FINAL NOTES FORM 5

CHAPTER 4: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Competences:
 Explain the concept of a project.
 Explain project management terms: earliest start time, earliest finish time, slack time, lag time, float
time, milestone, event, task, critical task, etc.
 Outline project management tools, techniques and models
 Use project management tools to facilitate the execution of projects: Gantt and PERT charts

Introduction
A typical project starts with someone having an idea and documenting the idea on paper. Projects usually go
through a number of phase‘s i.e. well-defined beginning, intermediaries and an end. There are classified according
to size and duration whereby:
 Medium projects have a small size and small time
frame.
 Small projects have duration of more than one month.
 Large projects have duration of more than one year.
The duration of a project is determined by its complexity. A project starts when at least one of its activities is
ready to start. A project is completed when all of its activities have been completed. A project should have some
deliverables for ease of monitoring.
Often program and project are used interchangeably, but nominally, a program is a larger concept than a
project. A Program is a set of related Projects. Example the space shuttle program consists of many flights which
are each separately managed projects. This chapter is focused on PROJECTS.

1. Definitions
A project is a planned process to achieve a specific objective through a well-defined set of activities, budget
and time frame.

Project Management (PM) is a combination of techniques, procedures, people, and systems focused on the
successful completion of a project. It is also a discipline that will support the planning, implementation, tracking,
and control of projects.
Project management program permits the user to identify tasks, task relationships, resources, and time
requirements of a project. The constraints of a PM are: Scope, Time and Budget. The forth constraint is Quality
which is the core of each and every project.

2. Characteristics and resources needed for a project

Characteristics of a project include:
 Well defined and achievable objectives or goals.
 A time frame for which to achieve its goals.
 Resources (types: budget, people, and material & facilities) are efficiently allocated for activities
in the various project phases.
 Project is aimed at satisfying the customers.  Created once and must be sustainable.

Types of resources needed for a project include:

 People
 Facilities
 Equipment
 Money

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 Materials
Examples of projects are:
 Programming computer software or an App or web site.
 Setting a computer network.
 Creating an IS.
 Constructing a bridge, house, and road.  Setting up a business, etc.

3. Concept and/or Notion of Project Planning

Project Planning involves understanding the fundamentals of a project:
 What business situation is being addressed?
 What do you need to do?
 What will you do?
 How will you do it?
 How will you know you did it?
 How well did you do?

4. Duties and Qualities of a Project Manager

A project manager is a qualified individual (or a firm) that directs, supervises, and co-ordinates a project
from beginning to end.
Some duties/activities of a project manager are the following:
 Define the project, set manageable tasks, obtain resources, and build a team and motivate the team
to carry out the work on time.
 Inform all stakeholders of progress on regular basis.
 Asses and monitor risks to the project and mitigate/reduce/diminish/lighten them.
 Be able to adapt to and manage changing conditions.

Qualities of project manager are:

 Strong leadership ability.
 Ability to develop people.
 Excellent communication skills.
 Contract management skills.
 Problem solving and time management skills.  Creative and critical thinking.

A project team is a group of professionals committed to achieving common objectives, who work well
together and who relate directly and openly with one another to get things done i.e. action performed by a team
towards a common goal. A team consists of more than one person each of whom typically has different
responsibilities and they success is the responsibility of all the members.

Team working is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. Recent development in
management jargon outlines TEAM as TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIVES MORE.
Characteristics of effective teams consist of members who have:
 A common purpose and clear goals;
 The necessary skills and resources;
 A common approach to work;
 The willingness to share information;
 Trust and support in each other;
 The willingness to take responsibility for team actions.

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 Benefits of teamwork
 Maximize strength of each member;
 Increase in productivity and product quality and also decrease in the cost of production;
 A balance work load as each member can help each other;
 Can blame your teammate if the project goes bad;
 Encouragement of skills, knowledge sharing and fast learning;  Education of group members on
tolerance and understanding.

