INTRODUCTION

Project management skills are essential for project managers, and any other managers who manage complex activities and tasks, because complex tasks are projects. Project management skills are essential for any complex task, where different outcomes are possible, requiring planning and assessing options, and organizing activities and resources to deliver a result. Projects come in all shapes and sizes, from the small and straight-forward to extremely large and highly complex. Project management can be concerned with anything people, products, services, materials, production, !" and communications, plant and equipment, storage, distribution, logistics, buildings and premises, staffing and management, finance, administration, acquisition, divestment, purchasing, sales, selling, marketing, human resources, training, culture, customer service and relations, quality, health and safety, legal, technical and scientific, new product development, new business development# and in any combination. Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. $ project is a finite endeavor %having specific start and completion dates& undertaken to create a unique product or service which brings about beneficial change or added value. "his finite characteristic of projects stands in contrast to processes, or operations, which are permanent or semi-permanent functional work to repetitively produce the same product or service. !n practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management. "he primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the project constraints. "ypical constraints are scope, time and budget. "he secondary'and more ambitious' challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet predefined objectives.

Project Management tools

Project (anagement tools include )inancial tools *ause and effect charts +nline Project ,ealth *heck tool %Ph-*heck tool& P-." charts /antt charts -vent *hain 0iagrams .$*! matrix .un charts Project *ycle +ptimisation %P*+& Participatory !mpact Pathways $nalysis %$n approach for developing common understanding and consensus amongst project participants and stakeholders as to how the project will achieve its goal&

o PERT (Program %or Project& Evaluation and Review Techni ue!" "he Program %or Project& Evaluation and Review Techni ue, commonly abbreviated PERT, is a model for project management designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project. P-." is a method to analyze the involved tasks in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total project. P-." was developed primarily to simplify the planning and scheduling of large and complex projects. !t was able to incorporate uncertainty by making it possible to schedule a project while not knowing precisely the details and durations of all the activities. !t is more of an event-oriented technique rather than start- and completion-oriented, and is used more in .10-type projects where time, rather than cost, is the major factor.

Im#lementing PERT
"he first step to scheduling the project is to determine the tasks that the project requires and the order in which they must be completed. "he order may be easy to record for some tasks %e.g. 2hen building a house, the land must be graded before the foundation can be laid& while difficult for others %"here are two areas that need to be graded, but there are only enough bulldozers to do one&. $dditionally, the time estimates usually reflect the normal, non-rushed time. (any times, the time required to execute the task can be reduced for an additional cost or a reduction in the quality. +nce this step is complete, one can draw a /antt chart or a network diagram.

$ /antt chart created using (icrosoft Project %(3P&. 4ote %5& the critical path is in red, %6& the slack is the black lines connected to non-critical activities, %7& since 3aturday and 3unday are not work days and are thus excluded from the schedule, some bars on the /antt chart are longer if they cut through a weekend. $ /antt chart created using +mni Plan. 4ote %5& the critical path is highlighted, %6& the slack is not specifically indicated on task 8 %d&, though it can be observed on tasks 7 and 9 %b and f&,

%7& since weekends are indicated by a thin vertical line, and take up no additional space on the work calendar, bars on the /antt chart are not longer or shorter when they do or don:t carry over a weekend. $ network diagram can be created by hand or by using diagram software. "here are two types of network diagrams, activity on arrow %$+$& and activity on node %$+4&. $ctivity on node diagrams are generally easier to create and interpret. "o create an $+4 diagram, it is recommended %but not required& to start with a node named start. "his ;activity; has a duration of zero %<&. "hen you draw each activity that does not have a predecessor activity %a and b in this example& and connect them with an arrow from start to each node. 4ext, since both c and d list a as a predecessor activity, their nodes are drawn with arrows coming from a. $ctivity e is listed with b and c as predecessor activities, so node e is drawn with arrows coming from both b and c, signifying that e cannot begin until both b and c have been completed. $ctivity f has d as a predecessor activity, so an arrow is drawn connecting the activities. =ikewise, an arrow is drawn from e to g. 3ince there are no activities that come after f or g, it is recommended %but again not required& to connect them to a node labeled finish.

$ network diagram created using (icrosoft Project %(3P&. 4ote the critical path is in red.

o $antt charts"
$ /antt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. /antt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. "erminal elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. 3ome /antt charts also show the dependency %i.e, precedence network& relationships between activities. /antt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and a vertical ;"+0$>; line as shown here. !n the 5?@<s, personal computers eased the creation and editing of elaborate /antt charts. "hese desktop applications were intended mainly for project managers and project schedulers. !n the late 5??<s and early 6<<<s, /antt charts became a common feature of web-based applications, including collaborative groupware. $lthough now regarded as a common charting technique, /antt charts were considered revolutionary when they were introduced. !n recognition of ,enry /antt:s contributions, the ,enry =aurence /antt (edal is awarded for distinguished achievement in management and in community service. "his chart is used also in !nformation "echnology to represent data that has been collected.

