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Unit III SPM
Unit III SPM
4. Motivation: - Providing targets and being seen to monitor achievement against targets is an
effective way of motivating staff, particularly where they have been involved in setting those
targets in the first place.
SEQUENCING AND SCHEDULING ACTIVITIES
5. Co-ordination: - When do the staff in different departments need to be available to work on a Throughout a project, we will require a schedule that clearly indicates when each of
particular project and when do staff need to be transferred between projects? The project plan, the project‟s activities is planned to occur and what resources it will need.
particularly with large projects involving more than a single project team, provides an effective
vehicle for communication and coordination among teams. • One way of presenting such a plan is to use a bar chart.
Project Schedules:
A schedule in your project‟s time table actually consists of sequenced activities andmilestones that Projects Activities 2. The Product-based approach
are needed to be delivered under a given period of time.
Defining activities
It consists of producing a Product Breakdown Structure and a product flow diagram.
Project schedule simply means a mechanism that is used to communicate and know about that
A project is composed of a number of related activities
tasks are needed and has to be done or performed and which organizational resources will be PDF indicated, for each product, which other products are required as inputs.
A project may start when at least one of its activities is ready to start
given or allocated to these tasks and in what time duration or time frame work is needed to be
A project will be completed when all of its activities have been completed The PDF can therefore be easily transformed into an ordered list of activities
performed. Effective project scheduling leads to success of project, reduced cost, and increased
An activity must have a clear start and a clear stop by identifyingthe transformation that turns some products into others.
customer satisfaction. Scheduling in project management means to list out activities, deliverables,
An activity should have a duration
and milestones within a project that are delivered. It contains more notes than your average
Some activities may require that other activities are completed before they can begin
weekly planner notes. The most common and important formof project schedule is Gantt chart.
In drawing up the chart, we have done two things:-
Formulating Network Model Activity relationships (FS, SF, SS, FF) Finish-to-start (FS)
1. Sequencing the Activities
The first stage in creating a network model is to represent the activities and their Project Schedule Network Diagram is the graphical representation of the logical relationships “A logical connection in which a successor venture cannot start until a predecessor
Sequence activities are the process of identifying and documenting activity has finished.”
interrelationships as a graph. In activity-on-nodes we do this by representing activities as among the project schedule activities.
relationships among the project activities. So the fundamental reason for the sequence
links (arrowed lines) in the graph - the nodes (circles) representing the events of activities If you have a question – which is the most commonly used logical relationship ?
activities process is finalizing the interrelationship of activities to finish the project
starting and finishing. After identification of activities, we analyze them if any relationships exist between those. If Yes, Finish to Start is the most commonly used logical relationship.
scope and achieve the task objectives. (i.e., identified the dependencies among
relationships exist, it is better to show them to maintain the project schedule better. The relationship
activities dictated by the development process)
Constructing precedence networks You can see, this relation constraint does not impact the independent activity. Itonly affects the
exists between the two activities. Let‟s take two activities for understanding the concept and name
Before we look at how networks are used, it is worth spending a few moments dependent, so in our case, it is activity B.
2.Scheduled them the activity A and B.
considering some rules for their construction.
The scheduling has had to take account of availability of staff and the way Here the next question is – what does FS mean in project management?
in which the activities have been allocated to them. Project managers usually know the A project network should have only one start node
expected completion date of a project long before they plan and schedule the activities Although it is logically possible to draw a network with more than one starting node it is
required to finish the project. To get your project finished on time, you need to schedule all the undesirable to do so as it is a potential source of confusion. In such cases (For example,
necessary project activities as quickly as possible. A well-designed sequence of events is
where more than one activity can start immediately the project starts) it is normal to invent a
essential to controlling every element of your project (i.e., specified when they should take
start activity which has zero duration but may have, for example, an actual start date. Here, activity A is a predecessor, and activity B is the successor activity. If something happens to
place)
A project network should have only one end node the predecessor activity, it impacts the successor activities. In this way, successor activity B is a
The end node designates the completion of the project and a project may only finish once. dependent activity on the predecessor activity A. So, you can see here – A is an independent Finish-to-start (FS)
Network Planning Models
Although it is possible to draw a network with more than one end node it will almost activity. Activity A logically comes before activity B in the schedule. The relationships between A
Scheduling techniques model the project‟s activities and their relationships as a “Network”. In certainly lead to confusion if this is done. Where the completion of a project depends upon and B activity are either of four types: From this FS relationship, F shows the finish state of activity A, and at this state, activity B can be
network time flows from left to right. more than one 'final' activity it is normal to invent a 'finish' activity. started. The second character „S‟ is the rule on a successor to make it dependent on the Finish state
There are two best techniques: of the successor activity.
A node has duration Finish-to-start (FS)
CRM (Critical Path Method)
A node represents an activity and, in general, activities take time to execute. This network Start-to-start (SS)
PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) Let’s take an Example –
drawing merely represents the logic of the project and the rules governing the order in Finish-to-finish (FF)
Both use the “Activity on Arrow” approach to visualize the project as a network where Start-to-finish (SF)
You cannot start development until you finish the design. Here, development is the dependent
which activities are to be carried out.
activities are drawn as arrows joining circles, or nodes which represent the possible start or activity on the design activity. Design is the predecessor activity, and its finish state can only start
We link the predecessor (Activity A) with the first character. It defines the state of processor
completion of an activity or set of activities. Links normally have no duration the development activity.
activity. And, in the same way, we link successor (Activity B) with the second character. The
Sequencing the tasks according to their logical relationship, and then scheduling them taking Links represent the relationships between activities. Program testing cannot start until both
character defines the rule which we have to apply on the successor activity.
into account resources and other factors. coding and data take-on has been completed. Start-to-start (SS)
Precedents are the immediate preceding activities
Both of these techniques used an activity-on-arrow approach to visualizing the project as a “A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor
The activity Program test cannot start until both Code and Data take-on have been
network where activities are drawn as arrows joining circles, or nodes, which represent the activity has started.”
completed and activity Install cannot start until the Program test has finished. Code and
possible start and/or completion activities.
Data take-on can therefore be said to be precedents of Program test, and Program test is a
So if activity B is bound to this relation, this means it cannot start till the predecessor (independent)
precedent of Install.
More recently a variation on these techniques, called precedence networks, has become activity A is started. The start of activity A drives thestart of activity B.
popular. This method uses activity-on-node networks where activities are represented as Time moves from left to right
nodes and the links between nodes represent precedence or sequencing requirements. It is this If at all possible, networks are drawn so that time moves from left to right. It is rare that
method that is adopted in the majority of computer applications currently available. this convention needs to be flouted, but some people add arrows to the lines to give a
stronger visual indication of the time flow of the project.
What is Early Start?
Early Start (ES) represents the earliest start of an activity considering the dependency preceding
task. If an activity is having more than one dependency predecessor, then ES will be the highest
Early Finish (EF) of the dependency task.
Early Start = Maximum (or Highest) EF value from immediate Predecessor(s)
How to plot Early Start (ES), Early Finish (EF), Late Start (LS) and Late Finish (LF) in a network The whole idea of network diagram and finding the project duration is to identify the critical path
Finish to Finish (FF) What is Late Finish (LF)?
diagram? and total float. Float represents how much each individual activity can be delayed without delaying
Late Start (LS) is the latest date that the activity can finish without causing a delay to the project
successor activities or project completion date.
So if activity B is bound with this relation it means it cannot finish till the predecessor Early Start (ES) is plotted on the 1st left corner box at the top. Likewise Early Finish (EF) is plotted completion date.
(independent) activity A is finished. So, B needs to finish itsdeliverable and keep working with on top right corner box. How to apply Backward Pass to calculate Late Start (LS)? Total Float = LS – ES or LF – EF
A till the time A is not done. Like, the broadcast of a football match cannot finish until the In order to calculate Late Start (LS), we apply backward Pass moving from Late Finish and
Late Finish (LF) is on the right corner box at the bottom and Late Start (LS) is plotted on the left
match is finished. So the match is not depended in broadcast, but the broadcast is. If the match takes deducting from activity duration. Total Float shows the difference between the Earliest Start (ES) and Latest Start (LS) of an activity
bottom corner box.
longer than the initially estimated time broadcast will also continue till that time. LS = LF – Duration before the completion date is delayed.
It could be possible that the broadcast is continued even after the match is finished. If Late Finish is 30 days and duration is 10 days, LS = 30 – 10 = 20 Days
Activity name “B” is in the 2nd box duration represented by 10 is on the 5th box at the middle.
The broadcast could be continued to discuss highlights and other things. It means it will end after Free Float = Lowest ES of successors – EF
successor activities but necessarily immediately.
Free Float represents the amount of time that an activity can be delayed before any successor‟s
activity will be delayed. A zero free float represents the activity is in critical path and there is no
Start-to-finish (SF) space to delay the activity without delaying the entire project.
“A logical connection in which a successor activity cannot finish until a
predecessor activity has started.”
In project management, the critical path is the longest sequence of tasks that must be completed to
complete a project.
The tasks on the critical path are called critical activities because if they‟re delayed, the whole
project completion will be delayed.
Finding the critical path is very important for project managers because it allows them to:
Accurately estimate the total project duration
Identify task dependencies, resource constraints and project risks
Prioritize tasks and create realistic project schedules
To find the critical path, project managers use the critical path method (CPM) algorithm to define
the least amount of time necessary to complete each task with the least amount of slack.
.
Using the critical path method is important when managing a project because it identifies all the
tasks needed to complete the project, and then determines the tasks that must be done on time, those
that can be delayed if needed and how much float or slack you have.
Float: Also known as slack, float is a term that describes how long you can delay a task before it
impacts its task sequence and the project schedule. The tasks on the critical path have zero float,
because they can‟t be delayed.