 Disadvantages of teamwork
 Never gets enough credit when the project goes well;
 Not all members will have the same strengths and weaknesses;
 Tasks/work not undertaken on time by some members can let the team down;  Conflicts in ideas
can cause tensions and personality clashes can cause issues too;  Opposing views can cause
arguments.
5. Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC)
These are the sequence of steps or phases to be completed when implementing a project and are not a linear
process. In each phase are the project activities that are carried out.

a. Project conception and Initiation:

At this phase the idea is carefully examined to determine whether or not it benefits the organization and a
decision making then decides if the project is feasible. The project manager works with the business sponsor or
the manager who wants the project implemented and other stakeholders. The following are examined in this
phase:
 Analyzing the business needs/requirements in measurable goals.
 Stakeholder analysis including users and support from personnel for the project.
 Financial analysis of the cost and benefits including a budget.
 Project charter (contract) including cost, tasks, deliverable, and schedules. b. Planning and design:

At this stage all project activities and plan charter may be put in writing outlining the work to be performed.
It consists of the following sub-stages:
 Determining how to plan.
 Estimate the resource requirements for the activities.
 Identifying deliverables and creating the work breakdown structure  Select the planning team
 Risk planning.

c. Execution and construction:

In this phase, the project manager knows how many resources and how much budget is needed to work the
project. The project manager then assigns those resources and allocates budget to various tasks and all the teams
are informed of responsibilities. It involves the following process:
 Coordinating people and resources.
 Integrating project activities.
 Performing the project activities in accordance with the project management plan.
d. Monitoring and Controlling:
Project managers compare project status and progress to the actual plan and other necessary actions are taken
to keep the project on track. If the client disapproves or request a specific change, the team must then revert to
the project planning phase and adjust the scope to match the new required deliverables. Its activities include:

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 Measuring the ongoing project activities.
 Monitoring the project variables (e.g. cost, effort, scope) against the project management plan and
the project performance baseline (where we should be).
 Identifying corrective actions to address issues and risks properly (that is how can we get on track
again).

Where we are Where we planned to be?

(Measurement) (Evaluation)

How can we get on track again?

(Correction)

Project maintenance is an ongoing process and it includes continuing support of end-users, correction of
errors, and updates of the software.

e. Completion and finish point:

Here the project manager and project sponsor pull together the project team and those who have an interest in the
outcome of the project (stakeholders) to analyze the final outcome of the project. An evaluation is done to
highlight project success and/or learn from the project. The finish point (closure) is the formal acceptance of the
project. This phase consists of the following sub-stages:
 Finalizing all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phase.
 Completing and settling each contract and closing each contract applicable to the project or project phase.
 Formal acceptance of deliverables by customer
Initiating

Planning

Monitoring and Executing

Controlling
Closing

Major challenges in Project Management

 Unrealistic deadlines.  Bad weather.
 Communication deficit.  Personality conflict.
 Scope change.  Resource competition.
 Misunderstanding and/or Disagreement.  Failure to manage risk.
 Insufficient team skills.
6. Project Management Tools
PM tool is a piece of technology that is used for visually communicating information (e.g. phases, tasks,
resources) about a project. This visualization tool enables project managers to direct and supervise the various
tasks and schedules that are required for completing the project. PERT chart and Gantt chart are the most popular

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project management tools today. They are both used to schedule tasks, keep the project on schedule and ensure
that the timeline is met in accordance with the original project plan. a. PERT chart
The term PERT stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique.
A PERT chart is a project management tool used to schedule, organize, and coordinate tasks within a project. A
PERT chart represents a graphic illustration of a project as a network diagram or flow chart consisting of
numbered nodes (either circles or rectangles) representing events or milestones in the project linked by labeled
vectors (directional lines) representing tasks in the project.

Project managers can use PERT charts to:

 Set a realistic timetable for project completion.
 Make sure focus is maintained on the most critical tasks for the critical path – since the path leads to the
minimum time the project requires, any delays to these tasks will result in a delay to the overall project.
 Identify tasks that need to be shortened if the overall project time needs to be reduced.
 Identify tasks that can be carried out simultaneously.
 Identify slack time where certain tasks are not as time-critical to the overall deadline. i. PERT Node

A PERT node is as follows and is use in drawing the PERT network diagram.

ii. PERT Terminologies

 PERT event: a point that marks the start or completion of one or more activities. Consumes no time and
uses no resources.
 Predecessor event: an event that immediately precedes some other event without any events intervening.
An event can have multiple predecessors‘ events and can be the predecessor of multiple events.
 Successor event: an event that immediately follows some other event without ant other intervening events.
An event can have multiple successor events and can be the successor of multiple events.
Example: consider that you want to paint your room, the first thing you need to do is to remove the layer of
old paint and after that you can start painting. So we have activities as follows:
Activity #1 is removing the old paint.
Activity #2 is painting.
Since activity #2 can only start after activity #1 is done, we call activity #2 a successor and activity #1 a
predecessor.
PERT activity: the actual performance of a task which consumes time and requires resources such as labor,
materials, space, machinery. A PERT activity cannot be performed until the predecessor event has occurred.
Task: this is any activity that consumes resources such as time and manpower.
Super task: one or more activities that no subtask can begin until the super task has begun and the super task
cannot end until all the subtasks have ended.
Examples:
• An OS is a super task because for a computer to work, it must be loaded in the RAM first before
subtasks like Applications software‘s can be able to start.
• In the construction industry, foundation and especially walls are the super tasks for it most start before
other subtasks like piping, wiring, plastering, and painting can be done.

