PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL

PROJECTS AND MANAGEMENT

Project: series of related jobs usually directed toward some major

output and requiring a significant period of time to perform.
Project Management: planning, directing, and controlling resources
(people, equipment, material) to meet the technical, cost, and time
constraints of the project.

Projects can be vary in size and complexity.

The common factor of all projects is a clearly defined aim and a start and a
finish.
Most people have been involved in projects.

THE STEPS IN TYPICAL PROJECTS

THE MAIN SKILLS REQUIRED FROM A PROJECT MANAGER:

People management skills

Ability to follow problems down to a level of detail

Communication skills

Drive ands energy, with a optimistic outlook

TYPICAL PROJECT ORGANIZATION

Organizational and planning skills

Goal orientation and customer focus. The project manager must have
a very strong will
Good technical knowledge covering many disciplines
Change orientation. Every project introduces change and the project
manager must be an advocate of change and be able to introduce this
successfully into the organization.

NETWORK ANALYSIS

The activity network can be drawn, knowing the tasks and the
relationship between tasks.

SOME IMPORTANT LAWS NEED TO BE OBSRVED WHEN DRAWING

AND ANALYZING AN ACTIVITY NETWORK:

The network must not contain loops. Loops are a repetition of activity
and they will be repeated endlessly, never leading to the final event.

The network should not have any dangles. Dangles are the events
that go nowhere. It can be avoided by the use of dummy activities as
shown in light line.

In an activity network an event cannot be completed until all the

activities leading to it have been completed.

In an activity network an activity cannot start until its tail event has
been completed.

Many computer based programmes exists, which enable large activity

network to be drawn and analyzed.
The use of these networks has several advantages:

THE MAJOR STEPS IN CREATING AN ACTIVITY NETWORK FOR A

PROJECT:

The objectives of the project must first be clearly defined and

understood by everyone working on the project or affected by the
outcomes of the project.
The project is broken down into major work areas or group.

The tasks, or activities, needed to complete each sub-projects are

defined.

The time needed to complete each task is estimated, along with the
resources needed.

They force management to think logically about the objectives and

tasks of a project. The tedious work of completing the network is then
done by a computer.

They show critical activities and enable management to focus on

these.

The process of creating an activity network requires a multidepartmental input and this builds up a better understanding of
interdepartmental tasks and encourages teamwork.

The activity network enables what-if analysis to be done, in order to

study the impact of changes.

It provides an ongoing project record. It gives a method for

progressing tasks and determining the effects of slips sa they occur
and of plan changes.

FINDING THE CRITICAL PATH

A project manager needs to determine the critical activities within any

project

Parameters used to described activities:

Formulae for determining activity parameters: