Unit 4 Part 1

ACTIVITY PLANNING

OBJECTIVES OF ACTIVITY PLANNING

FEASIBILITY ASSESSMENT:-

It checks whether the project is possible with in the required timescales & resource constraints. RESOURCE ALLOCATION:What are the effective ways of allocating the resource to the project. when should the resource be available? --Investigate the relationship between timescales & resource availability.

 Detailed costing:-how much the project

cost & other expenditures --After producing Activity plan we can obtain more detailed estimates of cost & their timings. Motivations:-provide targets monitor achievements against targets

 Coordination:-When do the staff in

different departments need to be available to work on a particular project? --When do the staff need to be transferred between projects.

Ultimate goal of activity planning

They emphasis on completing project in

a minimum time at an acceptable cost One effective way of shortening project duration is to carry out activities in parallel.

Project schedule
Before work commences on a project

,plan must be developed to show dates when each activity should start & finish. Once plan has been refined to this level of detail we call it a project schedule. Creating a project schedule consist of four stages.

Stages
1)Decide what activities need to be

carried out & in what order they are to be done. 2)Create a Ideal activity plan where each activity taken without resource constraint. ideal activity plan is subject to risk analysis

 3)Resource allocation:-expected availability of

resources might place constraint on when certain activity is carried out. 4)schedule production:-once resources has been allocated to each activity --the schedule is drawn up & publish which indicate plan starting & completing dates

PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES

Defining activities Identifying Activities

1)Activity based approach 2)Product based approach 3)Hybrid approach

Defining activities
Project is composed of interrelated activities Project may start when at least one of its

activities is ready to start Project will be completed when all of activities have been completed If an activity have a clearly defined start & end point then marked by the production of a tangible deliverables.

 The duration of activity must be

forecastable assuming normal circumstances & reasonable availability of resource Some activities require that others are completed before they can begin called precedence requirements.

IDENTIFYING ACTIVITIES
THE ACTIVITY BASED APPROACH

--consist of creating a list of all activities that project is thought to involve --WBS (Work break down structure)involve identifying the main tasks has been required to complete a project & then breaking down into lower level tasks

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HYBRID APPROACH
Structures activities

& products

THE PRODUCT BASED APPROACH

Consist of producing product

breakdown structure & product flow diagram. PFD indicates for each product which other product are required as input.

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Sequencing and scheduling activities

While sequencing the tasks we must consider

the dependencies among activities and schedule them Scheduling and sequencing is based on the availability of the staff and the resources. A bar chart may be used for representing scheduling and sequencing.

Network planning models

These techniques model the projects

activities and their relationships as a network. For example:- CPM (critical path method), PERT (program evaluation review techniques). Both of these techniques used an activity-on-arrow approach.

Activity on arrow approach

Use to visualize the project as network

where activities are drawn as arrows joining circles or nodes which represent start & end of an activity. ACTIVITY ON NODE APPROACH Activities represented as nodes, links represented as precedence network (sequencing)

Formulating a Network model

First stage in Creating a network model is to

represent the activities and their interrelationships as a graph. In activity-on-node we do this by representing activities as nodes (arrowed lines) in the graph- the nodes (circles) representing the events of activities starting and finishing. The steps in formulating network model are: Constructing precedence networks Representing lagged activities Labeling conventions

Constructing precedence networks

Rules for construction: A project network should have only one start node Only one end node A node has duration Links normally have no duration Time moves from left to right No loops in a network No dangles in the network

A dangle
Design Program Install Program

Code Program

Test Program

Write user Manual

 Resolving the dangle

Design Program

Code Program

Test Program

Install Program

Sign-off

Write user Manual

Representing lagged activities

We might come across the situation where we wished to undertake two activities in parallel so long as there is a lag between the two Build prototype Test prototype Revise specification

1 Document amendments

Hammock activities
They are activities which in themselves,

have zero duration but are assumed to start at the same time as the first ham mocked activity and end at the same time

Labelling conventions
One of more common conventions for

labeling nodes Divide the node circle into quadrants use those quadrants to show earliest date, latest date, Event slack (difference between earliest & latest finish date)

Adding time dimensions

The critical path approach is concerned

with two primary objectives: Planning the project in such a way that it is completed as quickly as possible & Identifying activities where delay in their execution will affect overall end date of project.

The method requires that for each activity we have an estimate of its duration. The network is then analysed by carrying out a forward passto calculate the earliest dates at which activities may be started & completed. Backward pass:-to calculate latest date at which activity may be started & finished without delaying the end date.

Assignment 2
Explain with example forward pass &

backward pass.

Identifying the critical path

Critical path:-there will be at least one

path through the network that defines the duration of the project .This is known as critical path Any delay to any activity on this critical path will delay the completion of whole project

Significance of critical path

In managing the project, we pay

attention to monitoring activities on the critical path so that effects of any delay can be corrected at the earliest.

Activity float
Its a measure of how much the start &

completion of an activity can be delayed without affecting the end date of the project. Free float:-time by which activity can be delayed without affecting subsequent activities

Shortening the project duration

If we want to shorten the duration of

project. We will apply more resources to task, working overtime ,procuring additional staff.

Part-2
RISK MANAGEMENT

What is Risk
Uncertain event or condition that if it

occurs has positive or negative condition on project objectives. Key elements of Risk follows:It relates to the future-risk involves speculating about future events. Involves cause & effects

Categories of Risk
Project Risk:-are those could prevent

achievement of objectives given to the project manager & project team. Business Risk:-Economic downturn or import of cheaper alternative products

Sociotechnical model of Risk

ACTORS

STRUCTURE

TECHNOLOGY

TASKS

 ACTORS-refer to all people involved in

the development of application. Includes various department specialists, user groups, managers with different responsibilities. Example:-if developer builds software components & leave before testing, team member taking over that component find lack of familiarity with software make correction of faults difficult

 TECHNOLOGY:-consist of both

technology used to implement application & embedded in the delivered products. STRUCTURE:-describe management structure & system structure. TASKS:-work to be carried out is called tasks

FRAME WORK DEALING WITH RISK

Risk identification Risk analysis prioritization Risk planning Risk monitoring

RISK IDENTIFICATION
Main approaches for Risk Identification Use of check lists Brainstorming

CHECKLISTS
They are simply lists of the risks have

been found to occur regularly in software development projects Creators of checklists also suggest potential counter measures for each risk. If manager identifies risk ,he can use counter measures to cope with them.

BRAIN STORMING
Representative of main stakeholders

can be brought together ,and a plan is drafted. It is used to identify the possible solutions to the problem. All stakeholders have a meeting and risk in the projects are discussed.

CASUAL MAPPING
One way of identifying possible threats

to the success of a project & measures that might eliminate & reduce them is the use of casual mapping. Casual maps & diagrams represent chains of causes & effects that will influence outcomes in particular area ifactivity

Casual map of problem area

Low staff turnover In-Experienced staff High -low productivity Deadline Met-missed

Stableunstable environment

Uncertain-certain user requirement

Heavy mgmt pressure

Casual map of problem area with solution

Low staff turnover In-Experienced staff prototype High salaries Stableunstable environment Uncertain-certain user requirement High -low productivity Deadline Met-missed

Heavy mgmt pressure

Risk Assessment
Problem with risk identification is lists of

risk is endless. Risk assessment is distinguishing more damaging & likely risks. This can be done by risk exposure for each risk using formula risk exposure=(potential damage X(probability of occurrence)

Risk planning
Now the task is to deal with identified

risks Risk acceptance Risk avoidance Risk reduction & mitigation Risk transfer

Risk acceptance
This is do nothing option. We would decide that damage inflicted

by some risk would be less than cost of action.

Risk avoidance
Some activities are so prone to

accidents that it is best to avoid them If u are worried about crocodiles then dont go into the water When Manager will decide to avoid the risk he will buy an off the shelf components.

Risk reduction & mitigation

If a risk is identified to reduce possible

departure of staffthen reduce by providing them bonus, Risk reduction attempts to reduce likelihood of risk occurring. Risk mitigation is action taken to ensure that impact of risk is lessened when it occurs.

Example
Taking regular backups of data storage

would reduce impact of data corruption but not its likelihood

Risk transfer
Risk is transferred to another person or

organization With software projects example would be where a software development task is outsourced to an outside agency for a fixed fee.

Risk management
Contingency In a project of 10 people one fall ill then

this kind of risk needs a contingency plan . The manager will draft another member to cover that work

Evaluating risk to schedule

We use PERT technique Use to evaluate the effects of

uncertainty PERT require three estimates Most likely time Optimistic time Pessimistic time

 Most likely time --The time we would

expect the task to take under normal circumstances ,denoted by:-m Optimistic timeshortest time in which we could expect to complete the activity, denoted by a. Pessimistic timeworst possible ,denoted by b te=(a+4m+b)/6

Pert technique use three steps to calculate probability of meeting & missing the target

example
Activity A has optimistic time(a)=5

Pessimistic time (b)=8,most likely(m)=6,T(target date)=10 S=(8-5)/6=0.5 te=(5+4(6)+8)/6=6.16 z=(10-6.16)/0.5=7.68