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 Critical task: a task that must be completed on schedule for the project to finish on time.
 Path: a set of sequentially connected activities in a project.
 Critical path: a critical path is a series of tasks that must be completed on time for a project to finish on
schedule. Each task on a critical path is a critical task.
 Lag: describes a delay in the link between a predecessor and a successor task. It tells the logical
relationship between the start and or finish of one activity and the start and or finish of a following activity.
 Lag time: it is the amount of time delay between the completion of one task and the start of its successor
task. A negative value against a lag is known as a lead.
 Slack time: it is the amount of time an activity can be delayed from its early start without delaying the
project finish date. Also known as float time.
 Floating task: a task that can be performed earlier or later in the schedule without affecting the project
duration.
 Lead: a lead is observed when a task that should theoretically wait for its predecessor to finish starts a
little earlier.
 Lead time: it the time that a successor is allowed to start before its predecessor goes to completion.
 Duration (D): it is the number of days (or hours) it will take to complete a task.
 Early Finish date (EF): this is the earliest date that a task can be completed. The EF duration of the last
task(s) is the total duration of the project.
 For any one task, EF = ES + Duration.
 Early Start date (ES): is the earliest date on which a given task can start.
 Effort: it is the number of labor units required to complete an activity or other project element.
 Free Float or Slack Time (FF) or (ST): the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying
the ES date of any immediate successor activity. It can be calculated as follows: FF = LS – ES or FF =
LF - EF
 Late Finish date (LF): is the last date a task can be completed without delaying the project. Equals the
EF of the last task(s).
 Late Start date (LS): is the last date a task can be start without delaying the project. Calculated as follows:
LS = LF – Duration.
 Dependency: a dependency between two tasks says that these two tasks are linked. The most common
kind of dependency is finish-to-start. This means that task A must be finished before task B can start.
 Fast tracking: it is performing more critical activities in parallel.
 Risk: it is an event which has a probability of happening and whose effect may adversely impact the
project.
 Forward pass: is a calculation performed on each task determining its early start date and early finish
date.
 Backward pass: is a second calculation for each task on the project starting on the project finish date and
working backwards to the first task. It calculates the late finish date and late start date of each task.
 Total project duration: it is the length of time the whole project will take, all tasks start to finish as
calculated by the forward pass. It equals the length of the critical path.
 Project finish date: is the number of days a project will finish.
 Milestone: a significant event in the project usually the completion of a major component.
Example 1:

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The following table shows the expected duration of each task. The task dependencies are shown.
Task Description Order Duration
A Produce software specification To be completed first 1 week
B Write test plans Start when A is complete 3 weeks
C Software design Start when A is complete 2 weeks
D Software Code Start when B is complete 3 weeks
E Developer test Start when C is complete 3 weeks
F Software test Start when D and E are complete 4 weeks
a) Construct a PERT chart for the project.
b) Identify the critical path and hence the minimum time to completion.
c) Describe where there is slack time in the system.
d) Construct a Gantt chart for the software development project. Assume that the first task starts
on 17th October 2015.

Example 2:
The following table shows the tasks, dependencies, and estimated times a project manager might input to a
PERT chart for a software development project (estimates are used for illustrative purposes only), and the
calculated Expected Times:
Task Task description Predecessor Optimistic Most Likely Pessimistic Expected
Identifier Task(s) Time(O) Time (M) Time (P) Time (TE)
A Establish project 4 5 12 6
B Establish customer A 2 3 4 3
requirements
C Produce software B 6 8 22 10
specification
documents
D Write test plans C 4 6 8 6
E Write code C 3 4 5 4
F Developer testing E 2 4 6 4
G System testing D, F 2 3 4 3
H Write manuals C 5 7 15 8

Figure 8: Network diagram

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The network diagram is based on the tasks and their dependencies (predecessor tasks). Task A has no
predecessor, and therefore starts the project on the left. Task B has only task A as a predecessor, and is therefore
the next task. The diagram shows that tasks D, E and H (writing test plans, code and manuals) all have task C
(specification) as a predecessor, and can therefore be carried out simultaneously.

