1. Project proposal development and writing
Project Planning: time and effort planning
Day 3 Session 3

2. Calculating project inputs
Here are the essential characteristics of a project that are in a project plan
You cannot change one of these without affecting one or both of the others
Duration
The time, or how long it takes to complete a task or activity
Effort
Made by people in the project team
Calculated in time spent (person-days)
Total effort = total number of person-days spent working on the project activities and management
Both determine a big part of the costs of the project
Important to estimate these accurately in the proposal
EXTERNAL CONSTRAINTS
COST
TIME
The essential characteristics of a project are represented in a project plan. These can be summarised as a triangle (in which the angles represent cost, time and performance) circumscribed by regulatory (or external) constraints.
As with any triangle, you cannot change one angle without affecting one or both the others. For instance, the timescale of your project cannot be changed without affecting either cost or performance or both. Projects are also planned and implemented against a background of risk as well as external constraints.
We have already dealt with how to measure project progress or performance using monitoring and evaluation based on measurable indicators. Now we focus on the practical questions of calculating the project inputs necessary to achieve objectives and complete the activities on time, and within budget.
For a project proposal it is important to get these calculations right (as accurate as possible), because if you underestimate either the effort required, or the time it will take to complete an activity, your costs are likely to change and the funding you requested in your proposal could prove to be inadequate.
There are two kinds of time in a project: effort is calculated in person-days; duration is calculated in elapsed time. Having broken down the work into packages and identified main tasks you need to think about how long each of them might take (in days, weeks, months) and how much effort they might require (in person-days, person-weeks, person-months). These two concepts of duration and effort are often confused because the basis for calculating them both is usually the same – how long will the work take to complete. It might take, for instance, one member of staff working alone on a task six days to complete the work: that would be six days in elapsed time and six days of effort. However, if two members of staff are deployed to work together on the same task it should only take three days to complete it – the duration of that task will then have been three days in elapsed time, but still six days in terms of effort.
PERFORMANCE
21/09/2018

3. Duration: how long will it take
Some tasks are based on units: for example, there are a known number of books to be catalogued (each book is a unit)
The time taken for each unit can be measured and multiplied by the total to give likely duration
Other tasks are activity-based, that is the task is a single unit and it takes as long as it takes: for example, developing a questionnaire survey, running the survey and writing a report.
Experience will tell you how long it takes
Sometimes it is very difficult to estimate duration accurately.
Some tasks are unit-based, for instance, there is a known number of books to be catalogued; the time taken for each unit can be measured and multiplied to give the likely duration of the task.
“Be realistic – say that a working day is eight hours and it takes 15 minutes on average to catalogue a book. It does not follow that one person can catalogue 32 books in a day! That would allow no time to take their coats off, talk to colleagues about the awful journey they have had, make a cup of coffee (and other essentials) or to think about what they are doing, answer queries from the enquiry desk or discuss a classification number with their boss. In calculating how long tasks take most planners assume between 60% and 70% efficiency – so it is more reasonable to expect our cataloguer to get through around 20 books in an average day.”
Other tasks are activity-based, that is the task is a single unit and it takes as long as it takes. Experience will tell you how long it takes to develop and pilot a questionnaire or to write a report. Sometimes it is very difficult to estimate duration accurately.
MacLachlan, Liz. Making project management work for you. (The successful LIS professional series; edited by Sheila Pantry). London, Library Association Publishing, ISBN
21/09/2018

4. PERT formula: calculating duration
Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
Work out for each task:
O – the most optimistic estimate of time
L – the most likely estimate
P – the most pessimistic estimate
Duration will be
(O + [4 x L] + P) / 6
BUT task may be split up over a period of time
So time to complete may be longer than actual duration
Questionnaire survey example
Task: to develop and pilot the survey (one person)
O = 8 days
L = 15 days
P = 20 days
Duration will be
(8 + [4 x 15] + 20) / 6 = 14.6
This gives you your effort calculation as well
Here effort and duration are the same ONLY if the work is done in one continuous piece and not split up over a period of time
Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
So if you think it will probably take 15 days to analyse the replies of a questionnaire, but if you work hard it might take only 8, but on the other hand, if something else crops up it might take 20 – then the likely duration is (8 + [4 x 15] + 20) / 6 or 14.6 days.
This gives you a basis for calculating effort as well as duration
21/09/2018

5. Effort Routine & unit-based tasks Complex, activity-based tasks:
devoting more members of staff to the task will directly affect how long it takes to complete in elapsed time (duration)
Complex, activity-based tasks:
Maybe only one person has right skills so dividing work up between people will adversely affect quality
May need several staff at different levels of seniority (and cost) contributing small amounts of time
If the task in hand is a fairly routine and repetitive one then the more members of staff that can be devoted to it will directly affect how long it will take to complete in elapsed time. E.G if our cataloguer can get through around 20 books in an average day and there are 200 books to catalogue it will take her 10 days to do the lot: if you want them done in less time (duration of task) then put two cataloguers on the job full-time and it will take 5 days to complete.
However, this may not always be true with more complex, activity-based tasks: they may be tasks that only one person has the skills to do; dividing the work up between a number of different people may have an adverse effect on the quality of the work.
You may also have several staff, at different levels of seniority (and therefore attracting different costs) contributing small amounts of time to a task during its implementation.
21/09/2018

6. Example: estimating effort (1)
Tasks to develop and run a survey
Decide on the purpose and what you want to ask
Develop a set of questions and pilot or test them
Refine questions and design the survey
Identify sample of survey respondents
Send out the questionnaire survey to the sample and monitor returns
Analyse the resulting data
Write the report
21/09/2018

7. Example: estimating effort (2)
Task
1. Decide on purpose and what you want to ask
2. Develop set of questions and pilot or test them
3. Refine questions and design online survey
4. Identify sample of respondents
5. Send out survey to the sample and monitor returns
6. Analyse resulting data
7. Write the report
Senior managers
Middle managers
Administrative staff
Total effort 3
4.5 5 6
30.5 1 2
0.5 2 2 1 2 3 5 2 4
0.5 4
Total person days 2 14 15
21/09/2018

8. Scheduling
Staging: projects tend naturally to fall into stages, for example
Feasibility
Development
Testing & appraisal
Milestones: critical points for review of progress against a plan (and payment points)
Sequencing: ordering work packages (and tasks within them) so dependencies & overlaps are clear and logical
Three important aspects to scheduling: dividing the project into stages, identifying key milestones and getting the work in the right sequence.
Work packages and tasks are not necessarily totally sequential in time: several work packages and several tasks may be implemented at the same time, using resources and/or staff. For example, a Work Package ‘User research and consultation’ could be going on at the same time as another, focused on the ICT capabilities of Library staff, called ‘Staff training needs analysis and planning’.
Equally, some work packages may not be able to start until other have finished – dependencies
21/09/2018

9. Scheduling and elapsed time
Duration tells us how long a task might take
BUT it does not tell us how long the whole project will take
Total time from start to finish is elapsed time
The timetable must build in delays of 3 kinds:
Slack time to allow for reflection and overrun
Lead time between tasks that are dependent on each other
Lag allows for time for things not under your control to happen
Lead time, for example –
if you are decorating a room you will need to let the paint dry before you hang the paper.
Some tasks may overlap and some may have an inbuilt lag – you need to allow time for the questionnaire survey to be completed by the sample surveyed before you can start to analyse the results.
21/09/2018

10. A simple Gantt schedule chart
 Tasks
June
July
August
September
October
November
1. Decide on the purpose and what you want to ask
2. Develop a set of questions and pilot or test them
3. Refine questions and design the survey
4. Identify sample of survey respondents
5. Send out the questionnaire survey to the sample and monitor returns
6. Analyse the resulting data
7. Write the report
Named after Henry Gantt, an industrial engineer, who apparently invented scheduling in the early 20th century
There is dependency between tasks 2 and 3, 3 and 5
Tasks 3 and 4 overlap without any dependency
There is lag between 5 and 6
21/09/2018

11. A complex GANTT chart
21/09/2018

12. You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
21/09/2018