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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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?

7. 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

8. 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

9. Project Management

10. Spreadsheet of a Project Management Analysis

11. 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

12. Event Planner