Engr. Jeffrey T.

Dellosa
Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
Center
NORMISIST

WHAT IS A PROJECT?
A project is a unique endeavor to produce a set

of deliverables within clearly specified time,

cost and quality constraints.
Projects are different from standard business
operational activities as they:
Are unique in nature.
Have a defined timescale.
Have an approved budget.
Have limited resources.
Involve an element of risk.
Achieve beneficial change.

Why Projects Fail

Failure to align project with organizational

objectives
Poor scope
Unrealistic expectations
Lack of executive sponsorship
Lack of project management
Inability to move beyond individual and
personality conflicts
Politics

Why Projects Succeed!

Project Sponsorship at executive level
Good project charter
Strong project management
The right mix of team players
Good decision making structure
Good communication
Team members are working toward common

goals

Why Project
Management?
Todays complex environments require
ongoing implementations
Project management is a method and

mindseta disciplined approach to

managing chaos
Project management provides a framework

for working amidst persistent change

Project Management: Official

Definition
Project Management is the skills, tools and

management processes required to

undertake a project successfully.
It incorporates:
A set of skills.
A suite of tools.
A series of processes.

Project management
components

Project Management: Unofficial

Definition
Project management is about
organization

Project management is about

decision making
Project management is about
changing peoples behavior
Project management is about
creating an environment conducive to
getting critical projects done!

Laws of Project
Management
No major project is ever installed on time,

within budget, or with the same staff that

started it. Yours will not be the first.
Projects progress quickly until they become
90% complete, then they remain at 90%
complete forever.
When things are going well, something will go
wrong.
When things just cannot get any worse, they
will.
Project Planning and Implementation.
by Abraham Shtub, Jonathan F. Bard, and Shlomo Globerson Copyright 1994
by Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Laws of Project
Management
When things appear to be going better, you have
overlooked something.
No system is ever completely debugged. Attempts
to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs
that are even harder to find.
A carelessly planned project will take three times
longer to complete than expected
A carefully planned project will take only twice as
long.
Project teams detest progress reporting because it
vividly manifests their lack of progress.

Planning the Project

Planning the Project

The Project Life Cycle
Organizing the Project Team
Project Plans

Planning the Project: The Project Life

Cycle

Stages:
Initiation
Planning
Execution and controlling
Closure

Planning the Project: The Project Life

Cycle
Initiation

Planning the Project: The Project Life

Cycle
Planning

Planning the Project: The Project Life

Cycle
Execution and Controlling

Planning the Project: The Project Life

Cycle
Closure

Planning the Project: Organizing the Project

Team
Project Leader
The Team

Work Methods and Procedures

Work Plan

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Estimating Time Accurately
Scheduling Simple Projects
Gantt Charts Scheduling Projects with

Dependent Stages
Critical Path Analysis and PERT Scheduling
Complex Projects
The Planning Cycle A Planning Process for
Middle-Sized Projects
Planning Large Projects and Programs

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Estimating Time Accurately
Time estimates drive the setting of

deadlines for delivery of projects,

and hence people's assessments of
your reliability.
They often determine the pricing of

contracts and hence their

profitability.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Estimating Time Accurately
Other high urgency tasks to be carried out which will have

priority over this one

Accidents and emergencies
Internal meetings
Holidays and sickness in essential staff
Contact with other customers, perhaps to arrange the next
job
Breakdowns in equipment
Missed deliveries by suppliers
Interruptions
Quality control rejections

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Scheduling Simple Project

Examples might be coordinating delivery of

resources for a workshop session,

implementing a small marketing plan, or
delivering a simple software enhancement.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Sequential and Parallel Activities
An essential concept behind project planning and

Critical Path Analysis is that some activities are

dependent on other activities being completed first.
These dependent activities need to be completed in
a sequence, with each stage being more-or-less
completed before the next activity can begin. We
can call dependent activities 'sequential' or 'linear'.
Other activities are not dependent on completion of
any other tasks. These may be done at any time
before or after a particular stage is reached. These
are nondependent or 'parallel' tasks.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart
Gantt Charts are useful tools for analyzing and
planning complex projects. They:
Help you to plan out the tasks that need to be
completed
Give you a basis for scheduling when these tasks
will be carried out
Allow you to plan the allocation of resources
needed to complete the project, and
Help you to work out the critical path for a project
where you must complete it by a particular date.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart
To draw up a Gantt diagram, follow these steps:
1. List all activities in the plan
2. Head up graph paper with the days or
weeks through to task completion
3. Plot the tasks onto the graph paper
4. Schedule Activities
5. Presenting the Analysis

