Welcome to Project

Planning and Scheduling

Ayomide Okunlola

Instructor - Project Management Program

ayomide.okunlola@flemingcollegetoronto.ca
Week #6 – Winter Semester , January 2023
Recap of Week 5
ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATION
Estimate Activity Durations is the process of estimating the number of
work periods needed to complete individual activities with estimated
resources.
ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS: INPUTS

1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN

2. PROJECT DOCUMENTS
3. ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
4. ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS ASSETS
ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS: TOOLS AND
TECHNIQUES
1. EXPERT JUDGMENT
2. ANALOGOUS ESTIMATING
3. PARAMETRIC ESTIMATING
4. THREE-POINT ESTIMATING
Most likely
Optimistic
Pessimistic
• Triangular Distribution: tE = (tO + tM + tP) / 3.
ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS: TOOLS AND
TECHNIQUES (cont.)
5. BOTTOM-UP ESTIMATING
6. DATA ANALYSIS
 Alternative Analysis
 Reserve Analysis
7. DECISION MAKING
8. MEETINGS
ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS:
OUTPUTS
1. DURATION ESTIMATES
2. BASIS OF ESTIMATES
3. PROJECT DOCUMENTS UPDATES
ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS (
Part 2)
Importance of Activity Duration Estimates

• Create project schedule: Project managers can create a project

calendar and itinerary based on activity duration estimates, which can
help team members know what to do when and increase overall
efficiency.

They can consider the prioritization tasks and the fact that certain
projects will run in parallel to each other to create the most accurate
project schedule.
Importance of Activity Duration Estimates (cont.)

• Provide a baseline: Activity duration estimates can provide a baseline

against which to measure a project's progress.

In addition, project managers can continually adjust time estimates

throughout a project life cycle as they learn more information.
Importance of Activity Duration Estimates (cont.)

• Check team capabilities: As some projects have pre-defined deadlines,

activity duration estimates can allow project managers to check whether
their teams can meet these.

If estimates of durations show that a project could take longer than

expected, project managers can adjust the project deadline, hire more team
members, acquire more resources or make other changes.
Importance of Activity Duration Estimates (cont.)

• Estimate costs of a project: By knowing the possible timeline of a

project, project managers can typically also guess how much a project
may cost.

• This is because certain resources have costs per time unit, like employees
who earn salaries based on the number of hours they work.
Importance of Activity Duration Estimates (cont.)

• Communicate with stakeholders: Project managers can show

activity duration estimates and project schedules to stakeholders such
as supervisors, investors and even customers to update them about
project progress.

• While the time estimates may change, this transparency can help build
trust in others about the goals and success of a project.
Estimation Challenges
• Not splitting the tasks enough: Most projects have a WBS (Work
breakdown structure), but sometimes they are not broken enough to be
conceptualised with clarity.

Each task unit should be equivalent to an Agile story point. Lack of this
usually implies that there is no proper basis for estimation and then
well, it slips out into a subjective guess.
Estimation Challenges (cont.)
• Not factoring the dependencies right: Often, an external dependency
or a decision point is missed out causing the project to suffer, this is
termed as “coordination neglect”.
For example, a vendor product’s license may be about to expire or a
new version may be up for release which will require for your product
to be tested with the newer version.
A good understanding of mandatory, discretionary and external
dependencies can help you plan the schedule well. Not to forget the
dependencies on people resourcing and allowance for vacation and sick
leave.
Estimation Challenges (cont.)
• Poor design: While no one wants to admit it, poor design is time and
again the root-cause that plays spoilsport even when the best efforts
are taken.
Often, people conjure up a tight design on the basis of a requirements
document, that is misconstrued to be frozen and do not show the
forethought to make the design scalable.
A poor design results in unnecessary code tweaking and heavy-duty
maintenance applying pressure on schedules.
Estimation Challenges (cont.)
• How much buffer is the right amount? What is the right buffer to
pad once you arrived at an estimate? This is a common challenge for
Project Managers and there is no simple formula here.
For example, you may have observed that new programmers usually
provide aggressive estimates for the fear of being perceived as
incompetent. Then they end up working long hours to finish the task.
Although 20% padding is usually done, the best figure is arrived
considering the people’s skillsets and complexity of the project.
Estimation Challenges (cont.)
• Top to bottom scheduling: This is a practical problem one needs to
deal with. Instead of doing bottoms-up estimation, most projects start
with – “I need this done in 6 months” and then a work breakdown is
done where the task estimates are retrofitted inside these 6 months.
It is okay to have a high level guideline, but it’s a dangerous trend if the
management exerts pressure to submit unrealistic estimates.
Estimation Challenges (cont.)
• The risk of analogous estimation: Often, project estimates are done
based on an expert judgment or from past projects’ experience.
While picking an analogy and mapping the estimate might seem like an
intuitive thing to do, it’s often risky because of the numerous variables
in a project and the unique elements and dependencies, the people
involved and their skillset, diverse tools and technologies adopted and
the infrastructure and resources in place.
Estimation Challenges (cont.)
• Ignoring team capacity: There is a lot of debate about what unit,
estimates need to be provided in – should we measure complexity,
time or effort? Irrespective of what unit is followed, many Project
Managers tend to ignore considering their team’s capacity.
For example, imagine how different people take different time to cook
the same dish. It seems obvious that different people would take
different time to code, but when we draw estimates, we come up with a
standard effort estimate. This inherently adds a risk layer which is going
to make the estimate unreliable.
MS Project & Case Study
(DecoCam)
Recap of Week 5
 Determining When the
24