Identify the critical path: The critical path is determined by using the estimated times to work out the earliest
start (ES) and finish (EF) times (forward pass), and latest start (LS) and finish (LF) times (backward pass), and
identifying the tasks where ES and LS are equal.
Step1: Forward pass.
This is done by working from left to right across the chart. The ES of task A is week 0, and the EF is 6 since
this is the ES plus the duration (estimated time). The earliest that task B can begin is week 6 (since task A must
be complete) so its ES is 6, and EF is 6 + 3 = 9. Note that task G has an ES of 27 because it is dependent on both
task D and task F being complete first, and the earliest that both tasks will be completed is week 27.

Figure 9: PERT chart representation

Step 2: Backward pass.
Working from right to left, the Latest Finish Time (LF) and Latest Start Time (LS) can be filled in. The final
time is 33 weeks, so the LF of task H must be 33. Because this task (H) has a duration of eight (8) weeks, it means
it has a LS of LF- D  33 – 8 = week 25.
Note that for some tasks, such as Task C, there are different possibilities. To calculate the LF of Task C we
need to look at the latest start times for Tasks D, E and H which are dependent on it. The latest time task C can
finish (LF) must be 19 weeks because Task E has to start at this point.

Step 3: Critical path and slack.

The critical path is identified by finding the nodes where ES = LS. These are nodes for which there is no ‗slack‘
or spare time for a task in the project. The slack is calculated as LF – EF or LS – ES, e.g. Task H has
6 weeks‘ slack, and could be scheduled to start sometime between week 19 and week 25 depending on
factors such as the resources available to a task on the critical path.

b. Gantt chart
A Gantt chart is a graphic display of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a
project. It was developed in 1918 by H.L. Gantt. In a Gantt chart, activities are listed down the left side of the
chart, dates are shown across the top, and planned activity durations are shown on horizontal bars.
It is a tool which enables project managers organizes time, people, equipment, and money. Allows managers
to monitor the progress of a project and ensures the right people and equipment are in the right place and the right
time. It can be created using Spreadsheet.

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The time relation of all tasks to each other (for example, tasks carried out simultaneously) is therefore clearly
apparent in a Gantt chart. Unlike PERT charts, GANTT charts do not show the critical path, however,
dependencies between tasks can be indicated by lines linking tasks.

Figure 10: Example of Gantt chart

Limitations of a Gantt chart

• Does not clearly indicate details regarding the progress of activities.
• Does not give a clear indication of interrelation between the activities.
Example 3: The following table shows the tasks, dependencies, and estimated times a project manager might
input to a basic GANTT chart for a software development project.

Project start date : 12 June 2015

Task Task description Predecessor Time (days)
Identifier Task(s)
1 Establish project - 2
2 Establish customer requirements 1 3
3 Produce software specification documents 2 4
4 Write test plans 3 1
5 Write code 3 2
6 Developer testing 5 2
7 System testing 4, 6 4
8 Write Customer documentation 3 3

Task 1 has no predecessors, and can thus start on 12 June. The Gantt chart shows the task as a box starting on
12 June and finishing on 13 June on the horizontal access. Task 2 requires Task 1 to be completed, and the
duration is three days, so the box covers the dates 14 to 16 June. The line from the finish of Task 1 to the start of
Task 2 indicates the dependency. Note that Tasks 4, 5 and 8 all require Task 3 to be completed, and have no other
dependencies, so these all start on the same date. The chart below show all seven days of the week, but often,
weekend days are excluded.

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Figure 11: Gantt chart representation

7. Difference between PERT chart and Gantt chart

PERT charts focus on the sequence of tasks and their dependencies between one another while Gantt charts
focus on the time required for each task. Other differences include the following:
• PERT chart display critical and non-critical tasks whereas Gantt charts fail to show the critical and non-
critical tasks.
• PERT chart produces more accurate expected time TE. This is because tasks in PERT charts will have three
representative time structures; optimistic time, most likely, and pessimistic. By averaging these times, a
manager can predict the time a task will take to complete more realistically than the single time that Gantt
charts provide.
• Gantt charts are straightforward and are not made for projects which will experience change; while PERT
charts are complex and tolerate great deals of unknown.
• Gantt charts focus on the time required to complete a task whereas a PERT chart focuses on relationships
between the tasks, the sequence of tasks, their dependencies between one another and time.
• Gantt charts handle sequence and duration while PERT charts manage large and complex projects with
variable duration tasks.
• A PERT chart presents information in the form of a flow chart or network diagram while the Gantt chart
presents information in the form of a bar chart.

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