Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Unit 2
Unit 2
Project Planning
The primary purpose of planning is to establish a set of directions in enough detail to tell the
project team exactly what must be done. The purpose of planning is to facilitate later
accomplishment.
Project Planning Process:
Project Scope
– A definition of the end result or mission of the project—a product or service for
the client/customer—in specific, tangible, and measurable terms.
• Purpose of the Scope Statement
– To clearly define the deliverable(s) for the end user.
– To focus the project on successful completion of its goals.
– To be used by the project owner and participants as a planning tool and for
measuring project success.
Project scope checklist
1. Project objective
2. Deliverables
3. Milestones
4. Technical requirements
5. Limits and exclusions
6. Reviews with customer
• Scope Statements
– Also called statements of work (SOW)
• Project Charter
– Can contain an expanded version of scope statement
– A document authorizing the project manager to initiate and lead the project.
• Project Creep
– The tendency for the project scope to expand over time due to changing
requirements, specifications, and priorities.
Responsibility Matrix
– Also called a linear responsibility chart.
– Summarizes the tasks to be accomplished and who is responsible for what on the
project.
• Lists project activities and participants.
• Clarifies critical interfaces between units and individuals that need
coordination.
• Provide an means for all participants to view their responsibilities and
agree on their assignments.
• Clarifies the extent or type of authority that can be exercised by each
participant.
Project Plan Elements
z The process of developing the project plan varies among organizations, but any project
plan must contain the following elements:
y Overview - a short summary of the objectives and scope of the project
y Objectives - A more detailed statement of the general goals noted in the overview
section
y General Approach - describes both the managerial and technical approaches to
the work
y Contractual Aspects - includes a complete list and description of all reporting
requirements, customer supplied resources, liaison arrangements, advisory
committees, project review and cancellation procedures, etc.
y Schedules - this section outlines the various schedules and lists all the milestone
events
y Resources - this includes the budget (both capital and expense requirements) as
well as cost monitoring and control procedures
y Personnel - this section lists the expected personnel requirements of the project
including special skills, training needs, and security clearances
y Evaluation Methods - every project should be evaluated against standards and by
methods established at the project’s inception
y Potential Problems - this section should include any potential difficulties such as
subcontractor default, technical failure, tight deadlines, resource limitations and
the like. Preplanning may avert some crises
Project budgeting is determining the total amount of money that is allocated for the project to
use. The project budget has been estimated by the project manager and or the project
management team. The budget is an estimate of all the costs that should be required to complete
the project. I use the words should be because if a project is poorly estimated then the project
will require more costs. There are four ways for the project manager to estimate the project's
budget. The four estimating techniques that a project manager can use are analogous, parametric,
top-down, and bottom-up. We will discuss each one and look at an example of each one in use to
see how it works.
Estimating Cost
Cost estimating is the practice of forecasting the cost of completing a project with a defined scope. It is
the primary element of project cost management, a knowledge area that involves planning, monitoring,
and controlling a project’s monetary costs. (Project cost management has been practiced since the
1950s.) The approximate total project cost, called the cost estimate, is used to authorize a project’s
budget and manage its costs.
Importance
• Estimates are needed to support good decisions.
• Estimates are needed to schedule work.
• Estimates are needed to determine how long the project should take and its cost.
• Estimates are needed to determine whether the project is worth doing.
• Estimates are needed to develop cash flow needs.
• Estimates are needed to determine how well the project is progressing.
• Estimates are needed to develop time-phased budgets and establish the project baseline.
Guidelines for estimation
1. Have people familiar with the tasks make the estimate.
2. Use several people to make estimates (crowdsourcing).
3. Base estimates on normal conditions, efficient methods, and a normal level of resources.
4. Use consistent time units in estimating task times.
5. Treat each task as independent, don’t aggregate.
6. Don’t make allowances for contingencies.
7. Adding a risk assessment helps avoid surprises to stakeholders.
Professional estimators use defined techniques to create cost estimates that are used to assess the
financial feasibility of projects, to budget for project costs, and to monitor project spending. An
accurate cost estimate is critical for deciding whether to take on a project, for determining a project’s
eventual scope, and for ensuring that projects remain financially feasible and avoid cost overruns.
Cost estimates are typically revised and updated as the project’s scope becomes more precise and as
project risks are realized — as the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) notes, cost
estimating is an iterative process. A cost estimate may also be used to prepare a project cost baseline,
which is the milestone-based point of comparison for assessing a project’s actual cost performance.
Key Components of a Cost Estimate
A cost estimate is a summation of all the costs involved in successfully finishing a project, from
inception to completion (project duration). These project costs can be categorized in a number of ways
and levels of detail, but the simplest classification divides costs into two main categories: direct costs
and indirect costs.
Direct costs are broadly classified as those directly associated with a single area (such as a
department or a project). In project management, direct costs are expenses billed exclusively to a
specific project. They can include project team wages, the costs of resources to produce physical
products, fuel for equipment, and money spent to address any project-specific risks.
Indirect costs, on the other hand, cannot be associated with a specific cost center and are
instead incurred by a number of projects simultaneously, sometimes in varying amounts. In
project management, quality control, security costs, and utilities are usually classified as indirect
costs since they are shared across a number of projects and are not directly billable to any one
project.
A cost estimate is more than a simple list of costs, however: it also outlines the assumptions underlying
each cost. These assumptions (along with estimates of cost accuracy) are compiled into a report called
the basis of estimate, which also details cost exclusions and inclusions. The basis of estimate report
allows project stakeholders to interpret project costs and to understand how and where actual costs
might differ from approximated costs.
Beyond the broad classifications of direct and indirect costs, project expenses fall into more specific
categories. Common types of expenses include:
Labor: The cost of human effort expended towards project objectives.
Materials: The cost of resources needed to create products.
Equipment: The cost of buying and maintaining equipment used in project work.
Services: The cost of external work that a company seeks for any given project (vendors,
contractors, etc.).
Software: Non-physical computer resources.
Hardware: Physical computer resources.
Facilities: The cost of renting or using specialized equipment, services, or locations.
Contingency costs: Costs added to the project budget to address specific risks.
To create accurate estimates, cost estimators use a combination of estimating techniques that
allow for varying levels of accuracy. While the cost estimator always aims to create the most
accurate estimate possible, they may have to start with less accurate estimates and revise once
project scope and deliverables are fleshed out.
The most widely used cost estimating techniques are:
Analogous estimating: Like expert judgment, analogous estimating — also called top-down
estimating or historical costing — relies on historical project data to form estimates for new projects.
Analogous estimating draws from a purpose-built archive of historical project data, often specific to an
organization. If an organization repeatedly performs similar projects, it becomes easier to draw parallels
between project deliverables and their associated costs, and to adjust these according to the scale and
complexity of a project.
Analogous estimating can be quite accurate if used to form estimates for similar projects and if experts
can precisely assess the factors affecting costs. For example, a similar project conducted three years ago
might be used as the basis for a new project cost estimate. Adjust the estimate upward for inflation,
downward for the amount of resources required, and upward again for the project’s level of difficulty.
These adjustments are typically stated as percentage changes — a new project might require 10 percent
more preparation time and 15 percent more on resources. However, project management professional
Rupen Sharma stresses the need to make sure that projects really are comparable since projects that
appear similar, such as road construction, can actually cost vastly different amounts depending on other
factors — say, local landscapes and climates.
Bottom-up estimating: Also called analytical estimating, this is the most accurate estimating
technique - if a complete work breakdown structure is available. A work breakdown structure divides
project deliverables into a series of work packages (each work package comprised of a series of tasks).
The project team estimates the cost of completing each task, and eventually creates a cost estimate for
the entire project by totaling the costs of all its constituent tasks and work packages — hence the name
bottom-up. Bottom-up estimates can draw from the knowledge of experienced project teams, who are
better equipped to provide task cost estimates.
While deterministic estimating techniques such as bottom-up estimating are undoubtedly the most
accurate, they can also be time-consuming, especially in large and complex projects with numerous
work breakdown structure components. It is not unusual for definitive estimates to also use techniques
such as stochastic, parametric, and expert-judgment-based estimating (if these have proved suitably
accurate in early estimates). That said, bottom-up estimating is also the most versatile estimating
technique and you can use it for many types of projects.