Activities Will be Performed

• Sophie realizes that the Activity List is not in any particular
order
• So she writes the name of each activity on a sticky note and
places them all on her office whiteboard
• She then places them in order with arrows between the
notes
• Here is an example:

Create sign graphics/text Order banner stands

© 2021 Dave C. Barrett
 What Are the Activities of
25

the Project?
• Recall that during Scope Planning, the project was broken down
into a number of deliverables, each representing a part of the
project to be delivered
• The deliverables are broken down into smaller and smaller deliverables
• The smallest are called work packages
• Each deliverable (or work package) is a noun—that is, a thing that is
produced
• During Schedule Planning, for each work package, the activities
needed to create the work package are defined
• Each activity is a verb—that is, an action that is performed
© 2021 Dave C. Barrett
 Creating the Project HR
26

Requirements
• Using the Project Schedule, Sophie is able to determine
the types of human resources required and the timing
• Sophie works with a Resource Manager—this is a role
that is present in many organizations—who helps S ee t h
Requ e Project
ireme HR
projects acquire the human resources that are needed Case nt s
Study for the
textb in
• Sophie documents the HR needs in a Project HR ook (C the
h 7)
Requirements document

Acquire the human resources needed to complete the

project.
© 2021 Dave C. Barrett
 27

Project Roles and Responsibilities

• Each team member is listed in the Project Roles

and Responsibilities document along with a S ee t h
e
Respo Project R
detailed description of their role for the project nsibil oles a
for th ities d nd
e Cas o
e Stud cument
textb
ook (C y in the
h 7)

Define the roles and responsibilities of each team member.

© 2021 Dave C. Barrett

 How Will the Project Be
28

Organized?

#1 The Project Roles and Responsibilities document

• As the project team begins to form, it is important for project team

members to know their role and what is expected of them

• This information is documented in a Project Roles and

Responsibilities document

© 2021 Dave C. Barrett

 How Will the Project Be
29

Organized?
#2 The Responsibility Assignment Matrix
• Another planning tool that may be used to clarify the planned
involvement of people is a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)
• A common form of RAM is called a RACI Chart
• RACI stands for four different involvements that a person may have:
• R—Responsible
• A—Accountable
• C—Consulted
• I—Informed

© 2021 Dave C. Barrett

 The Responsibility Assignment
30

Matrix (RACI Chart)

• The RACI Chart provides useful information to the
people working on the project. For example:
• Maddy will ensure the video is completed (A—Accountable)
• Maddy and Eli perform the work (R—Responsible) S ee t h
• e RAC
Arun, Sophie, and Fatehjit to provide input (C—Consulted) Case I Chart for
S tud y
• Sarah to be informed periodically (I—Informed) textb in the the
ook (C
• h 7)
Chris will not be involved

Define the involvement of team members by defining who is

accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed for the
deliverables of the project.
© 2021 Dave C. Barrett
 How Will the Project Be
31

Organized?
#3 The Project Organization Chart
• Organizations often use Organization Charts to S ee t h
Organ e
demonstrate the structure of the company and the izatio Project
Case n Chart for
S tud y
reporting relationships textb in the the
ook (C
h 7)
• The same is done for projects, particularly very large
and complex ones

Create a Project Organization Chart demonstrating the

organization of the project.
© 2021 Dave C. Barrett
ASSIGNING TASKS TO
RESOURCES
MS Project: Assigning tasks to Resources
References
•Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK guide) (6th ed.). Project Management Institute.​​
•​
•Barrett, D. C. (2021). Understanding Project Management, Second Edition (2nd ed.).
Canadian Scholars Press.​

•Just a moment. . . (n.d.-b).

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/activity-duration-estimates

•Project estimation challenges. (2018, October 24). EduPristine.

https://www.edupristine.com/blog/project-estimation-challenges
Week 6 Deliverables

• Quiz #4
• Applied Learning: Group Assignment #1 due
• Midterm Grades are due, so make sure you finish
work on time this week!
 Thank you!
Thank you!

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