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart
1. List all activities in the plan
For each task, show the earliest

start date, estimated length of time

it will take, and whether it is parallel
or sequential. If tasks are
sequential, show which stages they
depend on.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart
2. Head up graph paper with the days or weeks
through to task completion
3. Plot the tasks onto the graph paper
Plot each task on the graph paper, showing it
starting on the earliest possible date. Draw it
as a bar, with the length of the bar being the
length of the task.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart
4. Schedule Activities
Now take the draft Gantt Chart, and use it to
schedule actions. Schedule them in such a
way that sequential actions are carried out in
the required sequence. Ensure that dependent
activities do not start until the activities they
depend on have been completed.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart
5. Presenting the Analysis
The final stage in this process is to prepare a
final version of the Gantt Chart. This should
combine the draft analysis with your
scheduling and analysis of resources. This
chart will show when you anticipate that jobs
should start and finish.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Gantt Chart

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
Critical Path Analysis and PERT are powerful

tools that help you to schedule and manage

complex projects.
As with Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis (CPA)

helps you to plan all tasks that must be

completed as part of a project. They act as the
basis both for preparation of a schedule, and of
resource planning.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
The benefit of using CPA over Gantt Charts is that Critical Path

Analysis formally identifies tasks which must be completed on

time for the whole project to be completed on time, and also
identifies which tasks can be delayed for a while if resource
needs to be reallocated to catch up on missed tasks.
A further benefit of Critical Path Analysis is that it helps you to

identify the minimum length of time needed to complete a

project.
The disadvantage of CPA is that the relation of tasks to time is

not as immediately obvious as with Gantt Charts. This can make

them more difficult to understand for someone who is not
familiar with the technique.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
Drawing a Critical Path Analysis Chart
1. List all activities in the plan
2. Plot the activities as a circle and
arrow diagram

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts

1. List all activities in the plan

For each activity, show the

earliest start date, estimated

length of time it will take, and
whether it is parallel or
sequential. If tasks are
sequential, show which stage
they depend on.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
2. Plot the activities as a circle and
arrow diagram
Critical

Path Analyses are presented using

circle and arrow diagrams.

In

these, circles show events within the

project, such as the start and finish of tasks.
Circles are normally numbered to allow you to
identify them.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
Figure 2: Simple Circle and Arrow Diagram

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
Where one activity cannot start until another has

been completed, we start the arrow for the

dependent activity at the completion event circle
of the previous activity. An example of this is
shown below:

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
A different case is shown below

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
Figure 5: Full circle and arrow diagram for the computer

project we are using as an example

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
Crash Action
You may find that you need to complete a
project earlier than your Critical Path Analysis
says is possible. In this case you need to take
action to reduce the length of time spent on
project stages.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
As with Gantt Charts, in practice project

managers tend to use software tools like

Microsoft Project to create CPA Charts. Not
only do these ease make them easier to draw,
they also make modification of plans easier
and provide facilities for monitoring progress
against plans. Microsoft Project is reviewed at
the top of our left hand title bar.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
PERT (Program Evaluation and Review
Technique)
PERT is a variation on Critical Path Analysis that
takes a slightly more skeptical view of time
estimates made for each project stage.
Use the formula below to calculate the time to use
for each project stage:

Planning the Project: Project Plans

Critical Path Analysis and PERT Charts
Critical Path Analysis is an effective and powerful method
of assessing:
What tasks must be carried out
Where parallel activity can be performed
The shortest time in which you can complete a project
Resources needed to execute a project
The sequence of activities, scheduling and timings
involved
Task priorities
The most efficient way of shortening time on urgent
projects.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
A Planning Process for Middle-Sized Projects
Planning using this cycle will help you to plan and
manage ongoing projects up to a certain level of
complexity this will depend on the circumstance.
For projects involving many people over a long
period of time, more formal methodologies and
approaches are necessary .

