Project Management Concepts

Project, Defined
A project is an endeavor to accomplish a
specific objective through a series of
tasks/activities.
A project consumes resources.
A project produces a tangible deliverable.
A project has a customer & target market.
Six Primary areas of project
management
Providing leadership and vision
Planning and organizing the project
Organizing and managing the project team
Six Primary areas, Cont.
Estimating costs and developing the project
budget
Monitoring and controlling the project
schedule
Ensuring the quality of the final result
Providing leadership and vision
Develop the project vision
 Why are we undertaking this project
 What is it expected to achieve
 How do the members of the team relate to each
other
 What standards of conduct are expected
 How are coordination and cooperation achieved
Providing leadership and vision,
cont.
Share the project vision
 Instilling a vision requires frequent and
continual communication with the project team
Planning and organizing the
project
Estimate the size of the project
Define project milestones
Develop a detailed list of tasks
Assign resources to tasks
Develop and maintain a project schedule
 Developing a Baseline Plan is an essential part of project
management.
 In essence, the plan is a roadmap.
 Unforeseen circumstances may jeopardize achievement
of the project objective.
Organizing and managing
Recruiting and obtaining staff for the team
Cross-functional teams are essential in the early
phases of a project.
Who are the project’s stakeholders?
Prepare a team charter
Assigning team members to work groups and
tasks
Ensuring that team members are well trained
Organizing and managing, cont.
Ensuring that groups develop into effective
work teams
The challenge facing the project manager is
to prevent, anticipate, and/or overcome
unforeseen circumstances by using high
performance teams.
Estimating costs and developing
the project budget
Two of the most difficult tasks
Ongoing for the life of the project
Projects—comparing actual to
predicted
Tracking progress using the schedule and
defined milestones
Maintaining an open items control log
Understanding and utilizing corrective
procedures carefully
Implementing consistent status review and
communication techniques
Managing client expectations
Ensuring the quality of the final
result
Validate to ensure that the system meets the
user requirements
Verify to ensure that the system is internally
consistent and correct
Walkthroughs validate diagrams against
user requirements and ensure consistency
Testing validates the system
Project Objective
Prior to developing a project plan, justify the
need for a project and define the project
objective.
 The objective must be:
 Specific
 Measurable
 Actionable
 Relevant
 Time bound

The project objective is usually defined in terms

of scope, performance, schedule and cost.
The Baseline Plan
Clearly defines the project objective.

Determine the specific tasks that need to

be performed using the Work
Breakdown Structure.

Create relationships among the tasks.

Determine predecessors and PERT chart.
The Baseline Plan (cont.)

Determine the resources needed and how

many. Make a time schedule and cost
estimate.

Communicate this baseline plan in a

Gantt chart.
The Work Breakdown Structure
(WBS)

A task/activity is a piece of work that

consumes time.
The WBS is a hierarchical tree of end
tasks/activities to be accomplished.
 A work item is one small piece of the project.
 A work package is the lowest-level item.
Responsibility is assigned at the work
package and work item tasks.
Responsibility Matrix
Displays in tabular format the individuals
responsible for the work items.
Used for team “resource leveling” in ensuring a
fair distribution of work.
 “X” can be used to indicate who is responsible.
 “P” indicates who has primary responsibility.
 “S” indicates who has secondary responsibility.
Preparing the PERT chart –
Sequencing Tasks
Ask the following questions regarding each
activity:
 Which activities must be finished immediately
before this activity can be started?
 Which activities can be done concurrently with this
activity?
 Which activities cannot be started until this activity
is finished?
MS Project will create both PERT and Gantt
charts.
Project Scheduling
It is necessary to select an estimated start
time and a required completion time for
the overall project.
Relate these times to the project
objective, contracts (RFP) & resources
available.
Be aggressive since people work up/down
to expectations.
Activity Duration Estimates
The first step in allocating time to each task is
to estimate how long each activity will take.
The duration estimate is the total elapsed time
for the work to be done PLUS any associated
waiting time.
The person responsible for performing the
activity should help make the duration
estimate.
Schedule Calculations

Once you have an estimated duration for

each activity and an overall window, you
must determine whether the activities can
be done by the required completion date.
Schedule Calculations
A project schedule includes:
the earliest times (or dates) at which each
activity can start and finish, based on the
project's estimated start time (or date)
the latest times (or dates) by which each
activity must start and finish in order to
complete the project by its required
completion time (or date)
Scheduling Outcomes
Critical Path – the series of tasks that must be
completed within duration in order to not delay
the project.
Alternate definition—the longest path through
the tasks of a project, which identifies the
earliest possible completion date.
Slack Time – a task whose start time can be
delayed without affecting the required
completion date.
Controlling the Project
A regular reporting period should be established.
Reports are produced which document the
following:
Data on actual performance
Information on any changes in scope, schedule, and
budget

Keep in mind:
Data should be collected in a timely manner and
used to update the schedule and budget
Compare updated schedule and budget to the
baseline and analyze
The Baseline Plan
Keep in mind:
Projects overrun their budgets, miss completion
dates, or only partially satisfy their technical
specifications because there is no viable baseline
plan.
The people involved in performing the project
should participate in planning the work; they are
most knowledgeable.
Customer satisfaction increases in proportion to
involvement in the baseline plan.