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Lecture 6

The document outlines the agenda for a project management lecture, which includes discussing Assignment #3, reviewing risk management strategies from the previous lecture, taking Quiz #4, and providing instruction on scheduling resources and costs for a project plan. It also provides details about managing risks, using contingencies, resource levelling, and an in-class exercise on scheduling resources in Microsoft Project.

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ankush
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
33 views

Lecture 6

The document outlines the agenda for a project management lecture, which includes discussing Assignment #3, reviewing risk management strategies from the previous lecture, taking Quiz #4, and providing instruction on scheduling resources and costs for a project plan. It also provides details about managing risks, using contingencies, resource levelling, and an in-class exercise on scheduling resources in Microsoft Project.

Uploaded by

ankush
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Project Management

Lecture 6
Agenda
 Assignment #3 discussed

 Review of Last Week’s Lesson – Managing Risk

 Quiz #4

 This week instruction – Scheduling Resources and Costs


Project Management
Assignment #3

Project Choice Due: today

Plan Due: March 14

Group Project - Create Project Plan


Review

 Larson Chapter 7 Review – Managing Risk

 Risk Identification
 Risk Assessment
 Risk Mitigation
Managing Risk

 Risk Management
Plan

 Continuous Cycle
Managing Risk - Responses
Four strategies are available for dealing with risks:

• Avoid

• Transfer

• Mitigate

• Accept
Managing Risk - Assessment
 Need to identify the most likely and most impactful risks
Managing Risk - Contingencies
Risk is realized … the thing we were worried about
actually happened. Now what will we do?

• Useful for risks that are likely

• It is easier and more time efficient to discuss contingency


plans early in the project before it happens

• How much effort you invest in contingencies will depend


on the size of the project, the nature of the risk
Managing Risk - Contingencies

Compressing the Schedule

• reduce the duration of any task on the critical path?


• Move the best people to the tasks on the critical path?
• Overlap some of the tasks?

Crashing the Schedule

• Add extra resources to a project in order to reduce the time it


takes to complete some tasks on the critical path
Managing Risk - Contingencies
Contingency Funding
• Contingency funds are allocated to cover project risks
• Amounts depends on the risk and the impact

Time Buffers

• Time Buffers are similar to contingency funds


• Add extra time to critical points in the project that
are most risky
• Add a contingency task to the end of the project that
will absorb unforeseen delays
Quiz 4

 Take Quiz 4 in Blackboard – you have 11 mins


Scheduling Resources & Costs
So far we have:

• Defined the Project


• Created the tasks in the WBS
• Estimated the duration of tasks
• Created a Network Diagram
• Identified the critical path
• Identified Risks
• Contingency Planning
Scheduling Resources & Costs

 Do we have enough people to complete the project?

 RESOURCES

• Need to know who will be performing the tasks in the


project plan

• Important component of most Project plans

• Best if you have actual names – but you can use


placeholders if the people aren’t known yet
Scheduling Resources & Costs

 Need to put the names on the tasks so we can see if resources


we need matches the resources available

 So far we have assumed that the project tasks are


independent and that we have resources to work on all the
tasks whenever they are needed
Scheduling Resources & Costs

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Dev Team Test Team

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Scheduling Resources & Costs
 TIME-CONSTRAINED OR RESOURCE CONSTRAINED

• Project Manager must be aware of which fits their project

• If the critical path is delayed, will resources be added to


get back on schedule?

• Yes – time-constrained

 No – resource-constrained
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 TIME CONSTRAINED

• The end date of the project (or a major milestone) is


already fixed

• The date is most important and the other aspects – like


resources and budget could be adjusted to hold the date

• Example: Scheduling the Olympic Games


Scheduling Resources & Costs
 RESOURCE CONSTRAINED

• The resource cannot be exceeded

• The resource is most important and the other aspects –


like Schedule and budget could be adjusted to keep the
resource in limit

• Example: Build a new house – I only have 1 carpenter. So


carpentry is going to be resource constrained
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 TYPES OF RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS

o People – is someone available to do the work when we


need them?

