Subject: Project Management

Prof. V. B. Khanapuri
Assignment 3: Writing synopsis on an article from
PMJ/IJPM
By
Siddharth Jhala 1402170
Sushant Sudewad 1402226

A review of analytical models, approaches and decision

support tools in project monitoring and control by Oncu
Hazir
International Journal of Project Management-01691
The single most critical factor affecting performance of any
organization is their project management capability. Optimising the
project management capabilities in terms of quantitative factors like cost,
quality and time is the most challenging task all organizations are facing.
The environment in which organizations sustain today is highly
competitive and the desired level of operational excellence cannot be
achieved without optimising project management.
Project management is as efficient as the project manager and hence it all
boils down to the people managing it. People managing project have kept
themselves abreast with latest technologies and trends in the field of
project management. This paper takes a sneak peak into the technological
world which supports these managers in their decision making process. a
project monitoring and control system works to minimize the deviations
from the project plans and consists of identifying and reporting the status
of the project, comparing it with the plan, analyzing the deviations, and
implementing the appropriate corrective actions. The focus of the paper is
in the models and algorithms that these decision support system uses and
which have a direct impact on the project outcome.
Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
EVA is a managerial methodology to monitor and control projects
and it uses monetary units as a common basis to measure and
communicate the progress of a project. EVA uses cost and schedule
variance to measure the progress of the current project and it is also
capable of predicting the total project duration and cost. EVA is more
commonly used to measure project performance however it is a powerful
tool and can help project manager by providing limited-forecasting
solutions as well. EVA is widely used by managers before taking control
decisions. On scrutinizing the author was able to find several drawbacks in
EVA which were no differentiation between critical and non critical
activities, All activities are assumed to be independent, behavioral aspects
of managers is ignored, quality of process and output is left unutilized and
information requirement is high. The author also figured that EVA only
considers two dimensions of project planning and control: time and cost.

However, other performance measures such as technical, operational and

quality specifications could be also critical.
Optimization tools: setting control variables
It is critical to find out the optimal timing and magnitude of project
control activities. For this purpose, operations research (OR) methods such
as simulation, dynamic programming and stochastic optimization are
being commonly applied. Regarding the content and magnitude of control
activities, simulation and optimal control theory have been applied to
model intervening policies and their impacts on project outcomes. By
means of simulation minor and major corrections came into picture, which
refer to short term operational, and ling term strategic decision
respectively. On thorough literature review the author concluded that
there is a need of further studies especially in the field of optimization
models and that their embedding in decision support tools is crucial.
Decision support systems
Decision support systems are useful when we want to do any
decision by combining data and analysing it so that we can create a
model. Decision support systems are used in manufacturing and service
operations for organizing, planning and control. Nowadays most of the
organizations face problem to manage portfolios of projects.
So here we will see which different operations research methods
we can use for planning as well as controlling multiple project
environments. Operations Research helps to solve operational and level
problems in PM, such as scheduling and resource allocation.
Decision support system applications in the literature concentrate
specially on risk analysis and scheduling. In risk analysis planning
techniques are very effective because they help to reduce negative
impact of uncertainty on target of project. Monte Carlo simulation is used
to predict the risk, calculate consequences and to model it. There are
some advantages and disadvantages in using Monte Carlo approach, it is
reviewed by Kwaka and Ingall (2007). There are total four risk analysis
applications. First is to predict project risk and evaluate impact on cost. In
other three Analytical Hierarchy Process , simulation and fuzzy logic is
used.
Existing academic studies modelled projects individually. So
treating multiple project planning as independent single project helps to
get optimum solution. For program management there are very limited
literature available on using decision support system. They mostly used
priority rules, simulated annealing and branch-bound based approximate
algorithm. Also in project management scheduling, rescheduling and
control function are examined separately.
So to cover this supply and demand gap in industry and academics
integration of scheduling theory and risk analysis tools is emphasized.
Project management software and DSS integration

Software support is essential in performing various functions of PM. These

software are mostly used for critical path planning but rarely used for
time, cost trade-off and probabilistic analysis. Most commonly used
software like Microsoft Project has some limitations. They perform worse
compared to scheduling algorithm in the literature. Second mostly used
application of PM software is for risk analysis. In addition to this project
managers need reliable early warning systems but unfortunately most of
current software do not provide this system. In this regard statistical
techniques can be used, but it also has some limitations. The industry
needs model driven decision support system. Hence PM software
integrated with DSS system are necessary.
So the DSS must include following two components:-

1. Analytical model and solution algorithm which includes optimization as

well as simulation. Simulation model should provide activity cost,
duration. In addition to this dynamic programming and optimal control
could be used because of time dependent behaviours.
2. Visual representation is essential for managers. Recently these visual
representations are included in the softwares. Specially for variance graph
and numerical tables. There is growing demand for visual interactive
system so effective visual system which will aid learning are essential.