CONSTRUCTION AND PROJECT

MANAGEMENT

COMPUTERIZED PROJECT MANAGEMENT - CREATING A NEW

PROJECT

PHILIP ALWIN A
312917251014
Software Project Management Plan (SPMP) document

Organization of SPMP Document :

 Introduction (Objectives, Major Functions, Performance Issues, Management

and Technical Constraints)
 Project Estimates (Historical Data, Estimation Techniques, Effort, Cost, and
Project Duration Estimates)
 Project Resources Plan (People, Hardware and Software, Special Resources)
 Schedules (Work Breakdown Structure, Task Network, Gantt Chart
Representation, PERT Chart Representation)
 Risk Management Plan (Risk Analysis, Risk Identification, Risk Estimation)
 Project Tracking and Control Plan
 Miscellaneous Plans(Quality Assurance)
What are the Main criteria?

  Size of the project

  Number of activities
  Organization’s Budget
  Project manager’s style
  Variety of Reports
  System compatibility
  User friendly
  Easy to learn
  Technical Support Availability

1. Initiating process Group
2. Planning process Group
3. Executing process Group
4. Monitering and control process Group
5. Closing process Group
• PMBOK has five groups of project
management processes that are
interdependent.
• Thus, in process groups, the outputs of a
process become inputs to another process or
are deliveries of the project.
• The PMI also describes that these activities
are overlapping and occur at varying levels of
intensity throughout the project.
• Thus, for projects that are divided into phases,
the process groups interact within a project
phase and may cross several phases of the
project.
The Most Popular SPMP

• Microsoft project (MSP)

• Primavera
• Microsoft Excel
• Project Scheduler
• Welcom
• Trakker
Microsoft Project (MS Project)
• Microsoft Project (MS Project) dominates project management software systems.
• This software system carries its own database and is compatible with SQL Server or
Oracle databases.
• Although it requires installation on every user’s computer, it is fully compatible with
• Microsoft Office so team members can easily save to the database documents
created in any Office application.
• In addition, because it has the same toolbars as MS Office applications, most users
become quickly familiarized with it.
• MS Project provides the ability to publish to the Internet or the company intranet.
• There are no limits to the number of tasks or projects the software can handle.

Project Scheduler 
Project Scheduler works with an SQL database and is MS Office compatible.
• Information from multiple projects or subprojects can be merged or consolidated to reveal
companywide resource utilization.
• The report writer enables a wide range of standard and customized reports, which can be
output in HTML format.
• Data can be located on shared disk drives and accessed only by users with the appropriate
password.
Welcom
• Welcom has three software products: Open Plan, Cobra, and Spider.
• Open Plan has advanced scheduling and modelling tools for resource management.
•  It integrates company-wide information and enables information sharing across
• multiple projects.
•  Team members can work on pieces of the project, then roll-up information for
• composite reporting.
•  Cobra is a cost-management tool designed to manage and analyze budgets, earned
• value, and forecasts.
•  Spider is a multiuser, multi project web-based tool for viewing and updating project
• data from Open Plan user Web browsers
Trakker
• Trakker offers a variety of interesting products including tools for risk management
activity based costing, earned value management as well as the usual planning,
budgeting, and tracking tools.
• These tools interface with commercial accounting systems and can be Web-enabled for use
on the Internet or intranet with browsers.
Primavera
• Primavera offers four software products.
i) Sure Trak Project Manager
• This software enables modelling and scheduling of simultaneous projects of up to 10,000
activities per project.
• Activities can be inserted or rearranged on Gantt charts and PERT charts with a mouse
click.
• Actual completion dates and costs can be compared with targets, progress estimated for
each activity or for the entire project, and forecasts produced of resources necessary to get
a project back on track.
• If resources exceed supply, Sure Trak can reassign them from low-priority activities.
• Assignments, deadlines, and status can be shared with project participants at all levels and
locations using the Web publisher
 ii) Primavera Project Planner®, (P3®)
• This program provides for unlimited projects, up to 100,000 activities per project,
concurrent, multiuser accessibility, and scheduling options similar to SureTrak.
• It can create fragments of networks to store for later use as templates or building blocks for
creating other project plans.
• Also, it supports cost accounts and allows tracking of costs and exchange of information with
cost accounting systems.
• E-mail addresses can be embedded into the project to automatically route status information
to individuals who need to know.
• A Web publisher enables team members with Web browsers to review, update, and return
project activity status data.
iii) Primavera Expedition® Contract Control Software
• This software assists in change management and tracking of contracts and purchase orders.
• It enables users to view the latest submittals and schedule changes from P3 or SureTrak in
real time.
• It ensures that everyone who needs drawing revisions gets them.
• It also has a change management feature to assess the impact of changes on costs
and schedules, and to identify where additional equipment is needed and the
contractors affected.
• It also automatically distributes requisitions and RFPs.

iv) Webster for Primavera®

• This software provides access to the project database, timecard activities, and project
• information from SureTrak and P3.
•  Team members can see assignments and can report accomplishments and time
• needed to complete assignments.
How to make Gantt chart in Excel

