Project Management

A Managerial Approach

Chapter 5 Project Planning

Its a dream untill you write it down. Then it is a goal

Project Planning

There are several reasons to use considerable care when planning projects:

The primary purpose of planning is to establish a set of directions in enough detail to tell the project team exactly what must be done. The purpose of planning is to facilitate later accomplishment

Initial Project Coordination

It is crucial that the projects objectives be clearly tied to the overall mission of the firm
A project launch meeting is an initial coordinating meeting that serves as a visible symbol of top managements commitment to the project The project launch meetings success is absolutely dependent on the existence of a welldefined set of objectives .

Project Launch Meeting

The outcomes should be:

1. Technical Scope is established 2. Basic areas of performance responsibility are accepted by the participants 3. Some tentative overall schedules and budgets are spelled out Care should be taken to not allow plans, schedules, and budgets to go beyond the most aggregated level at the launch meeting.

Composite Plan

Each individual/unit accepting responsibility for a portion of the project should agree to deliver a preliminary plan about how that responsibility will be accomplished These plans should contain descriptions of the required tasks, and estimates of the budgets and schedules These plans are then scrutinized by the group and combined into a composite project plan

Composite Plan

The composite plan, still not completely firm, is approved by each participating group, by the project manager, and then by senior organizational management Each subsequent approval hardens the plan, and when senior management has endorsed it, any further changes in the projects scope must be made by processing a formal change order

Project Plan

The final approved result of this procedure is the project plan, also known as a Master or Baseline plan
Once planning phase is complete, it is beneficial to hold a post-planning review The major purpose of the review is to ensure that all necessary elements of a project plan have been properly developed and communicated

Project Plan Elements

The process of developing the project plan varies among organizations, but any project plan must contain the following elements:

Overview - a short summary of the objectives and scope of the project Objectives - A more detailed statement of the general goals noted in the overview section General Approach - describes both the managerial and technical approaches to the work

Project Plan Elements

Contractual Aspects - includes a complete list

and description of all reporting requirements, customer supplied resources, liaison arrangements, advisory committees, project review and cancellation procedures, etc.

Schedules - this section outlines the various

schedules and lists all the milestone events

Resources - this includes the budget (both capital

and expense requirements) as well as cost monitoring and control procedures

Project Plan Elements

Personnel - this section lists the expected personnel

requirements of the project including special skills, training needs, and security clearances

Evaluation Methods - every project should be

evaluated against standards and by methods established at the projects inception. It contains a brief description of the procedures to be followed in monitoring, collecting, storing and evaluating the history of the project.

Potential Problems - this section should include any

potential difficulties such as subcontractor default, technical failure, tight deadlines, resource limitations and the like. Preplanning may avert some crises

Project Planning in Action

Project plans are usually constructed by listing the sequence of activities required to carry the project from start to completion, and developing an action plan to complete the activities This helps the planner decide the necessary sequence of things Sequencing is a necessary consideration for determining the project schedule and duration

Project Planning in Action

Software and hardware developers commonly use a planning process oriented around the life cycle events:

Concept evaluation Requirements identification Design Implementation

Test

Project Planning in Action

Software and hardware development planning process (cont.)

Integration

Validation
Customer test and evaluation Operations and maintenance

Systems Integration

Systems Integration is one part of integration management and plays a crucial role in the performance aspect of the project This includes any technical specialist in the science or art of the project who is capable of integrating the technical disciplines to achieve the customers objectives

Systems Integration

Systems Integration is concerned with three major objectives:

Performance - what a system does Effectiveness - achieve desired performance in an optimal manner

Requires no component specifications unless necessary to meet one or more systems requirements Every component requirement should be traceable to one or more systems requirements Design components to optimize system performance, not the performance of subsystems

Cost Systems - cost is a design parameter

Hierarchical Planning System

All activities required to complete a project must be precisely delineated, and coordinated Some activities must be done sequentially, and some simultaneously Using a hierarchical planning system will allow these activities to be identified and sorted appropriately Also know as the even planning process

Sorting Out the Project

The importance of careful planning can scarcely be overemphasized Pinto and Slevin developed a list of ten factors that should be associated with success in implementation projects The factors were split into strategic and tactical clusters

Sorting Out the Project

Strategic Success Factors:

Project Mission - spell out clearly defined and agreedupon objectives in the project plan
Top Management Support - it is necessary for top management to get behind the project at the outset, and make clear to all personnel involved that they support successful completion

Projects Action Plan - detailed plan of the required steps in the implementation process needs to be developed including all resource requirements

Tools for planning

Work Break Down Structure Responsibility matrix

The Work Breakdown Structure

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) can take a variety of forms that serve a variety of purposes The WBS often appears as an outline with Level I tasks on the left and successive levels appropriately indented The WBS may also picture a project subdivided into hierarchical units of tasks, subtasks, work packages, etc.