Parametric estimating: For projects that involve similar tasks with high degrees of repeatability, use a
parametric estimating technique to create highly accurate estimates using unit costs. To use parametric
estimating, first divide a project into units of work. Then, you must determine the cost per unit, and
then multiply the number of units by the cost per unit to estimate the total cost. These units might be the
length in feet of pipeline to be laid, or the area in square yards of ceiling to be painted. As long as the
cost per unit is accurate, estimators determine quite precise and accurate estimates.
However, as project management professional Dick Billows, Chief Executive Officer of 4PM.com,
cautions, parametric estimating does not work well with creative projects or those with little
repeatability. It is difficult, for example, to come up with an accurate cost per chapter for editing a book
written by 12 different authors, since each chapter is likely to require a different amount of work.
Similarly, a writer penning a fantasy novel on commission may find herself struggling to advance the
story at some points and fully immersed in its flow at others. Therefore, parametric estimating is a good
choice only for skill-based projects with uniform, repeatable tasks.
Cost of quality: The cost of quality is a concept used in project management - and more broadly in
product manufacturing - to measure the financial cost of ensuring that products meet agreed-upon
specifications. It usually includes the costs of preventing, identifying, and addressing defects. As an
aspect of quality management, the cost of quality is usually an indirect project cost.
Delphi cost estimation: An empirical estimation technique based on expert consensus, Delphi
estimation can help resolve discrepancies among expert estimates. A coordinator has experts prepare
anonymous cost estimates with rationales; once these anonymous estimates are submitted, the
coordinator prepares and distributes a summary of the responses and experts create a new set of
anonymous estimates. This exercise is repeated for several rounds. The coordinator may or may not
allow the experts to discuss estimates after each round. As the exercise progresses, the estimates should
converge (indicating growing consensus between the estimators). When an estimate consensus has
been reached, the coordinator ends the exercise and prepares a final consensus-based estimate.
Empirical costing methods: Empirical costing methods draw from previous project experiences using
software- or paper-based systems. These methods work well for projects that are similar and frequently
conducted in certain industries. A project manager wanting to obtain an empirical cost estimate
completes a form detailing the project’s characteristics and parameters, and the system estimates a cost
based on the kind of project. Since empirical costing methods draw from existing data and are
increasingly automated, they are accurate, time-effective choices for less complicated projects. The
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ Building Cost Information Service (BCIS), which computes
rebuilding costs for houses, is an example of an empirical costing method.
Expert judgment: Most commonly used in order of magnitude and intermediate estimates, expert
judgment estimating is conducted by specialists who know how much similar projects have cost in the
past. As such, it relies mainly on drawing parallels between past and future projects to create and adjust
estimates. Since any two projects are unlikely to be identical and project work is typically complex,
expert judgment estimates are presented as a range. While a wide range typically means these estimates
have limited use, project management professional Billows points out that such broad estimates are
only meant to indicate project feasibility and provide a ballpark figure to hold project managers
accountable. In this regard, they “are better than commitments you can’t keep,” Billows says.
Reserve analysis: Reserve analysis is an umbrella term for a number of methods used to determine the
size of contingency reserves, which are budgetary allocations for the incidence of known risks. One
outcome of reserve analysis is a technique called padding, which involves increasing the budgeted cost
for each scheduled activity beyond the actual expected cost by a fixed percentage. Critical
path activities may have larger percentages assigned as padding. The Project Management Institute
(PMI) also suggests other methods for managing contingency reserves, including the use of zero-
duration activitiesthat run in tandem with scheduled activities and the use of buffer activities that
contain both time and cost contingency reserves.
Resource costing: Resource costing is a simple mathematical method to compute the costs of hiring
resources for a project. It is easily done by multiplying the hourly cost of hiring a resource by the
number of projected employment hours.
Three-point estimating: Three-point estimating has roots in a statistical method called the Program
Analysis and Review Technique (PERT), which is used to analyze activity, project costs, or durations
by determining optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely estimates for each activity. Three-point
estimating uses a variety of weighted formula methods to compute expected costs/durations from
optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely costs/durations. One commonly used formula for creating
estimates is:
Refining estimates
• Reasons for Adjusting Estimates
– Interaction costs are hidden in estimates.
– Normal conditions do not apply.
– Things go wrong on projects.
– Changes in project scope and plans.
• Adjusting Estimates
– Time and cost estimates of specific activities are adjusted as the risks, resources,
and situation particulars become more clearly defined.
• Contingency Funds and Time Buffers
– Are created independently to offset uncertainty.
– Reduce the likelihood of cost and completion time overruns for a project.
– Can be added to the overall project or to specific activities or work packages.
– Can be determined from previous similar projects.
• Changing Baseline Schedule and Budget
– Unforeseen events may dictate a reformulation of the budget and schedule.
Risk
Identification and analysis of project risks are required for effective risk management. One
cannot manage risks if one does not characterize them to know what they are, how likely they
are, and what their impact might be. Project risk management is not limited to the identification
and aggregation of risks, and it cannot be repeated too often that the point of risk assessment is to
be better able to mitigate and manage the project risks. Additional effort is needed to develop
and apply risk management strategies: Project risk management tools and methods, discussed
later, can facilitate this effort.
Inadequate or untimely characterization of risks has a number of consequences, all of them
detrimental to the project:
Time and money may be spent needlessly to prepare for risks that are actually negligible.
The need for contingency allowances may be overstated, tying up the owner’s funds, preventing
other vital projects from being funded (opportunity costs) (Mak and Picken, 2000), and resulting
in increased project costs, as excess contingencies are typically expended rather than returned to
the project sponsor.
Contingency allowances may be understated, leading to budget or schedule overruns and often
performance and quality shortfalls as well, as quality and scope are reduced in an attempt to keep
costs within the budget.
Actual significant risks may be missed and result in unwelcome surprises for the project manager
and owner—cost overruns, completion delays, loss of functions to be provided by the project,
and even cancellation.
GENERAL PROJECT RISK CHARACTERIZATION
The types of project risks addressed in this report include these:
Performance, scope, quality, or technological risks. These include the risks that the project
when complete fails to perform as intended or fails to meet the mission or business requirements
that generated the justification for the project. Performance risks can also lead to schedule and
cost risks if technological problems increase the duration and cost of the project.
Environment, safety, and health risks. These include the risks that the project may have a
detrimental effect on the environment or that hidden hazards may be uncovered during project
execution. Serious incidents can have a severe impact on schedule and costs.
Schedule risk. This is the risk that the project takes longer than scheduled. Schedule risk may
also lead to cost risks, as longer projects always cost more, and to performance risk, if the project
is completed too late to perform its intended mission fully. Even if cost increases are not severe,
delays in project completion reduce the value of the project to the owner.
Cost risk. This is the risk that the project costs more than budgeted. Cost risk may lead to
performance risk if cost overruns lead to reductions in scope or quality to try to stay within the
baseline budget. Cost risk may also lead to schedule risk if the schedule is extended because not
enough funds are available to accomplish the project on time.
Loss of support. Loss of public or stakeholder support for the project’s goals and objectives may
ultimately lead to a reduction of scope and to funding cuts, and thus contribute to poor project
performance. Although the above types of risks may be encountered in an almost infinite variety
of forms and intensity, it is most useful to consider two varieties:
Incremental risks. These include risks that are not significant in themselves but that can
accumulate to constitute a major risk. For example, a cost overrun in one subcontract may not in
itself constitute a risk to the project budget, but if a number of subcontracts overrun due to
random causes or a common cause (i.e., a common mode failure) affecting them all, then there
may be a serious risk to the project budget. While individually such risks may not be serious, the
problem lies in the combination of a number of them and in the lack of recognition that the
cumulative effect is a significant project risk. An obvious example of an incremental risk in
construction is weather-related delays, which are not usually major problems in themselves, but a
long run of inclement weather that impedes progress on the project may create a serious
challenge to the schedule and budget.
Catastrophic risks. These include risks that are individually major threats to the project
performance, ES&H, cost, or schedule. Their likelihood can be very low but their impact can be
very large. Examples of such risks are dependence on critical technologies that might or might
not prove to work, scale-up of bench-level technologies to full-scale operations, discovery of
waste products or contamination that are not expected or not adequately characterized, and
dependence on single suppliers or sources of critical equipment.
CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED PROJECT UNCERTAINTY
Studies of projects with low and high degrees of uncertainty (see, e.g., Shenhar, 2001) show that
as uncertainty increases there is also an increased likelihood of the following:
Increased project budgets,
Increased project duration,
Increased planning effort,
Increased number of activities in the planning network,
Increased number of design cycles,
Increased number of design reviews,
Delayed final design,
Increased need for exchange of information outside of formal meetings and documentation,
Increased management attention and effort (probabilistic risk assessment, risk mitigation),
Increased systems engineering effort, and
Increased quality management effort.
The use of techniques and skills that are appropriate to low-uncertainty projects may give poor
results when applied to high-uncertainty projects, for which a flexible decision-making approach
focused on risk management may be more successful. The owner can determine whether a
project is very low risk or has significant risks by performing a risk assessment, which starts with
risk characterization.
Managing risks on projects is a process that includes risk assessment and a mitigation strategy
for those risks. Risk assessment includes both the identification of potential risk and the
evaluation of the potential impact of the risk. A risk mitigation plan is designed to eliminate or
minimize the impact of the risk events—occurrences that have a negative impact on the project.
Identifying risk is both a creative and a disciplined process. The creative process includes
brainstorming sessions where the team is asked to create a list of everything that could go wrong.
All ideas are welcome at this stage with the evaluation of the ideas coming later.
Risk Identification
A more disciplined process involves using checklists of potential risks and evaluating the
likelihood that those events might happen on the project. Some companies and industries develop
risk checklists based on experience from past projects. These checklists can be helpful to the
project manager and project team in identifying both specific risks on the checklist and
expanding the thinking of the team. The past experience of the project team, project experience
within the company, and experts in the industry can be valuable resources for identifying
potential risk on a project.
Identifying the sources of risk by category is another method for exploring potential risk on a
project. Some examples of categories for potential risks include the following:
Technical
Cost
Schedule
Client
Contractual
Weather
Financial
Political
Environmental
People
The people category can be subdivided into risks associated with the people. Examples of people
risks include the risk of not finding the skills needed to execute the project or the sudden
unavailability of key people on the project. David Hillson 1 uses the same framework as the work
breakdown structure (WBS) for developing a risk breakdown structure (RBS). A risk
breakdown structure organizes the risks that have been identified into categories using a table
with increasing levels of detail to the right.
Risks in John’s Move
In John’s move, John makes a list of things that might go wrong with his project and uses his
work breakdown structure as a guide. A partial list for the planning portion of the RBS is shown
in Figure 11.1.
Figure 11.1 Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS)
The result is a clearer understanding of where risks are most concentrated. Hillson’s approach
helps the project team identify known risks, but can be restrictive and less creative in identifying
unknown risks and risks not easily found inside the work breakdown structure.
The actual identification of risks may be carried out by the owner’s representatives, by
contractors, and by internal and external consultants or advisors. The risk identification function
should not be left to chance but should be explicitly covered in a number of project documents:
Statement of work (SOW),
Work breakdown structure (WBS),
Budget,
Schedule,
Acquisition plan, and
Execution plan.
Risk Evaluation
After the potential risks have been identified, the project team then evaluates the risk based on
the probability that the risk event will occur and the potential loss associated with the event. Not
all risks are equal. Some risk events are more likely to happen than others, and the cost of a risk
event can vary greatly. Evaluating the risk for probability of occurrence and the severity or the
potential loss to the project is the next step in the risk management process.
Having criteria to determine high impact risks can help narrow the focus on a few critical risks
that require mitigation. For example, suppose high-impact risks are those that could increase the
project costs by 5% of the conceptual budget or 2% of the detailed budget. Only a few potential
risk events met these criteria. These are the critical few potential risk events that the project
management team should focus on when developing a project risk mitigation or management
plan. Risk evaluation is about developing an understanding of which potential risks have the
greatest possibility of occurring and can have the greatest negative impact on the project. These
become the critical few.
Figure 11.2 Risk and Impact