1Kehk

COMP442 Project Management

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Session Objectives

Planning & scheduling
Work Breakdown Structure
Realistic Estimating
Critical Path

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Project Time Management Processes
Project time management involves
processes required to ensure timely
completion of a project
Processes include:
Activity definition
Activity sequencing
Activity duration estimating
Schedule development
Schedule control
Estimating: Work Breakdown Structure
Project best understood by breaking it down
into its parts
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
powerful tool for doing this (not just a task list)
defines the total scope of the project
fundamental to much of project planning & tracking
Start at top, progressively break work down
(tree structure) into work packages
Roll up the packages for bottom up estimating
Packages give clear work assignments
Sample Intranet WBS
Organized by Phase
Intranet WBS in Tabular Form
1.0 Concept
1.1 Evaluate current systems
1.2 Define Requirements
1.2.1 Define user requirements
1.2.2 Define content requirements
1.2.3 Define system requirements
1.2.4 Define server owner requirements
1.3 Define specific functionality
1.4 Define risks and risk management approach
1.5 Develop project plan
1.6 Brief web development team
2.0 Web Site Design
3.0 Web Site Development
4.0 Roll Out
5.0 Support
Intranet WBS and Gantt Chart
Project 98 file
Intranet WBS & Gantt Chart Organized by PM Groups
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Realistic Estimating (Frame)
Lots of reasons for poor estimates
inexperience, technical problems, changes
optimists, low-balling, politics
Bottom-up cost estimating
rollup the WBS packages
Top-down or Parametric estimating
from experience to complex models

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Realistic Estimating (cont.)
Which technique is better?
ideally use both
early on dont have WBS so must use
top-down
accuracy of top-down depends on
availability/quality of historical data
building complete WBS can be
expensive, but guesses can be even
more costly

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Work Package (Marchewka)
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Deliverables and Milestones
Deliverables
Tangible, verifiable work products
Reports, presentations, prototypes, etc.
Milestones
Significant events or achievements
Acceptance of deliverables or phase
completion
Cruxes (proof of concepts)
Quality control
Keeps team focused
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Developing the WBS
Develop work packages for each of the
phases and deliverables defined in the
Deliverable Structure Chart (DSC)
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Work Breakdown Schedule
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Software Engineering Metrics
Lines of Code (LOC)
Function Points
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Lines of Code (LOC)
Most traditionally used metric for
project sizing
Most controversial
Count comments?
Declaring variables?
Efficient code vs. code bloat
Language differences
Easier to count afterwards than to estimate
The Application Boundary for
Function Point Analysis
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The Mythical Man-Month Frederick Brooks
1. 0ur techniques of estimation are
poorly developed.More seriously,
they reflect an unvoiced assumption
which is quite untrue i.e., that all will
go well.
2. Our estimating techniques
fallaciously confuse effort with
progress, hiding the assumption that
men and months are
interchangeable.
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The Mythical Man-Month Frederick Brooks
3. Because we are uncertain of our
estimates,software managers often
lack the courteous stubbornness of
Antoines chef
4. Schedule progress is poorly
monitored.Techniques proven and
routine in other engineering
disciplines are considered radical
innovations in software engineering
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The Mythical Man-Month Frederick Brooks
5. When schedule slippage is recognized,
the natural tendency (and traditional)
response it to add more manpower. Like
dousing a fire with gasoline,this makes
matters worse, much worse. More fire
requires more gasoline, and thus begins
a regenerative cycle which ends in
disaster.
22Kehk
Brooks Law:


Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it
later.
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Scheduling Tools & Methods
Gantt Charts
Critical Path Method (CPM)
Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT)

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The Project Planning Framework
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Developing a Project Schedule
Base documents
Project charter
start/end dates (tentative), budget
Scope statement
what will be done (& not done)
Activity definitions
develop detailed WBS
plus supporting explanations to understand
all work to be done