• Does the person have the right skills to do the task?

o Materials – availability and delivery of materials?

o Equipment – Do we have necessary equipment? Is there


some other demand on this equipment that might
interfere with availability?

o Working Capital – Is there sufficient funds up front? Or


does the money come over time – preventing us from
compressing the schedule?
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 EQUIPMENT CONSTRAINT EXAMPLES

o In Construction or Manufacturing you might encounter


equipment or material constraints

o On a landscaping project for example, most of the tasks


might require a Backhoe and we only have 1 or 2 of these

o So it will not be possible to have three tasks that all


involve Backhoe’s occurring simultaneously

o Most of the time, resource issues are people issues


In-class Exercise
In the sample below the Drywall activity takes 18 days.
If I add another drywall resource how short could we make it?
What if we add two more resources? Or three more?
In-class Exercise
In-class Exercise
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

 Assign estimated costs to tasks in the WBS in a similar


manner to assigning durations

 Most Project Management tools have a means of assigning


costs to people (like $20/ hour) and will calculate the cost
of completing a task based on the person assigned and the
duration

 People costs can be calculated easily when you know who


is working on the project and when

 Equipment and material costs are not simple to derive


from the plan – you need to have an idea of these
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

 If material is an important part of your project – it can be


included as a resource in your project plan and tracked
using your project management tool

 Get an idea of any major project costs at the start – but


focus most of your attention on the schedule and the
people

 Once you have a good handle on these aspects of the plan


– then you can turn to costs to ensure that you are
delivering within budget
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 RESOURCE CONSTRAINED

• There is almost always a limit on resources

• Construct your schedule with the resources if you have


that information – use placeholders if you don’t have
actual names yet

• Some of the task dependencies can be due to resource


constraints
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 MULTIPLE PROJECTS

 When you are working in a large company, there can be


many projects going on at the same time

 Many of these projects will be utilizing the same resources

 They can impact each other


Scheduling Resources & Costs
 MULTIPLE PROJECTS

 For Example: The IT department is needed to update some


software for a Marketing project and they are also needed
by the Accounting department to create some new reports

 What potential problems can you think of that could some


from this?
Scheduling Resources & Costs
 MULTIPLE PROJECTS

 Resource Bottlenecks

 Inefficient utilization
 If we staff for peaks – things get done, but
resources maybe underutilized other times
 If we staff for normal – projects get delayed
during peaks

 Cross-project Impacts
Scheduling Resources & Costs

Resource Levelling
RESOURCE LEVELLING
 Complex projects will have conflicts

 Resources are often over allocated

 Resource levelling is a way to get rid of all over allocations quickly


Scheduling Resources & Costs
Resource Levelling
RESOURCE LEVELLING
 Can select a specific resource

 Or All resources

 Extends tasks start dates so that the over allocation is eliminated

 Depending on the type and how many you have, it could impact the
schedule end date
Scheduling Resources & Costs

Resource Levelling
RESOURCE LEVELLING
 Create your tasks first

 Update the durations, dates

 Add resources (specific names or placeholders)

 Look at resource levelling to get rid of over allocation


Scheduling Resources & Costs

Resource Levelling
RESOURCE LEVELLING
 Can you see any issues with doing resource levelling?
Scheduling Resources & Costs

Resource Levelling
RESOURCE LEVELLING
 If the project plan is still changing – it can be confusing

 You have the option to add resources – this can be an easier


approach
In-class Exercise
Open Microsoft Project 2016
Create a new project from a template “Simple Project Plan”
In the Resource Names column – enter your name to tasks 1, 2, 3, 4,5
Enter someone else’s name to tasks 6, 7, 8
Change the predecessor on Task 3 from 4 to 2

What happens and why?

Go to the Resource tab and click on “Clear Levelling”


Notice the Red icons
Project Management
Reading in the textbook

• Read Chapter 9 – Reducing Project Duration

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