1. Create a project table

• You start by entering your project's data in
an Excel spreadsheet. List each task is a
separate row and structure your project
plan by including the Start date, End date
and Duration, i.e. the number of days
required to complete the tasks.
• Tip. Only the Start date and Duration
columns are necessary for creating an
Excel Gantt chart. If you have Start Dates
and End Dates, you can use one of these
simple formulas to calculate Duration,
whichever makes more sense for you:
• Duration = End Date - Start Date
• Duration = End date - Start date + 1
2. Make a standard Excel Bar chart based on Start date
• You begin making your Gantt chart in Excel by
setting up a usual Stacked Bar chart.
• Select a range of your Start Dates with the column
header, it's B1:B11 in our case. Be sure to select As a result, you will have the following
only the cells with data, and not the entire column. Stacked bar added to your worksheet:
• Switch to the Insert tab > Charts group and click
Bar.
• Under the 2-D Bar section, click Stacked Bar.
• 3. Add Duration data to the
chart

• Now you need to add one more series to

your Excel Gantt chart-to-be.

i) Right-click anywhere within the chart area

and choose Select Data from the context
menu.
Right-click anywhere within the chart area
and choose Select Data.
The Select Data Source window will open.
As you can see in the screenshot below,
Start Date is already added under Legend
Entries (Series). And you need to add
Duration there as well.
ii) Click the Add button to select more data
(Duration) you want to plot in the Gantt chart

iii) The Edit Series window opens and you do the

following:
In the Series name field, type "Duration" or any other
name of your choosing. Alternatively, you can place the
mouse cursor into this field and click the column
header in your spreadsheet, the clicked header will be
added as the Series name for the Gantt chart.
Click the range selection icon next to the Series
Values field.
• iv) A small Edit Series window will open.
Select your project Duration data by clicking
on the first Duration cell (D2 in our case) and
dragging the mouse down to the last duration
(D11). Make sure you have not mistakenly
included the header or any empty cell.

v) Click the Collapse Dialog icon to exit this

small window. This will bring you back to the
previous Edit Series window with Series
name and Series values filled in, where you
click OK.
vi) Now you are back at the Select Data Source
window with both Start Date and Duration added
under Legend Entries (Series). Simply click OK for
the Duration data to be added to your Excel chart.

The resulting bar chart should look similar

to this:
• 4. Add task descriptions
to the Gantt chart

• Now you need to replace the days on the left

side of the chart with the list of tasks.

• Right-click anywhere within the chart plot area

(the area with blue and orange bars) and click
Select Data to bring up the Select Data Source
window again.
• Make sure the Start Date is selected on the left
pane and click the Edit button on the right pane,
under Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels.
• A small Axis Label window opens and you
select your tasks in the same fashion as you
selected Durations in the previous step - click
the range selection icon , then click on the
first task in your table and drag the mouse down
to the last task. Remember, the column header
should not be included. When done, exit the
window by clicking on the range selection icon
again

• Click OK twice to close the open windows.

• Remove the chart labels block by right-clicking

it and selecting Delete from the context menu.
• At this point your Gantt chart should have task descriptions on the left
side and look something like this:
5. Transform the bar graph into the Excel Gantt chart

• What you have now is still a stacked bar

chart. You have to add the proper
formatting to make it look more like a Gantt
chart. Our goal is to remove the blue bars
so that only the orange parts representing
the project's tasks will be visible. In
technical terms, we won't really delete the
blue bars, but rather make them
transparent and therefore invisible.

i) Click on any blue bar in your Gantt chart to

select them all, right-click and choose Format
Data Series from the context menu.
ii) The Format Data Series window will show
up and you do the following:

• Switch to the Fill tab and select No Fill.

• Go to the Border Color tab and select No

Line.
iii) As you have probably noticed, the tasks
on your Excel Gantt chart are listed in reverse
order. And now we are going to fix this.

Click on the list of tasks in the left-hand part of

your Gantt chart to select them. This will
display the Format Axis dialog for you. Select
the Categories in reverse order option under
Axis Options and then click the Close button
to save all the changes.
• The results of the changes you have just
made are:

• Your tasks are arranged in a proper order

on a Gantt chart.
• Date markers are moved from the bottom
to the top of the graph.
6. Improve the design of your Excel Gantt chart
• Though your Excel Gantt chart is beginning to
take shape, you can add a few more finishing
touches to make it really stylish.
i) Remove the empty space on the left side of
the Gantt chart.
• As you remember, originally the starting date
blue bars resided at the start of your Excel
Gantt diagram. Now you can remove that blank
white space to bring your tasks a little closer to
the left vertical axis.
• Right-click on the first Start Date in your data
table, select Format Cells > General. Write
down the number that you see - this is a
numeric representation of the date, in my case
41730. As you probably know, Excel stores
dates as numbers based on the number of days
since 1-Jan-1900. Click Cancel because you
don't actually want to make any changes here.
• Click on any date above the task bars in
your Gantt chart. One click will select all
the dates, you right click them and choose
Format Axis from the context menu.
• Under Axis Options, change Minimum to
Fixed and type the number you recorded in
the previous step.
ii) Adjust the number of dates on your
Gantt chart.
• In the same Format Axis window that you
used in the previous step, change Major
unit and Minor unit to Fixed too, and then
add the numbers you want for the date
intervals. Typically, the shorter your
project's timeframe is, the smaller numbers
you use. For example, if you want to show
every other date, enter 2 in the Major unit.
You can see my settings in the screenshot
below.
iii) Remove excess white space between
the bars.

• Compacting the task bars will make your

Gantt graph look even better.
• Click any of the orange bars to get them all
selected, right click and select Format
Data Series.
• In the Format Data Series dialog, set
Separated to 100% and Gap Width to 0%
(or close to 0%).

• And here is the result - a Excel Gantt

chart: