Project Management

Fundamentals

Project Planning

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland
Work Breakdown Structure
Theory

The key principles in brief:

A project is made up of many connected activities. Often, it is hard to

get a clear overview.
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a very important tool that
helps to visualize the activities of a project in a hierarchical form.
Determining the WBS should be one of the first activities in the
planning phase. The WBS will be used at later stages to:

1. Establish the Activity Network

2. Determine the distribution of the work (work packages)

Related concepts:

Deliverables
Activity Network
Activities

Literature:

You’ll find further information about this topic in the following books:

PMBOK® Guide 4ième 5.3 Create WBS

Edition:
5.4 Verify Scope

IPMA Competence Baseline Element 1.09 Project Structures

v3.0:

How to do
How is the Work Breakdown Structure established?
1. Make a list of the most important project deliverables.
2. Often, these deliverables can be further subdivided.
3. Next, the activities required for each deliverable should be listed.

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 4. These activities should then be subdivided into sub-activities.
5. This subdivision process may cease as soon as the following can be achieved:
a. The workload of the activity can be estimated.
b. A budget can be drawn up.
c. The activity can clearly be allocated to a person, a group of people or a
supplier.

Example

For the development of a new machine, the following deliverables were

established:

a) Preliminary studies
b) Production of a prototype
c) Zero series

The "Production of a prototype" deliverable was further broken down into

"Mechanical production" and "Control system development".
The project manager for the "Mechanical production" section and his team
then divided up their part of the project even further.
The project manager for the "Control system development" section and his team also
divided up their part of the project even further.
All members of the project team were involved in dividing up the deliverable for the "Zero
series" section.
This process gave rise to the following diagram. Only the "control" section is fully depicted:

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 3 of 20
Checklist
 Have all of the deliverables of the project been taken into consideration?
 Have the activities involved been defined with sufficient precision?
 Can these activities be easily allocated to a particular person, supplier or group of
people, or does the activity need to be broken down further yet?

Pitfalls
 Not all of the deliverables can be broken down at the outset of the project, because
the available information may still be insufficient. As a result, it is important to
update the WBS at regular intervals.
 A single person should not develop the WBS alone! Establishing the WBS is clearly a
team effort, because it creates a greater understanding of the project as a whole.
 Avoid filing the WBS away in a drawer! All team members should be able to view it in
the project office at any time. Therefore, it would be best to design it in a very large
format, hanging it up in a place where it can be clearly seen.
 Don’t forget to assign WBS-codes: each activity needs to have its own code-number,
known as the “WBS-code”.

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 4 of 20
Network diagram
Theory

The key principles in brief:

 When planning a project, it is essential to know the order in

which the activities will be carried out. Indeed, certain
activities can only be started once others have been
completed.
 In order to fit activities into a logical network (Network
Diagram or Activity Network), you need a work breakdown
structure (WBS). The sequence in which the activities will be
undertaken can be represented in a graph called a Network
Diagram, previously called a PERT-diagram.
 The Network Diagram will also be used to determine the
critical path.

Related concepts:

Critical activity
Non-critical activity
Slack
Work breakdown structure

Literature:

You’ll find further information about this topic in the following books:

PMBOK® Guide 4th Edition: 6.2 Sequence Activities

IPMA Competence Baseline Element 1.09 Project Structures

v3.0: Element 1.11 Times & project phases

How to do
How should the activities be arranged?
In fact, it’s easy! The process consists of five steps:

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 5 of 20
 1. Start off with the activities as they are shown by the work breakdown structure
(WBS).
2. In each case, ask yourself which activities must absolutely be completed before a
new one can be started.
3. Then, draw a rectangle for each activity, placing the name of the activity inside it
and using lines to join it with the activities that must precede it.
4. If this process is carried out together with your team, use “Post-it” stickers for
each activity and stick them onto a flip-chart.
5. Once the Network Diagram is complete, ask yourself if certain activities might be
done, or partially done, simultaneously.

Example
In order to prepare a meal, it is necessary to carry out the following tasks:
6. Go shopping  Grill the meat
7. Set the table  Slice the meat
8. Prepare the vegetables  Serve
9. Cook the vegetables

Checklist
 Have all of the activities represented by the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) been
taken into consideration?
 Have all of the inter-dependency connections been established?
 Could certain activities be done simultaneously?

