1. Project Management Concepts1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2. Project, Defined
A project is an endeavor to accomplish a specific objective through a series of tasks/activities.
A project consumes resources.
A project produces a tangible deliverable.
A project has a customer & target market. 7 7 5 7 5 5 5 5 5

3. Six Primary areas of project management
Providing leadership and vision
Planning and organizing the project
Organizing and managing the project team

4. Six Primary areas, Cont.
Estimating costs and developing the project budget
Monitoring and controlling the project schedule
Ensuring the quality of the final result

5. Providing leadership and vision
Develop the project vision
Why are we undertaking this project
What is it expected to achieve
How do the members of the team relate to each other
What standards of conduct are expected
How are coordination and cooperation achieved

6. Providing leadership and vision, cont.
Share the project vision
Instilling a vision requires frequent and continual communication with the project team

7. Planning and organizing the project
Estimate the size of the project
Define project milestones
Develop a detailed list of tasks
Assign resources to tasks
Develop and maintain a project schedule
Developing a Baseline Plan is an essential part of project management.
In essence, the plan is a roadmap.
Unforeseen circumstances may jeopardize achievement of the project objective.

8. Organizing and managing
Recruiting and obtaining staff for the team
Cross-functional teams are essential in the early phases of a project.
Who are the project’s stakeholders?
Prepare a team charter
Assigning team members to work groups and tasks
Ensuring that team members are well trained

9. Organizing and managing, cont.
Ensuring that groups develop into effective work teams
The challenge facing the project manager is to prevent, anticipate, and/or overcome unforeseen circumstances by using high performance teams.

10. Estimating costs and developing the project budget
Two of the most difficult tasks
Ongoing for the life of the project

11. Monitoring and Controlling Projects—comparing actual to predicted
Tracking progress using the schedule and defined milestones
Maintaining an open items control log
Understanding and utilizing corrective procedures carefully
Implementing consistent status review and communication techniques
Managing client expectations

12. Ensuring the quality of the final result
Validate to ensure that the system meets the user requirements
Verify to ensure that the system is internally consistent and correct
Walkthroughs validate diagrams against user requirements and ensure consistency
Testing validates the system

13. Project Objective
Prior to developing a project plan, justify the need for a project and define the project objective.
The objective must be:
Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Relevant
Time bound
The project objective is usually defined in terms of scope, performance, schedule and cost. 5 5 4 5 4 5 4 4 4

14. The Baseline Plan Clearly defines the project objective.
Determine the specific tasks that need to be performed using the Work Breakdown Structure.
Create relationships among the tasks. Determine predecessors and PERT chart. 22 22 16 22 16 16 16 16 16

15. The Baseline Plan (cont.)
Determine the resources needed and how many. Make a time schedule and cost estimate.
Communicate this baseline plan in a Gantt chart. 8

16. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
A task/activity is a piece of work that consumes time.
The WBS is a hierarchical tree of end tasks/activities to be accomplished.
A work item is one small piece of the project.
A work package is the lowest-level item.
Responsibility is assigned at the work package and work item tasks. 7 7 5 7 5 6 5 5 5

17. Responsibility Matrix
Displays in tabular format the individuals responsible for the work items.
Used for team “resource leveling” in ensuring a fair distribution of work.
“X” can be used to indicate who is responsible.
“P” indicates who has primary responsibility.
“S” indicates who has secondary responsibility.

18. Preparing the PERT chart – Sequencing Tasks
Ask the following questions regarding each activity:
Which activities must be finished immediately before this activity can be started?
Which activities can be done concurrently with this activity?
Which activities cannot be started until this activity is finished?
MS Project will create both PERT and Gantt charts.

19. Project Scheduling
It is necessary to select an estimated start time and a required completion time for the overall project.
Relate these times to the project objective, contracts (RFP) & resources available.
Be aggressive since people work up/down to expectations. 8 8 6 8 6 7 6 6 6

20. Activity Duration Estimates
The first step in allocating time to each task is to estimate how long each activity will take.
The duration estimate is the total elapsed time for the work to be done PLUS any associated waiting time.
The person responsible for performing the activity should help make the duration estimate. 7 7 5 7 5 6 5 5 5

21. Schedule Calculations
Once you have an estimated duration for each activity and an overall window, you must determine whether the activities can be done by the required completion date. 10 10 7 10 7 8 7 7 7

22. Schedule Calculations
A project schedule includes:
the earliest times (or dates) at which each activity can start and finish, based on the project's estimated start time (or date)
the latest times (or dates) by which each activity must start and finish in order to complete the project by its required completion time (or date)

23. Scheduling Outcomes
Critical Path – the series of tasks that must be completed within duration in order to not delay the project.
Alternate definition—the longest path through the tasks of a project, which identifies the earliest possible completion date.
Slack Time – a task whose start time can be delayed without affecting the required completion date.

24. Controlling the Project
A regular reporting period should be established. Reports are produced which document the following:
Data on actual performance
Information on any changes in scope, schedule, and budget
Keep in mind:
Data should be collected in a timely manner and used to update the schedule and budget
Compare updated schedule and budget to the baseline and analyze 15

25. The Baseline Plan Keep in mind:
Projects overrun their budgets, miss completion dates, or only partially satisfy their technical specifications because there is no viable baseline plan.
The people involved in performing the project should participate in planning the work; they are most knowledgeable.
Customer satisfaction increases in proportion to involvement in the baseline plan. 11