Project Management

What is a Project?

One Time Effort

Identifiable Start/End Points

Specific Objectives

Multiple Tasks

Resources from Across the Organization

Risk and Uncertainty

Responsibility

Personnel Roles

Project SponsorOverall responsibility

Champion

Gives approvals

Project Team LeaderDay-to-day responsibility to get project done

Directs the team in the process of the project

Individual ContributorContributor of unique expertise

Responsible for specific tasks

4 Stages of Design Phase

High-Level Design

Detailed Design

Implementation

Testing & Integration

4 Stages of Design Phase

High-Level Design Customer Requirements (Input from Customers) Functional / Performance Requirements Block Diagram (Functional Blocks / Interface) Bill of Materials Equipment / Tool List HW / SW / Interface / Mechanical Specifications Test Plan Budget

Detailed Design

Implementation Testing & Integration

4 Stages of Design Phase

High-Level Design

Detailed Design Mechanical Design & Simulation

Electrical Design & Simulation

Software Design & Simulation

Performance Analysis

Implementation

Testing & Integration

4 Stages of Design Phase

High-Level Design

Detailed Design

Implementation Building Mechanical Parts & Assembly Electrical Hardware Physical Implementation Software Coding Build Interface connectors / cables

Testing & Integration

4 Stages of Design Phase

High-Level Design

Detailed Design

Implementation

Testing & Integration Unit Functional Test

Unit Performance Test

Reliability Test

System Integration

Integration Test

Project Time Management

• Activity Sequencing and Network Diagrams

• Activity on Arrow (AOA) Network Diagrams

• Precedence Diagram Method (PDM)

• Gantt Charts

• Critical Path Method (CPM)

• GanttProject Tool

10

Activity Sequencing and Network Diagrams

• Review activities and determine dependencies of project activities or tasks

• Determine dependencies in order to use critical path analysis

• Network diagrams are used for showing activity sequencing

• A network diagram is a schematic display of the logical relationships among, or sequencing of, project activities

11

Network Diagrams

Two popular network diagrams:

• Activity on Arrow (AOA) network diagrams or Arrow diagramming method (ADM)

• Project network diagrams or Precedence Diagram Method (PDM)

11

Activity on Arrow (AOA) Network Diagrams

• Also called Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)

• A network diagram in which activities are represented by arrows

• ADM is used for scheduling activities in a project plan

• Precedence relationships between activities are represented by circles

connected by one or more arrows

• The length of the arrow represents the duration of the activity

• ADM only shows finish-to-start relationships, meaning that each activity is

completed before the successor activity starts

• Sometimes a "dummy task" is added, to represent a dependency between

tasks, which does not represent any actual activity. Such a dummy task often

has a completion time of 0

Activity on Arrow (AOA) Network Diagrams

14

Activity on Arrow (AOA) Network Diagrams

Project Network Diagrams

• Also called Precedence Diagram Method (PDM)

• A visual representation technique that depicts the activities involved in a project

• Communicate the flow of project execution

• Identify missing activities: When an activity is not identified, it’ll never be done.

• Identify dependencies: Each activity is dependent on some other activity. When a dependency is not identified, the project will be delayed until such a time that identification occurs

• Identify critical activities: Certain activities have a greater impact on project schedule than others. This is known as the Critical Path Method (CPM)

• Create a project schedule: The final goal is to create a practical and robust project schedule.

Project Network Diagrams• Task Dependency types

Project Network Diagrams

18

Gantt Charts• Gantt charts provide a standard format for displaying project

schedule information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in a calendar format

• Symbols include:

– Black diamonds: Milestones

– Thick black bars: Summary tasks

– Lighter horizontal bars: Durations of tasks

– Arrows: Dependencies between tasks

Gantt Charts• Microsoft Project

20

Milestones of Gantt Charts• Milestones emphasize accomplishments for large projects• Create milestone by entering tasks that have a zero duration

21

Critical Path Method (CPM)• CPM is to predict total project duration

• A critical path for a project is the series of activities that determines the earliest time by which the project can be completed.

• The critical path is the longest path through the network diagram and has the least amount of slack or float

• Slack or float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date

22

Critical Path Method (CPM)

23

Critical Path Method (CPM)• Three main techniques for shortening schedules:

– Shortening the duration of critical activities or tasks by adding more resources or changing their scope

– Crashing activities by obtaining the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least incremental cost

– Fast tracking activities by doing them in parallel or overlapping them

24

GanttProject Tool• GPL-licensed (free software) Java based, project management

software that runs under the Windows, Linux and Mac OS X

• Download: http://www.ganttproject.biz/

• Handbook: http://www-mdp.eng.cam.ac.uk/web/CD/engapps/project/ganttproject.pdf

• Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rHCSa5ad34&feature=youtu.be

25

GanttProject Tool

Action Items• Create your network diagram

• Create a Gantt chart for your project

• Due day: 10/03/2014, Friday