Pitfalls

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 6 of 20
 If you don’t consider the possibility that certain activities could, in part, be carried
out simultaneously, the timescale of the project will be needlessly lengthened.
 If you don't involve the whole team in the creation of the Network Diagram, the
planning involved will seem alien to them. The entire team has to be included in the
creation of the Network Diagram!

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 7 of 20
Critical path
Theory

The key principles in brief:

 The critical path is a part of the Network Diagram. It

consists of those activities which are essential to the
calculation of the project's duration. It is, by definition, the
longest-duration path.
 The duration of the critical path equals that of the project.
 The activities "on" the critical path are called critical
activities; any delay in these activities automatically
involves a delay in the project as a whole.
 The critical activities have no slack.
 A particular project can have as many as two or more critical
paths. In that case, they will all have the same duration.

Related concepts:

Network Diagram
Critical activity
Non-critical activity
Slack

Literature:

You’ll find further information about this topic in the following books:

PMBOK® Guide 6.2 Sequence Activities

4th Edition:

IPMA Element 1.11 Time & project phase

Competence
Baseline:

How to do
How is the critical path determined?

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 8 of 20
  If you're using a project management software system, the process is simple:
your software automatically calculates the critical path and generally displays it to
you, colored red.
 If you are not using a project management software system, it’s still relatively
easy. You should start off with the Network Diagram, previously called PERT-
diagram.
 The next step is to calculate the duration of all the paths that connect the
beginning to the end of the project.
 The critical path is, by definition, the longest path.

Example
Here you can see a simple project, which consists of the following activities:
 Activity A, duration: 3 days
 Activity B, duration: 2 days
 Activity C, duration: 10 days
 Activity D, duration: 5 days
 Activity E, duration: 7 days
 Activity F, duration: 4 days
 Activity G, duration: 5 days
 The interdependencies between these activities are indicated by the lines
connecting them.
 The critical path is the path joining activities A-C-F-G. It’s the longest-duration
path that links the first activity in the project to the last.

 As is often customary, the critical path is shown in red.

Checklist
 Is there a slightly shorter path than the critical one? If so, it must also be considered
as a critical path: even a slight delay in this path would be enough to make the
critical path fall apart.
 Once you have found the critical path, you can decide to change it. You can even
choose to subdivide the activities once again, so as to make the best use of parallel
activities.

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 9 of 20
  When the project deadlines are quite restrictive, you sometimes have to perform
tasks in parallel that you would ideally perform sequentially. This technique - called
"Fast tracking" - enables you to shorten the length of the project; however, this
technique requires many corrections, frequent fresh starts, and the establishment of
outstanding lines of communication.

Pitfalls
 The critical path is a method of representing a project, and it indicates the activities
within a limited time constraint. Activities can require attention for other reasons,
however. For instance, they may require substantial effort, form a bottleneck,
involve high levels of risk, or their resources may not be guaranteed.
 Some project managers concentrate all their resources on the critical path, thus
tending to forget the other tasks. This is dangerous because non-critical tasks can
quickly become critical.
 If you tell one of your colleagues, “this week you will be working on a non-critical
activity”, there is a strong risk that this colleague will not perform the task as quickly
as he/she should.

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 10 of 20
Planning the resources
Theory

The key principles in brief:

10. Resource planning consists of defining which resources will be

needed, in what quantity and at what stage in the project. It also
means specifying the role of each member of the team throughout
the project.
11. This activity is performed at the same time as the Gantt
diagram: indeed, the availability (or unavailability) of resources
often determines the Gantt diagram.
12. The results are:
 Making sure that the relevant employees will be
available.
 A chart of responsibilities.
 A histogram of the workloads.
 A list of the team member as well as of the main
stakeholders.

Literature:

You’ll find further information about this topic in the following books:

PMBOK® Guide 4th 6.3 Estimate Activity Resources

Edition:
7.1 Estimate Costs

9.1 Develop Human Resource Plan

9.2 Acquire Project Team

IPMA Competence Element 1.11 Time & project phases

Baseline v3.0: Element 1.12 Resources

How to do
How should the resources be planned?
 Determine the workload necessary for the different activities involved in the
project (number of hours or workdays).

