Time Management Personal and Project

Why is it important Time management is directly relevant to Project Management If we cannot manage our own time effectively, how can we expect those working for us to manage theirs? Good time management requires Planning – goal settings and time allocation Estimation – setting time allocations based upon experience and knowledge Monitoring – collecting data to determine if things are progressing as they should be Responding – changing priorities and resource allocations if required Planning and Monitoring your own time will help to develop your Project Management Skills

Working Assumptions Future activities will follow similar patterns of effort as past activities These activities can be grouped into different categories Productivity on a given category of task will be consistent (may be a slight increase over the long term) The amount of work you can achieve in a given week will be consistent and can therefore be planned Many exceptions to the patterns can be foreseen so you can take action if you know you have a week off on the horizon (holidays for example)

How is time managed Collection of detailed information on time usage Summarising the data for planning purposes Producing well documented plans Monitoring and reacting to deviations from the plan (short-term) Reviewing the planning process as a whole (long-term)

Analysing the use of time Work must be grouped at a sensible level for effective analysis These groups must not be too small Too much data for the whole project to managed effectively Not enough useful information for future planning Or too big Not enough data to produce realistic tracking of the project Information at too high a level (of abstraction) to be useful for future planning If in doubt, it is better to over-plan in the beginning, this can then be amalgamated into higher level categories of work activity if necessary The categories and level of planning may well be different on different types of project Experience is key to this process Experience can only be gained by making and recognising our mistakes

Identify regular goals Set regular goals which will allow a quick and easy review of progress Identify what will need to be done to achieve these goals in the given period of time available Identify the importance and urgency of goals Importance is measured by the worth of achievement (to you or to other goals) The urgency is about timing, urgent things need to be done by a very specific time if they are to be of any use Classify goals (tasks) by their importance and urgency ImportantNot Important UrgentSubmitting latest assignmentWatching tonight's News Not UrgentGetting a jobGoing Swimming

Analysing the collected data Collecting data on time management can be tedious, but it is a necessary step in effective time management For personal work patterns this may be a choice that you decide not to make For Project Management, this is an imposed activity which must be done What to look for in the data? Have stated objectives been achieved on time? Where is most time spent? What can you identify as wasted time? Are you surprised by any of the information? Are you spending enough time on the important tasks Do you procrastinate (put off important or difficult tasks)

Logging your use of time DateStartStopInterruption TimeDurationActivityCommentsCompleted?Size Start, Stop and Duration - the times you started and stopped the activity. Interruption - the total time lost due to interruptions – this can be very important Activity - the descriptive name for the task. Comments -a more complete note on what you're doing, the type of interruption, or anything that would be useful when you later analyse the time data. Completed - tick this if the task is fully completed. Size - a measure of the size of a completed task (in units relevant to that task e.g. lines of code, chapters of a book). The last one is really important – it is very useful for planning future work

Interruptions Can help you identify patterns of disruption These can lead to efficiency problems which have serious effects on work patterns These disruptions can very often be removed or reduced If you are disrupted regularly at home when doing work, agree some ground rules with family about how long you will work and that you are not to be disturbed during this time In work environments it may be useful to have time slots in the day when certain types of work (the interruption types) are not handled or responded to

Summarise the Information Information recorded at the daily level is unlikely to be of much use (too detailed and too much of it) Summarise to a higher level, a week, a month, a day over a given period, or per category of task After a few months the information may begin to show some patterns It may be possible to reduce the effort spent in data collection and analysis (i.e. do it less frequently, but still do it)

A Weekly Summary Summarise the daily work done on different types of task Determine if the proportions of activity are appropriate for the objectives you have set Week Commencing: Task Daily Total Sun Mon. Tue. Wed. Thur. Fri. Sat. Task Totals Task - Enter the names of the principal tasks on which you spent time Columns - For each day of the week, calculate the total time spent on each task from the time recording log. Enter this number in the appropriate column for that day. Weekly totals - Add up the numbers for each task for the entire week Totals - For each row, total the task times to give the daily total in the right-most column

Summary Period Times and rates Used for tracking and analysing time spent over the longer term Indicates long-term productivity Min, max etc help future estimations (better than a single figure) The data comes form the Weekly Summary Sheets Complete a new one every week Task: Total Time Avg. Max. Min. Number of weeks - the number of weeks covered by the summary data. It is one more than the previous week. Total - calculated by adding this week's total for each column (task) to the period total for that column for last week. Average - calculated by dividing the total in each column by the number of weeks in row Maximum - Found by comparing for each task the maximum for last week with this weeks time Minimum - Found by comparing for each task the minimum for last week with this weeks time. Enter the smaller non- zero number Total Number of weeks:

Measuring Size The units of size by which tasks are measured is important and depends upon the nature of the task Some examples Report – number of pages Program – lines of code Web Site – number of pages Essay – word count Must take into account the difficulty and complexity of the task also May have to split categories up e.g. Producing web pages may be split into Static Pages (simple) and Dynamic Pages (complex) This sort of information helps to improve estimation

A Job Log A record of planned and actual time on a specific task or activity Helps future planning Information should be available from time log forms Job Number DateCategory EstimatedActual To Date (for this category of task) TimeSizeTimeSizeRateTimeSizeRate Max Min Description:

Summary Planning With reference to previous similar tasks, estimate size and complexity of the new task From your previous productivity on similar tasks, estimate the time required for the new task Adjust the estimate to take into account special features Performance You should monitor your performance making use of summary charts to show the proportion of time you use Use job logs to monitor your performance on specific tasks. An analysis of the use of time against your objectives should help you to find ways to improve your performance.