A typical model of WBS Proj.goal Obj 2 Obj.1 task2-1 task1-1 act1-1-1 act1-1-2 act1-2-2 task1-2 task2-2 task2-3

act2-1-1
Act1-2-1.

Act2-2-1.
act2-2-2

act2-3-1
act2-3-2

act1-1-3

act2-2-3

The Work Breakdown Structure

The WBS is an important document and can be tailored for use in a number of different ways

It may illustrate how each piece of the project contributes to the whole in terms of performance, responsibility, schedule, and budget It may list the vendors or subcontractors associated with specific tasks It may serve as the basis for making cost estimates or estimates of task duration It may be used to document that all parties have signed off on their various commitments to the project

The Work Breakdown Structure

General steps for designing and using the WBS:

1. Using information from the action plan, list the task breakdown in successively finer levels of detail. Continue until all meaningful tasks or work packages have been identified 2. For each such work package, identify the data relevant to the WBS. List the personnel and organizations responsible for each task. 3. All work package information should be reviewed with the individuals or organizations who have responsibility for doing or supporting the work in order to verify the accuracy of the WBS

The Work Breakdown Structure

General steps for designing and using the WBS (cont.):

4. The total project budget should consist of four elements: direct budgets from each task; an indirect cost budget for the project; a contingency reserve for unexpected emergencies; and any residual, which includes the profit derived from the project
5. The project master schedule integrates the many different schedules relevant to the various parts of the project

Items 1-5 focus on the WBS as a planning tool but it may also be used to monitor and control the project

The Work Breakdown Structure

Items 6 and 7 focus on the WBS as an aid to monitor and control a project:

6. The project manager can examine actual resource use, by work element, work package, task, up to the full project level. The project manager can identify problems, harden the estimates of final cost, and make sure that relevant corrections have been designed and are ready to implement 7. The project schedule may be subjected to the same comparisons as the project budget. Actual progress is compared to scheduled and corrective action can be taken

Exercise
John just graduated from a local university and joined his fathers company as executive V.P, Operations. Dad gives him a project. 20% of the companys sales come from sale of above ground swimming pool kits. They do not install the pools. John has to find out whether or not they should get into that business. John has decided to personally estimate the cost to company of setting up the pool and then calling some competitors to see how much they charge. That will tell him if it is profitable. Johns WBS looks like this-

Pool installation WBS

Work tasks Prepare grd surface

Clear Rake Level Sand bottom 1

Labour hrs(estimate) 2.67

1/3 1 1/3

Lay out pool frame

Bottom ring Side panels Top Ring 1 1

2.50

Add plastic liner Assemble pool Build wooden support

Layout Assemble 1 2

0.50 1.66 3.00 2.00 -------12.33

Fill and test

Total

Based on 12.33 labor hrs. at $15 per labor hr., total cost came out to $185.00. John found that on average his competitors charged $229 to install a similar pool. John thought he had a winner. Since he had never assembled a pool himself, he decided to increase the budget by 10%, just in case. Is his projection reasonable ? What other aspects can be considered?

Benefits
1. Gives people responsibility for a manageable part of the project 2. Facilitates control activities , as individual parts can have their consumption of resources tracked 3. Facilitates the financial aspects like budget cost etc

Drawbacks
Destructive situations can arise when improvements in one area upset the running of another. people try to optimize their own part of the project & lose the holistic view of the project.

Responsibility matrix
It is a format which shows work package for a functional position

RESPONSIBILTY MATRIX

V.P Establish project 6 plan Define WBS Establish H/w specs Establish s/w specs Establish mfg specs
1 Actual Responsibility 2 General Supervision 3 Must be consulted

GM PM Mgr1 Mgr2 2 5 2 2 2 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 1 4 4 3 3 4 1 1

4 May be consulted 5 Must be notified 6 Final approval

Ques-Project Management in Practice

Task 5 C is the critical, pacing task of a rush project. Fred always nitpicks anything that comes his way, slowing it down, driving up costs, and irritating everyone concerned. Normally Fred would be listed as Notify for task 5C on the responsibility matrix, but the PM is considering forgetting to make the notation on the chart. Is this unethical, political or smart management?

Interface Coordination through Integration Management

The most difficult aspect of implementing a project is the coordination and integration of the various elements of the project The intricate process of coordinating the work and timing of all inputs is called integration management Interface coordination is used to denote the process of managing this work across multiple groups

Approaches to Interface Management

Recent work on managing the interface focuses on the use of multifunctional teams (MT)
There is general agreement that MT has a favorable impact on product/service design and delivery Successfully involving cross-functional teams in project planning requires that some structure be imposed on the planning process

Approaches to Interface Management

A different attack on the problem is defining and mapping all interdependencies between the various members of the project team

Rather than mapping interfaces on the firms organizational chart, instead it maps the interdependencies directly Does not ignore the value of the WBS, action plan, or PERT/CPM networks, but simply uses interface maps as a source of the coordination requirement to manage the interdependencies