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
The stages in this planning process are:
1. Analysis of Opportunities:
The first thing to do is to do is to spot what needs
to be done. You will crystallize this into a formal
aim at the next stage in the process.
There are a number of techniques that will help
you to do this:

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
SWOT Analysis
This is a formal analysis of your strengths and weaknesses,

and of the opportunities and threats that you face.

Risk Analysis
This helps you to spot project risks, weaknesses in your
organization or operation, and identify the risks to which you
are exposed. From this you can plan to neutralize some risks.
Understanding pressures for change
Alternatively, other people (e.g. clients) may be pressing you
to change the way you do things. Alternatively your
environment may be changing, and you may need to
anticipate or respond to this.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
2. Identifying the Aim of Your Plan
Once you have completed a realistic analysis of
the opportunities for change, the next step is to
decide precisely what the aim of your plan is.
What do I want the future to be?
What benefit do I want to give to my customers?
What returns do I seek?
What standards am I aiming at?
What values do I and my organization believe in?

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
You can present this aim as a 'Vision

Statement' or 'Mission Statement'. Vision

Statements express the benefit that an
organization will provide to its customers.
Mission statements give concrete expression
to the Vision statement, explaining how it is to
be achieved.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
3. Exploring Options
By this stage you should know where you are
and what you want to do. The next thing to do
is to work out how to do it. The Creativity Tools
section of this site explains a wide range of
powerful creativity tools that will help you to
generate options.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
4. Selecting the Best Option
Once you have explored the options available
to you, it is time to decide which one to use. If
you have the time and resources available,
then you might decide to evaluate all options,
carrying out detailed planning, costing, risk
assessment, etc. for each. Normally you will
not have this luxury.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
5. Detailed Planning
By the time you start detailed planning, you
should have a good picture of where you are, what
you want to achieve and the range of options
available to you. You may well have selected one
of the options as the most likely to yield the best
results.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
6. Evaluation of the Plan and its Impact
Once you have worked out the details of your
plan, the next stage is to review it to decide
whether it is worth implementing. Here you must
be objective however much work you have
carried out to reach this stage, the plan may still
not be worth implementing.
Depending on the circumstances, the following
techniques can be helpful in evaluating a plan:

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
PMI (Plus/Minus/Interesting)

This is a good, simple technique for 'weighing the pros and cons' of a
decision. It involves listing the plus points in the plan in one column,
the minus points in a second column, and the implications and points
of uncertainty of the plan in a third column. Each point can be
allocated a positive or negative score.
Cost/Benefit Analysis
This is useful for confirming that the plan makes financial sense. This
involves adding up all the costs involved with the plan, and
comparing them with the expected benefits.
Force Field Analysis
Similar to PMI, Force Field Analysis helps you to get a good overall
view of all the forces for and against your plan. This allows you to see
where you can make adjustments that will make the plan more likely
to succeed.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
Cash Flow Forecasts

It allows you to assess the effect of time on costs and revenue. It

also helps in assessing the size of the greatest negative and
positive cash flows associated with a plan. When it is set up on a
spreadsheet package, a good Cash Flow Forecast also functions as
an extremely effective model of the plan.
6 Thinking Hats
6 Thinking Hats is a very good technique to use to get a rounded
view of your plan and its implications. It provides a context within
which you can examine a plan rationally, emotionally,
optimistically, pessimistically and creatively.

Planning the Project: Project Plans

The Planning Cycle
7. Implementing Change

Once you have completed your plan and decided that it

will work satisfactorily, it is time to implement it. Your
plan will explain how! It should also detail the controls
that you will use to monitor the execution of the plan.
8. Closing the Plan
Once you have achieved a plan, you can close the
project. At this point is often worth carrying out an
evaluation of the project to see whether there are any
lessons that you can learn. This should include an
evaluation of your project planning to see if this could be
improved.

Project Schedule Tools

Many tools available
Microsoft Project
Many more specialized software
www.dotproject.net
Excel

Most important Features:

Monitor tasks
Gantt views of project

one page views for executives

rollout and more complex views for work teams

Critical Paths
Inputs from multiple teams that roll up to project manager
Dependencies
Resources assigned to tasks