Project Management

Dr. Roopali Srivastava

Learning Objectives

• Project Management

• Necessity of Project Management

• Project Planning Methods

• Network Modelling

• Project Crashing

• Project Team Management

Projects
› Project: A series of related jobs usually directed toward some
major output and requiring a significant period of time to
perform.

› Projects are one-time occurrences

› Project management - planning, directing, and controlling

resources (people, equipment, material) to meet the technical,
cost, and time constraints of the project.
Types of projects
Necessity of Project Management
› discussion
Network planning models
Network diagram - arrows & circle/square that depicts the planned
relationships between the activities
AON notation – activities are represented by square /circle with arrows
linking them together to show the order in which they must be
performed in a project

Techniques - AON (activity on node)

AOA notation - Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM) or Activity on arrow
(AOA) network or the I-J method.
• Each arrow consists of 2 Nodes. (from node & to node)
• Arrows represent Activities
• Nodes in the network represent Events

Techniques - Activity on arrow (AOA) network

Advantage
› Estimate the duration of project
› Better visibility of work
› Helps identifying critical activities
› Helps in tracking the status of projects
› Better co-ordination
Critical Path method

CPM
› helps to find minimum time required to complete the project
› Identify the sequence of tasks to be performed
› Helps in identifying the precedence relationship between the
various task in a project
Activity Description Predecessor
A Identify topic -
B Research A
C Paper Draft B
D Edit Paper C
E Prepare C
Presentation
F Final Draft D
G Finish Presentation E
H Finish F, G
ES, EF, LS and LF
▪Early start date (ES) – the earliest times that the activity can start
▪Early finish date (EF) – the earliest times that the activity can be
finished (adding duration to the early start date)

▪Latest start date (LS) – latest times the activities can start
without delaying the project
▪Latest finish date (LF) – latest times the activities can finish
without delaying the project
Slack / Float
Slack – for an activity is the time between its earliest and latest
start time, or between its earliest and latest finish time.
› difference between the late and early start times of an activity.

Total Slack - amount of time that an activity can be delayed past its
earliest start or earliest finish without delaying the project.
› a) Draw the network diagram
› b) Draw and indicate the Critical Path
› c) Find the Project Duration Time, Early Start and Finish Times, Latest Start and Finish
Times
TIME
IMMEDIATE
ACTIVITY ESTIMATES:
PREDECESSORS
TIME (WEEKS)

A - 8
B A 12
C A 4
D B 2
E B 8
F D 2
E, F
G 3

H C,G 2
I H 2
J I 2
 TIME
IMMEDIATE
ACTIVITY ESTIMATES:
PREDECESSORS
TIME (WEEKS)
A - 8
B A 12
C A 4
D B 2
E B 8
F D 2
G E, F 3
H C,G 2
I H 2
J I 2
Networking Terminology
Activity
› must be completed in order to finish the project
› Consumes resource & time
› Definite start and end date

Critical path
› Longest path of interrelated activities
More on terminology
▪Early start date – the earliest times that the activity can start
▪Early finish date – the earliest times that the activity can be finished
(adding duration to the early start date)
▪Latest start date – latest times the activities can start without
delaying the project
▪Latest finish date – latest times the activities can finish without
delaying the project
Forward pass
› ES + Duration = EF

Backward pass
› LF – Duration = LS

› Slack
–LS – ES or LF- EF
 IMMEDIATE TIME ESTIMATES:
ACTIVITY CPM ACTIVITY
PREDECESSORS TIME (WEEKS)

Design A - 21
Build prototype B A 5
Evaluate
C A 7
equipment
Test prototype D B 2
Write equipment
E C, D 5
report
Write methods
F C, D 8
report
Write final report G E, F 2
▪ Determine the Critical Path
▪ Calculate early start and early finish; Late start and late finish
▪ Calculate slack on activities
Program evaluation and review technique
› CPM with Three Activity Time Estimates
› When activity times vary, a single time estimate may not be reliable
– Instead, estimate three values
▪ Optimistic
▪ Pessimistic
▪ Most likely

› Estimated activity time is calculated using a weighted average of an

optimistic, pessimistic and most likely time estimate.
PERT method calculations

 a = Optimistic time
 m = Most likely time
 b = Pessimistic time a + 4m + b
ET =
6
 ET = Expected time
Gantt Chart – Planning and Tracking Projects
Project crashing
Crashing refers to the compression or shortening of the time to
complete the project –
- By adding resource
▪ trade-offbetween the time required to complete an activity and
the cost (direct and indirect).
▪ Focus - minimum-cost scheduling
 Questions!