Project management Week 3 DB Dominic Rweyendera ID: 15785421 Devi Vallabhaneni, (2009) the publisher of What Your MBA

IQ? stated that estimating is an art and a science. Projects are managed by breaking down to different activities and allocate times to complete each activity. This process is refers to work breakdown structures or WBS, (NetMBA.com). The time allocations however are based on estimates and for this reason, project managers are unsure of it accuracy, especially when uncertainty is unavoidable. So what methods project managers can apply to improve the accuracy of project task duration estimates? Lyneis and Ford, (2007) indicates that system dynamics has successfully been applied to project management. The authors stated four models structure of system dynamicists in project management. The following are the structures system dynamicists have applied to modeling projects: Project features, a rework cycle, project control and ripple and knock-on effects. In their arguments, they described the four structures as: 1. Project features project is a sequence of unique, which must be completed by a specific time Wysocki, (2012). For this reason, it start by collection of activities/ and or tasks. These tasks are interdependence. Lyneis and Ford, (2007) argument is that a system dynamics project model represents the development of project tasks as sequence of activities. The developments of these tasks start by defining to need to be done and follows till the project reach it completion phase. The management of resources is also futures of projects which system dynamic models represents 2. Rework cycle. I my own opinion, System dynamics project models play an important in project life cycle. The authors stated that the rework cycle is a repetition of activities in projects and this can generate problems throughout the project life cycle and thus have significant challenges in project management. 3. Project control. For any project to be successful, it has to have some form of control system in place. As the old saying goes if you cant control, you cant manage. This effort requires getting feedback and uses it to control the process. To this end, the authors argued that system dynamicists have focused on the information processing of project managers. Project managers need to have control over their project life cycle in other to meet the deadline. For this reason, they are forced to take actions like adding resources. Whatever actions they took to meet the deadline, in Lyneis and Ford, (2007) view, system dynamic project models can be applied to successfully manage the project control to meet the deadline. 4. Ripple effect. In project management some tasks or activities are dependent on one another. For example, in project management body of knowledge, start-to-finish refers to logical relationship that exits between project activities. Simply put, to initiate succeeding schedule task will dependent entirely on the prior finishing of task on a work that directly precedes it. Another example of ripple effect can be found in economic activities whereby an individual

spending reduction can have impact on others and their ability to spend. An activity between project performance and target, in Lyneis and Ford, (2007) view, this can have an impact. They have argued that in project, system dynamicists can be used to modeled ripple effect and knock-on feedbacks. Based on the above and my own understanding from Lyneis and Ford, (2007) research paper; I will conclude that system dynamic model can play an important role in project management in regards to the improvement of the accuracy of task duration estimates. Rodrigues and Bowers, (1996) have supported the premise. In their interesting article, they looked at the relationship between traditional project management models and the system dynamics models. Traditional approach claimed that it each task or activity in project can be understood, the entire project would be controlled. Rodrigues and Bowers contradicted this claim based on the fact in traditional method; the work breakdown structure is too complex. The argued that the system dynamic approach focuses more on the entire project

References: (2008). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK Guide. Newtown Square, Pa. Lyneis, J.M, & Ford, D.N., (2007). System dynamics applied to project management: a survey, assessment, and directions for future research. 23 (23), SummerAutumn, pp. 157189. Rodrigues, A. & Bowers, J., (1996). The role of system dynamics in project management. International Journal of Project Management, 14(4), p.213-220. Vallabhaneni, D. (2009). Whats Your MBA IQ? : a manager's career development tool. Hoboken, NJ. John Wiley & Sons Wysocki, R.K. (2012) Effective project management: Traditional, adaptive, extreme. 6th ed. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.