CHAPTER 5

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND RESOURCE

ALLOCATION:
Project Management and Resource Allocation

5.1 Project organization , network scheduling

5.2 Project crashing

5.3 Resource allocation

5.4 Project risks

Project Management and Resource Allocation

Introduction:

Projects are temporary.” a project is temporary endeavor undertaken

to create a unique product or service.

 Temporary means that every project has a definite ending point.

 Unique means the product or service is different in some

distinguishing way from all similar products or services

5.1 What is Project Management?

•Project: A group of milestones or phases, activities or tasks that support an effort

to accomplish something.

•Management: is the process of Planning, Organizing, Controlling and Measuring

•A collection of linked activities, carried out in an organized manner, with a clearly

defined START POINT and END POINT to achieve some specific results.
WHAT IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT ?
 • It also defined as a dynamic process that utilizes the appropriate resources of the
organization in a controlled and structured manner, to achieve some clearly
defined objectives identified as needs.

Project Manager Responsibilities

 Selecting a team
 Developing project objectives and a plan for execution
 performing risk management activities
 Cost estimating and budgeting
 Scheduling
 Managing resource
Project Management Process
• Planning
Project Definition, Scope, ….
• Mechanics of putting together a plan
Tools: Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

GANTT, PERT, etc. charts - computerized

• Tracking plan progress
Communicate and follow-up
• Complete project
Managing and control
• Measuring…….
–Are we efficient?
–Are we productive?
–Are we doing a good job?
–What is the outcome?
–Is it what we wanted to be?
– If you can’t plan it, You can’t do it
– If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it
 Why is Project Management used?

• It is necessary to Track or Measure the progress we have achieved towards

a Goal we wish to accomplish.
• We use Project Management to Aid us in Maximizing and Optimizing our
resources to accomplish our goals.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

 The WBS provides a graphical representation or textual outline of the project

scope.
 The WBS assists project leaders, participants, in the development of a clear
vision of the end products or outcomes to be produced by the project.
 It provides the framework for all deliverables throughout the project life cycle.
 Some of the main roles the WBS plays in supporting clarity for project definition

are that it:

• Decomposes the overall project scope into clearly defined deliverables.

• Defines the scope of the project in terms that the stakeholders can understand.

• Provides a structure for organizing information regarding the project’s progress,

status, and performance.

• Supports tracking of risks to assist the project manager in identifying and

implementing necessary responses.

Levels:

• The depth of the WBS is dependent upon the size and complexity of the project

and the level of detail needed to plan and manage it.

The 100% Rule:

• This rule states that the WBS includes 100% of the work defined by the project

scope and captures all work deliverables to be completed, including project

management.
 • This example is quite simple and the whole purpose is to bring the attention to
focus on the WBS itself.
• As you can see, the first level describes the product we want to achieve once the
project is complete.
• By meeting with the stakeholders, the team can start decomposing the product
into smaller, more manageable components.
This is what the level 2 is showing below:
 • If we take the component called “Wheels” for example, we may want to break

it down into several pieces. However, the team has to decide how much detail

the work really requires.

• For this example, we can just break this level into two pieces:

Thus, a product has only two wheels and from a project management standpoint.
• Finally, there could be a component that needs more details for other reasons. In our
example, the team decides to bring even more detail to the component called
“Testing”.
• Based on the project’s needs, there could be a reason to add three more work
packages as you can see in the following figure:
PLANNING AND SCHEDULING IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

GANTT CHARTS
• Is the most popular tool for planning and scheduling simple projects.
• A visual display of project schedule showing activity start and finish times and where
extra time is available.
• Drawback: priority relationships are not always visible which limits chart’s use for
smaller projects
Building a Gantt Chart
• List all tasks from the project along the vertical axis
• List time frame along the horizontal axis
•Activities: Create box the length of each activity time duration

–E.g., activity one is scheduled from day1-day3

Dependencies: Show dependencies between activities with arrows
–E.g., activity 2 cannot start until activity 1 is complete
 CRITICAL PATH METHOD (CPM)/(PERT)

• CRITICAL PATH METHOD(CPM) and PROJECT EVALUATION AND

REVIEW TECHNIQUE (PERT) are various method used to manage project
schedules .

 CPM can be used as a logic tool for decision making. For a deterministic (fixed) time
period
 PERT used for activity with time not deterministic, hence probability function can
apply
 It provides a means for planning, scheduling, controlling and presenting alternate
courses of action.
Definition and Terms of some CPM
•Activities (Arrows): An item of work, with or without its duration.
•Nodes(events): Start and finish points of an activity.
•Arrow diagram: A Network showing a logical sequence of activities and events which are graphically
shown as arrows and nodes.

•Restraints: Limiting activities that prevent other activities from starting.

• They are non-time consuming and are referred to as “dummy” or dependent activities.
•Critical path: The longest duration chain in a Network.
•Early start: As implied this is the earliest time that work can begin on a given activity.
•Late start: The latest time that a given activity can start without affecting the overall project duration.
•Early finish: The finish achieved by starting a given activity at its Early Start and achieving the
estimated duration of that activity.
Late finish: The latest time that an activity can finish without affecting the overall Project Duration.
Problem 1: Network Development

• In order to develop a network, the following example illustrates the steps involve d
Analysis
•First, read through the given data and note that this in a nine-activity
network. Activity A is the first activity and Activity I is the last.
ASSIGNMENT: Draw the network and identify the critical path.

•Also calculate the earliest–latest starting and finishing times for each activity:
ASSIGNMENT: Draw the network and identify the critical path.
•Also calculate the earliest–latest starting and finishing times for each activity:
 Project Crashing and Time-cost
• Project crashing is a method for shortening the project duration by
reducing the time of one (or more) of the critical project activities to less
than its normal activity time.
• This reduction in the normal activity time is referred to as crashing.

• Project duration can be reduced by assigning more resources to project activities.

• However, doing this increases project cost.
• Decision is based on analysis of trade-off between time and cost.
• Project crashing is a method for shortening project duration by reducing one or more
critical activities to a time less than normal activity time.
Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off Example Problem

The project network for building a house

Normal activity and crash data for the network
Network with normal activity times and weekly crashing costs
As activities are crashed, the critical path may change and several paths may become critical.

Revised network with activity 1 crashed

Project risks
Thank you