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 11 of 20
  Take into account the fact that the team members only spend about 70% of their
overall time on activities linked to the project.
 On this basis, evaluate the number of people/months required.
 Determine approximately the number of people that will be needed for each
month (create a histogram of the resources).
 Discuss and negotiate with line managers in order to obtain the employees you
need, or hire them from outside the company.
 On the basis of this data, create the Gantt diagram for the project. Sometimes, it
is necessary to go through several iterations between the scheduling and the
resource planning.
 Establish a calendar for the participation of each person in the project.

Example
In our company, we wanted to make a certain amount of data
about the company (stocks, references, list of parts, production
planning, etc.) accessible on our Intranet.

After developing a concept and analyzing the activities that have

to be realized, we estimated the total workload to be 1,750
hours. This corresponds, on a basis of 160 hours per month, to
eleven months of work.

Of course, we also took into account the fact that team members will occasionally be
absent for training sessions, illnesses, other meetings, etc. In our company, we work on
the assumption that employees spend an average of 70% of their gross time on a
project.

On this basis, we can calculate the amount of time required as 11 months/0.7, which
amounts to 15.7 months of work (if you take 30% away from 15.7, the answer will again
be 11).

We thus decided to plan 15 man-months, to be distributed as follows over the course of

the project:

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 12 of 20
Once we knew the number of employees needed for this project, we went to negotiate
with the head of the computer department. We explained our problem to him and stated
exactly what skills were needed. He decided to put Paul at our disposal from September
to January, Peter from September to November, Jim from December to January, Ted
from October to December, and John in November and December.

We entered these dates into a resource utilization plan. In this way, we could see at a
glance who was going to work on the project and when.

After selecting team members, we defined the roles and responsibilities for each of them.
If we take the specifications as an example, Peter is responsible for them (R), Paul
participates in establishing them (P), and the project manager (PM) and the client have
to approve them (A).

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 13 of 20
 Many later problems can be avoided by drawing a chart of these roles and
responsibilities.

Checklist
 Did you take into account the possible absence of team members using a coefficient
of 70%?
 Did you make sure that the members of the team will really be available?
 Did you define roles and responsibilities well?

Pitfalls
 Not taking into account the likely absences of project team members.
 Being satisfied with a vague promise from the line manager that he/she will make
the employees available.
 Starting the project with too many team members. The team should grow gradually
over time.
 Not precisely defining the roles and responsibilities of each team member.

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 14 of 20
Gantt diagram
Theory

The key principles in brief:

 In order to create a Gantt Diagram the following

documents or data have to be at your disposal: the work
breakdown structure for the project, the order in which
the activities must take place, and an estimate of the
workload involved for each activity.
 The purpose of the scheduling process is to determine, in
advance, when the different activities in the project will
take place and when the deliverables will be available.
 In other words, the scheduling establishes the date when
each activity begins and the date when each ends.
 In order to be usable, the scheduling should be as close
as possible to the anticipated sequence of events. That is,
the estimates should be realistic and a margin for risk
should be provided.
 The scheduling will act as the basis for the estimation of
staff resources and the drafting of the budget.

Related concepts:

Slack
Milestones
Work Breakdown Structure
Activity Network
Gantt diagram

Literature:

You’ll find further information about this topic in the following books:

PMBOK® Guide 4th 6.5 Develop Schedule

Edition:

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 15 of 20
 IPMA Competence Element 1.09 Project structures
Baseline v3.0: Element 1.11 Time & project phases

How to do
How to schedule a project:
 To schedule a project, you need the following data:
1. The order in which the activities will take place (i.e., the Network
Diagram).
2. An estimate of the duration of each activity.
 After this, proceed as follows:
1. Set the necessary margins (slacks)
2. Draw up the Gantt-diagram
3. Specify milestones
4. Assign the duties (who is to do what)
5. Establish the values to be optimized during the Control Process
If you are not using project management software, it is possible to draw the Gantt
diagram using spreadsheet software, such as Excel. Draw the time axis horizontally, along
with an elongated rectangle for each of the activities in the project. The length of the
rectangle should be equal to the duration of the activity, while the rectangle itself should
be positioned at the exact moment on the time axis when the activity is to take place.

Example
How to schedule a project:

As an example, let’s take a small project composed of a total of six activities. First, let’s
look at the Gantt diagram, as designed with Excel:

If you have a project management software system (such as Artemis Views, Microsoft
Project, Time Line, Primavera, PSN8, Niku, etc.), it will obviously be much easier to draw
the Gantt diagram.

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 16 of 20
Checklist
 Have the margins (slack) been estimated correctly?
 Are the workload estimates correct?
 Is every milestone tied to one or more deliverables?
 Are the milestones measurable?
 Have you confirmed the availability of the required resources?

Pitfalls
 The planning is too optimistic.
 The interdependencies were misinterpreted.
 The resources are not actually available.
 The activities weren’t sufficiently broken down.
 The responsibilities weren’t defined.
 The milestones aren’t objectively measurable.

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 17 of 20
Project plan

Theory

The key principles in brief:

 The project plan records the result of all planning activities

consistently, in the form of a standard document.
 The project plan often acts as a basis for the final decision
of Go / No Go.
 The project plan acts as a guiding principle for the
implementation of the project, records the important
decisions made in the planning phase, and provides a
baseline for project control.
 The project plan often results from several, increasingly
detailed iterations: for example, the first version of the plan
might only contain the quantity of resources needed, while
the final version contains the names of each resource.

Literature:

You’ll find further information about this topic in the following books:

PMBOK® Guide 4th 4.2 Develop Project Management Plan

Edition:
4.3 Direct and Manage Project Execution

IPMA Competence Element 1.04 Risk & oppotunity

Baseline v3.0: Element 1.05 Quality
Element 1.10 Scope & deliverables
Element 1.11 Time & project phases

How to do
How is the project plan established?
First, check that all planning activities have been completed, and that the following related
documents exist:

 Project Goals;
 Intermediate results, deliverables;

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 18 of 20
  Work Breakdown Structure (WBS);
 Activity Network and Gantt diagram;
 Estimates of workload and costs;
 Responsibilities for the individual activities of the WBS;
 Main milestones, with their deadlines;
 Required resources;
 Most significant risks and adequate responses to them;
 Quality plan;
 Open issues.

If the project is small, the individual elements of the project plan might be simplified, but
they shouldn’t be left out completely! Often, for instance, for small projects, no Activity
Network is set up, as a simplified Gantt diagram is sufficient.
The best project plans are designed in such a way that even an overworked manager can
quickly get a clear overview.
The easiest approach is to use the following outline:

 Chapter 1 : Executive Summary (maximum 1-2 pages);

 Chapter 2 : Current situation (needs, problems, initial situation);
 Chapter 3 : Desired situation, goal(s) (requirements, specifications);
 Chapter 4 : Chosen solution (process, technical solution);
 Chapter 5 : Milestones and deliverables;
 Chapter 6 : Detailed plan with Gantt diagram and possibly Activity Network;
 Chapter 7 : Required resources;
 Chapter 8 : Costs, profitability evaluation;
 Chapter 9 : Risk management;
 Chapter 10 : Quality plan;
 Chapter 11 : Open issues;

For a small- or medium-sized project, the individual chapters should be 1-2 pages long at
the most. Additional documents belong in the attachments!

Example
No example is available in this lesson.

checklist

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  Put yourself in the position of the sponsor: does he/she have all of the information
he/she needs for the final Go / No Go decision?
 Has the executive summary been written?
 Has the problem or need been sufficiently specified?
 Have the costs and inconveniences involved in the "zero solution" (i.e., dropping the
project) been detailed?
 Have the deliverables been formulated precisely?
 Has the date for the deliveries to the client been set (drawings, data, partial
elements, etc.)?
 Have the consequences of delays in the deliveries to the client been described?
 Has the availability of resources been verified? Are the contracts with the line
managers ready?

Pitfalls
 Forgetting the executive summary, in which case the project plan might not be
read at all.
 Getting lost in technical details. The sponsor doesn't require details, he simply wants
a basis on which to make a decision.

Copyright © 1996-2012 STS Sauter Training & Simulation SA, Lausanne, Switzerland. Page 20 of 20