Information Technology Project Management – Week #6 Lecture

Project Time Management

Project Time Management Processes
Planning schedule management is defining the guidelines, processes, and documentation used for project schedule planning, executing, and controlling.  Defining activities involves distinguishing the tasks that project team members must complete to produce the project deliverables.  Sequencing activities are recognizing and recording the connections between project tasks.  Estimating activity resources involves approximating how many project team members are needed to complete project activities.   Estimating activity durations is assessing the quantity of work units needed to complete project activities.  Developing the schedule is analyzing the sequences of project activities, resources required to perform the activities, and estimating activity durations to create the project schedule.  Controlling the schedule involves managing changes to the project schedule.

Figure 1 Project Time Management Summary (Schwalbe, 2015)
Planning Schedule Management
The schedule management plan is developed by the project team by use of expert judgment, meetings, and analytical techniques.   A schedule management plan includes:

Defining Activities
An activity or task is an item of work grouped and sequenced in the work breakdown structure (WBS).  An activity or task has an assigned duration, a cost, and a resource responsible for its completion.
Activities are defined and detailed in the WBS.  Included are supporting comments and explanations of the activities to aid the understanding of the work done to create realistic duration and cost estimates.
Milestones
A milestone is a significant event that normally has no duration.  Milestones are met after many tasks are completed.  Milestones are useful for scheduling and monitoring project progress.  An example of a milestone is when a project’s phase changes from development to testing.
Sequencing Activities
Sequencing activities involve reviewing activities and determining dependencies.  A dependency or relationship is the sequencing of project activities or tasks.  You must determine dependencies to use critical path analysis.
Three Types of Dependencies
There are three types of dependencies.  Mandatory dependencies are inherent to the nature of the work being performed on a project, sometimes referred to as hard logic.  Discretionary dependencies are defined by the project team., sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be used with care since they may limit later scheduling options.  External dependencies involve relationships between project and non-project activities.
Network Diagrams
Network diagrams are the preferred technique for showing project activity sequencing.  A network diagram is a schematic display of the logical relationships among, project activities, or a sequencing of project activities.  Two main formats of network diagrams are the arrow and precedence diagramming methods.

Figure 2 Network Diagram for Project X (Schwalbe, 2015)


Figure 3 Task Dependency Types (Schwalbe, 2015)

Figure 4 Sample PDM Network Diagram (Schwalbe, 2015)
Estimating Activity Resources
Before estimating activity durations, you must have a good idea of the quantity and type of resources that will be assigned to each activity; resources are people, equipment, and materials. 
Consider important issues in estimating resources.

A resource breakdown structure is a hierarchical structure that identifies the project’s resources by category and type
Activity Duration Estimating
Duration includes the actual amount of time worked on an activity plus elapsed time.  Effort is the number of workdays or work hours required to complete a task.  Effort does not normally equal duration.  People doing the work should help create estimates, and an expert should review them.
Three-Point Estimates
Instead of providing activity estimates as a discrete number, such as four weeks, it’s often helpful to create a three-point estimate.  A three-point estimate includes an optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimate, such as three weeks for the optimistic, four weeks for the most likely, and five weeks for the pessimistic estimate.  Three-point estimates are needed for Monte Carlo simulations.
Developing the Schedule
When developing the schedule, the results of the other time management processes are used to determine the start and end date of the project.  The ultimate goal is to create a realistic project schedule that provides a basis for monitoring project progress for the duration of the project.  Important tools and techniques include Gantt charts, critical path analysis, and critical chain scheduling, and PERT analysis
Gantt Charts
Gantt charts provide a standard format for displaying project schedule information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in a calendar format
Symbols include:


Figure 5 Gantt Chart for Project X (Schwalbe, 2015)


Figure 6 Gantt Chart for Software Launch Project (Schwalbe, 2015)

Agile and Time Management
Core values of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development are:

Controlling the Schedule
Controlling the schedule involves knowing the schedule status, and influence factors that cause schedule changes, methods to detect that the schedule has changed, and management of changes when they occur.
Tools and techniques used include:

References
Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

 

If you have any questions about this lecture, feel free to ask them in the 'Ask the Professor' discussion found in Week 1