Unit 5

Project Mangement
Project Network Analysis
Project analysis is the process of examining the
aspects of a project in details. This is mainly to see to
it that the project runs as expected and is also within
the predefined budget.
 THE BENEFITS OF PROJECT ANALYSIS


Determines Feasibility of a Project

Not all projects may serve the purpose intended. Some may be viable, but may still fall short in other
areas. It is through the analysis of projects that their suitability is determined. This can, therefore,
determine whether the project is worthwhile or not.

Aids in Budgeting

As already stated, projects cost money. They must, therefore, operate within the predefined parameters
and budgetary constraints. The analysis ensures that the projects run within the stipulated budgets. This
is because it identifies any inconsistencies and enables them to be dealt with timely.

Improves Project Planning and Scheduling

It is through the process of project analysis that any issues that may hinder the smooth implementation
of projects are identified and dealt with. Once these issues are dealt with, the planning and scheduling
of projects can now go on smoothly.

Detects and Mitigates Risks

All projects are subject to several risks such as poor design, poor implementation, pilferage of resources,
and so on. Through analysis, these issues are identified and dealt with appropriately. This way, they are
prevented from worsening and inflicting further damages.

Expedites the Monitoring and Evaluation of Projects

At the end of a project, an assessment is often carried out to ascertain the efficacy of the project as well as
whether it has indeed lived to its purpose. By carrying out analysis from time to time, the process of
assessing the project later becomes easier.
Critical Path Method CPM
PERT
Advantages of PERT
Here are several benefits of using PERT in project
management:
It helps maximize the use of resources.
It makes project planning more manageable.
It’s useful even if there is little or no previous schedule
data.
It enables project managers to better estimate or
determine a more definite completion date.
Disadvantages of PERT
Like any other method, PERT comes with its share of limitations:
In complex projects, many find PERT hard to interpret, so they
may also use a Gantt Chart, another popular method for project
management.
It can be tedious to update, modify, and maintain the PERT
diagram.
It entails a subjective time analysis of activities and, for those
who are less experienced or are biased, this may affect the
project’s schedule.
 
 PROJECT CRASHING
Project crashing is when you shorten the duration of a project by reducing the time
of one or more tasks. Crashing is done by increasing the resources to the project,
which helps make tasks take less time than what they were planned for. Of course,
this also adds to the cost of the overall project. Therefore, the primary objective of
project crashing is to shorten the project while also keeping costs at a minimum.
Just as the triple constraint says, if you reduce the duration of the project, or its
time, then costs will in turn have to increase. It’s a trade off. Crashing project
management accounts for the triple constraint, in that to achieve it, you include
additional resources or reduce the project requirements or scope. However, such
drastic measures cannot be implemented without the sponsor or primary 
stakeholders agreeing to the changes.
A result of project crashing can be a change to the critical path and the emergence
of a new, different critical path. Project crash management requires that you return
to your project schedule to make sure you’re aware of changes that have occurred
there because of the project crashing.
 Project Crashing Management Stages
 Once you’ve made the decision to use project crashing, there are some steps you’ll want to follow to get
the results you want.
 1. Critical Path
 The first thing to do is analyze the critical path of your project. This will help you determine which
tasks can be shortened to bring the project to a close sooner. Therefore, if you haven’t already, calculate
your critical path, see which tasks are essential and which are secondary to the project’s success.
 2. Identify Tasks
 Get a list of all the tasks you have, then meet with those who have been assigned to complete them.
Ask if they believe any of the tasks they’re responsible for are in the critical path and can be cut down.
Then, start looking for ways to tighten up those tasks.
 3. What’s the Trade Off?
 Once you’ve narrowed down the tasks in the critical path that you believe can be shortened, start
calculating how much adding more resources will cost. Find the tasks that can be allocated additional
resources, and come in sooner with the least amount of strain on your budget.
 4. Make Your Choice
 When you know what you will have to spend (compared to how much time you’ll save) for each of the
tasks in your critical path, you must now make a decision and choose the least expensive way forward.
Project crashing is not just adding resources to get done faster, but it’s getting the most in return for
that extra expense.
 5. Create a Budget
 Like any project, once you’ve decided on your plan, you have to pay for it. Making a project crashing
budget is the next step in executing your project crashing plan. You’ll have to update your baseline,
schedule and resource plan to align with your new initiative.
 RESOURCE LEVELING
What is resource leveling?
Resource leveling, by definition, is a resource optimization technique that
answers when the project can be finished with the available resources
without overbooking them or spreading them too thin. Resource leveling
will generally aim to distribute work between resources fairly, which not
only contributes to a healthy work environment, but also makes the project
schedule realistic and achievable.
Putting your current bandwidth front and center, resource leveling can
either compress the schedule or loosen it. By making only a few tweaks to
your resource allocation plan, the end date of the project will change, but
that’s okay. What resource leveling is mainly for is to get the idea when the
project can be accomplished without necessarily adding capacity to the
resource pool.
 
“Resource smoothing is a technique that adjusts the activities of a schedule
model such that the requirements for resources on the project do not exceed
certain predefined resource limits.”
The objective of resource smoothing, therefore, is uniform resource utilization,
as it aims to complete the work by the specified date while avoiding ebbs and
flows of resource demand. Most of the time, resource smoothing is used after
resource leveling. It makes sure that people don’t land with a lion’s share of
work after change requests and other project ‘peaks and troughs’ come in from
the stakeholders.
It won’t hurt to repeat that resource leveling is mainly used when your main
constraint is resources. In contrast, resource smoothing is more appropriate
when the time constraint takes the priority, and as the project end date cannot
be changed, it’s more about optimization. Sometimes they are even called
resource-constrained scheduling (RCS) and time-constrained scheduling
(TCS) respectively.
In project management, resource leveling is defined by A Guide to the Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) as "A technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource
constraints with the goal of balancing demand for resources with the available supply."(1)When performing
project planning activities, the manager will attempt to schedule certain tasks simultaneously. When more
resources such as machines or people are needed than are available, or perhaps a specific person is needed
in both tasks, the tasks will have to be rescheduled concurrently or even sequentially to manage the
constraint. Project planning resource leveling is the process of resolving these conflicts. It can also be used
to balance the workload of primary resources over the course of the project[s], usually at the expense of one
of the traditional triple constraints (time, cost, scope). When using specially designed project software,
leveling typically means resolving conflicts of over allocations in the project plan by allowing the software
to calculate delays and update tasks automatically. Project management software leveling requires delaying
tasks until resources are available. In more complex environments, resources could be allocated across
multiple, concurrent projects thus requiring the process of resource leveling to be performed at company
level.
Resource leveling techniques are closely related with critical path calculations. For that reason, total float,
activity sequences and logic of the network diagram effect the required resource quantities per time.(2)
Resource Leveling, called Resource Leveling, is a technique that avoids over-allocation. Resources are taken
from non-critical activities and allocated to critical activities. However, while leveling ensures that
resources are not overestimated, avoiding spikes, the method typically increases project time. Therefore,
cost and time analysis should be done before leveling and rechecked after applying the method.
Resource leveling Techniques
Critical path is a common type of technique used by project managers
when it comes to resource leveling. The critical path represents for
both the longest and shortest time duration paths in the network
diagram to complete the project.
However, apart from the widely used critical path concept, project
managers use fast tracking and crashing if things get out of hand.
Fast tracking: This performs critical path tasks. This buys time. The
prominent feature of this technique is that although the work is
completed for the moment, possibility of rework is higher.
Crashing : This refers to assigning resources in addition to existing
resources to get work done faster, associated with additional cost such
as labor, equipment, etc.(3)