Project Management Lecture 16 Project management involves estimating the length of time to complete a project Once a project has been undertaken then a project manager is responsible for carrying out the project on the assigned time table How do the managers establish a time schedule –Generally based on average length of time for each component –Average length of time based on past experience Length of time to complete each step is a random variable

Materials for Lecture 16 Readings Chapter 14 Lecture 16 Short Project Management.XLSX Lecture 16 Project Management.XLSX Lecture 16 Event Management.XLSX Lecture 16 Have Some Fun.XLSX

Project Management Who does project management? –Engineers, managers, accountants –They calculate number of days to completion Generally do not incorporate risk Benefits of incorporating risk into project management analysis –Assign a probability to number of days until project completion –Assign a probability to getting a project done in a fixed timeframe

Project Management KOV for a project management problem is: How long will it take? There is no final answer until project is completed Answer is an unknown PDF of days, weeks, or months to completion Simulation provides a methodology for estimating unknown PDFs Formulate the problem as a Monte Carlo simulation problem

Project Management Model formulation –KOV is “Number of Days” to completion –Identify each task (step) for project –Specify order of each task for the project Identify bottlenecks where tasks will wait on precious stages –Determine the PDFs for number of days (or weeks, months, etc.) to complete each task Rely on experience from past jobs Depend on experts for time to complete each task PDF may be dependent on resources available

Project Management Critical to identify the order of the tasks and their linkages (dependencies), for example: –Task 10 starts after Tasks 5 and 8 are completed –Task 11 starts after Task 10 is completed Thus, Task 5 or 8 could hold up the whole project –If analysis shows 5 is the bottleneck is it worth investing more resources in Task 5 to get the project completed earlier?

Project Management Create a simple Project Network Diagram to summarize the order of tasks Drawn it in Excel with simple arrows and boxes Network diagram shows potential bottlenecks

Project Management Tasks 1-6, 2 and 3 wait on 1, 4 waits on 2, 5 waits on 3 and 4, last task (6) waits on 5 Assumes next task starts day after it predecessor ends Days in column C are GRKS() stochastic

Project Management Finite limit to complete the project is 45 days P(Days>45)=?

Spreadsheet of a Project Management Analysis

Project Management Expanded I like to add a second KOV – Cost We know cost of a project is stochastic So project management model can simulate PDFs for days and cost In the example $/day costs for each task are multiplied by stochastic days

Event Planner Event planner KOVs –Number of days ahead to start planning an event –Cost of the event Research application KOVs –Time to complete a research project –Cost of project Wedding planner –Probability of being ready on time –Cost of the event Banquet planner

Event Planner