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Activity Sequencing
Review activities & determine
dependencies
Mandatory dependencies: inherent in the
nature of the work; hard logic
Discretionary: defined by the project team;
soft logic
External: involve relationships between
project and external activities
Must determine dependencies to use
critical path analysis
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Gantt Charts
Created 1800
Standard format for displaying
project schedules
activities, durations, start/end finish
dates displayed in calendar format
Advantages
enforces planning
easy to create & understand
preferred for summary/exec-level
information
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Gantt Charts (cont.)
Symbols include:
black diamond: milestones
Thick black bars: summary tasks
Lighter horizontal bars: tasks
Arrows: dependencies between tasks
Bar Charts
Simplified version
Serve similar function
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Sample Project Gantt Chart
Sample Tracking Gantt Chart
white diamond: slipped milestone
two bars: planned and actual times
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Critical Path Method (CPM)
Developed 1957
CPM diagram shows activities,
durations, start/end dates & sequence
in which they must be completed
Critical path for project is the series of
activities that determines the earliest
time by which project can be
completed
Critical path is longest path through
network diagram, has least (zero) slack
or float
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CPM (cont.)
Critical path helps you make
schedule trade-offs
Slack or float amount of time
activity can be delayed without
delaying early start of dependent
activities

Simple Example of Determining Critical Path
consider following network diagram
assume all times in days
2 3
4
5
A=2 B=5
C=2
D=7
1
6
F=2
E=1
start finish
a. How many paths are on this network diagram?
b. How long is each path?
c. Which is the critical path?
d. What is the shortest amount of time needed to
complete this project?
Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram
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Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
Activities are represented by boxes
Arrows show relationships between
activities
More popular than ADM method as
used by PM software
Better at showing different types of
dependencies
Task Dependency Types
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Activity Analysis for AON
Activity Description Estimated
Duration
(Days)
Predecessor
A
Evaluate current technology
platform
2 None
B
Define user requirements
5 A
C
Design Web page layouts
4 B
D
Set-up Server
3 B
E
Estimate Web traffic
1 B
F
Test Web pages and links
4 C,D
G
Move web pages to production
environment
3 D,E
H
Write announcement of
intranet for corp. newsletter
2 F,G
I
Train users
5 G
J
Write report to management
1 H,I
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Possible Activity Paths
Possible Paths Path Total
Path 1 A+B+C+F+H+J 18
2+5+4+4+2+1
Path 2 A+B+D+F+H+J 17
2+5+3+4+2+1
Path 3 A+B+D+G+H+J 16
2+5+3+3+2+1
Path 4 A+B+D+G+I+J 19*
2+5+3+3+5+1
Path 5 A+B+E+G+I+J 17
2+5+1+3+5+1
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Critical Path
Longest path
Shortest time project can be completed
Zero slack (or float)
The amount of time an activity can be delayed
before it delays the project
Must be monitored and managed!
PM can expedite or crash
Can fast track
The CP can change
Can have multiple CPs
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Techniques for Shortening a Project Schedule
Shortening durations of critical tasks:
add more resources
change their scope
Crashing tasks by obtaining the greatest
amount of schedule compression for the
least incremental cost
Fast tracking tasks by doing them in
parallel or overlapping them
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PERT
Developed 1959 for Polaris project
Similar to CPM but addresses
uncertainties in task durations
Uses probabilistic time estimates
optimistic, most likely, pessimistic
estimates of activity durations
PERT Formula and Example
PERT weighted average formula:
optimistic time + 4X most likely time + pessimistic time
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Example:
PERT weighted average =
8 workdays + 4 X 10 workdays + 24 workdays = 12 days
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where 8 = optimistic time, 10 = most likely time, and 24 =
pessimistic time

Activity Analysis for PERT
Activity Predecessor Optimistic
Estimates
(Days)
Most Likely
Estimates
(Days)
Pessimistic
Estimates
(Days)
Expected
Duration
(a+4b+c)
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A None 1 2 4 2.2
B A 3 5 8 5.2
C B 2 4 5 3.8
D B 2 3 6 3.3
E B 1 1 1 1.0
F C,D 2 4 6 4.0
G D,E 2 3 4 3.0
H F,G 1 2 5 2.3
I G 4 5 9 5.5
J H,I .5 1 3 1.3
30 days 31.6 days
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Selecting Scheduling Approach
Consider project size, risk and
complexity
Gantt
senior management
smaller, less complex projects
CPM
medium size/complexity/risk
PERT
high risk projects
medium to high complexity

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