sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be used with care since they may limit later scheduling options

Forward pass

Determines the early start and finish dates through the network diagram

Backward pass

Determines the late start and finish dates

Planning schedule management

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

Fast Tracking

Doing activities in parallel or overlapping

Duration

Effort does not normally equal ________

Estimating activity resources

Estimating how many resources a project team should use to perform project activities

Estimating activity durations

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

Customer sign-off on key documents or completion of specific products

Examples of milestones