Materials for Lecture 19 Readings Chapter 14 Lecture 19 Short Project Management.XLS Lecture 19 Project Management.XLS Lecture 19 Event Management.XLS

Project Management 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

Project Management Who does project management? Engineers, managers, accountants They calculate number of days to completion They do not incorporate risk most times 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 Use past performance to estimate parameters for PDF of days for each task 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 Project Network Diagram to summarize the order of tasks Can be drawn 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 waits on 5 Assumes new task starts the next day Days in column C are GRKS() stochastic

Project Management

Spreadsheet of a Project Management Analysis

Event Planner Event planner KOVs Research application 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 Banquet planner

Event Planner