%dvantages and limitations"

/antt charts have become a common technique for representing the phases and activities of a project work breakdown structure %2A3&, so they can be understood by a wide audience. $ common error made by those who equate /antt chart design with project design is that they attempt to define the project work breakdown structure at the same time that they define schedule activities. "his practice makes it very difficult to follow the 5<<B .ule. !nstead the 2A3 should be fully defined to follow the 5<<B .ule, then the project schedule can be designed. $lthough a /antt chart is useful and valuable for small projects that fit on a single sheet or screen, they can become quite unwieldy for projects with more than about 7< activities. =arger /antt charts may not be suitable for most computer displays. $ related criticism is that /antt charts communicate relatively little information per unit area of display. "hat is, projects are often considerably more complex than can be communicated effectively with a /antt chart. /antt charts only represent part of the triple constraints of projects, because they focus primarily on schedule management. (oreover, /antt charts do not represent the size of a project or the relative size of work elements, therefore the magnitude of a behindschedule condition is easily miscommunicated. !f two projects are the same number of days behind schedule, the larger project has a larger impact on resource utilization, yet the /antt does not represent this difference.

$lthough project management software can show schedule dependencies as lines between activities, displaying a large number of dependencies may result in a cluttered or unreadable chart. Aecause the horizontal bars of a /antt chart have a fixed height, they can misrepresent the time-phased workload %resource requirements& of a project. !n the example shown in this article, $ctivities - and / appear to be the same size, but in reality they may be orders of magnitude different. $ related criticism is that all activities of a /antt chart show planned workload as constant. !n practice, many activities %especially summary elements& have front-loaded or back-loaded work plans, so a /antt chart with percentcomplete shading may actually miscommunicate the true schedule performance status. $antt charts"

o Event Chain Diagrams

Event Chain Diagrams are visualizations that show the relationships between events and tasks and how the events affect each other. -vent chain diagram are introduced as a part of -vent chain methodology. -vent chain methodology is an uncertainty modeling and schedule network analysis technique that is focused on identifying and managing events and event chains that affect project schedules. -vent chain methodology is the next advance beyond critical path method and critical chain project management.

-vent chain diagrams are presented on the /antt chart according to the specification. "his specification is a set of rules, which can be understandable by anybody using this diagram 5. $ll events are shown as arrows. 4ames andCor !0s of events are shown next to the arrow. 6. -vents with negative impacts %risks& are represented by down arrows# events with positive impacts %opportunities& are represented by up arrows. 7. !ndividual events are connected by lines representing the event chain. D. $ sender event with multiple connecting lines to receivers represents multicasting. 8. -vents affecting all activities %global events& are shown outside /antt chart. "hreats are shown at the top of the diagram. +pportunities are shown at the bottom of the diagram. +ften event chain diagrams can become very complex. !n these cases, some details of the diagram do not need to be shown.

o R%CI matri&
$ R%CI matri&, %also known as 'inear Res#onsi(ilit) Chart %=.*& or Res#onsi(ilit) %ssignment Matri& %.$(&&, describes the participatory role types of various teams or people in completing tasks or deliverables for a project or business process. !t is especially useful in clarifying roles and responsibilities in cross-functionalCdepartmental projects and processes.

"he matrix is typically created with a vertical axis %left-hand column& of tasks %e.g., from a 2ork Areakdown 3tructure& or deliverables %e.g., from a Product Areakdown 3tructure&, and a horizontal axis %top row& of resources %e.g., from an +rganization Areakdown 3tructure& - as illustrated in the image of an example .$*! matrix. Run chart % run chart, also known as a run*se uence #lot is a graph that displays observed data in a time sequence. +ften, the data displayed represent some aspect of the output or performance of a manufacturing or other business process. .un sequence plots E5Fare an easy way to graphically summarize a univariate data set. $ common assumption of univariate data sets is that they behave like E6F

random drawings# from a fixed distribution# with a common location# and with a common scale.

2ith run sequence plots, shifts in location and scale are typically quite evident. $lso, outliers can easily be detected .un chart of eight random walks in one dimension starting at <. "he plot shows the current position on the line %vertical axis& versus the time steps %horizontal axis&. -xamples could include measurements of the fill level of bottles filled at a bottling plant or the water temperature of a dishwashing machine each time it is run. "ime is generally

represented on the horizontal %x& axis and the property under observation on the vertical %y& axis. +ften, some measure of central tendency %mean or median& of the data is indicated by a horizontal reference line. .un charts are analyzed to find anomalies in data that suggest shifts in a process over time or special factors that may be influencing the variability of a process. "ypical factors considered include unusually long ;runs; of data points above or below the average line, the total number of such runs in the data set, and unusually long series of consecutive increases or decreases.E7F .un charts are similar in some regards to the control charts used in statistical process control, but do not show the control limits of the process. "hey are therefore simpler to produce, but do not allow for the full range of analytic techniques supported by control charts.

o Partici#ator) Im#act Pathwa)s %nal)sis

Partici#ator) Im#act Pathwa)s %nal)sis (PIP%! is an project management approach in which the participants in a project %project and program are used synonymously from now on&, including project staff, key stakeholders and the ultimate beneficiaries, together co-construct their program theory. "he P!P$ theory describes plausible impact pathways by which project outputs are used by others to achieve a chain of outcomes leading to a contribution to eventual impact on social, environmental or economic conditions. !mpact pathways are a type of logic model, that is, they constitute a model that describes the logic of what the project will do, is doing, or what it did. P!P$ helps workshop participants surface, discuss and write down their assumptions and theories about how their project activities and outputs could eventually contribute to desired goals such as poverty reduction. "he description of these assumptions and theories is a description of the projectGs %or programGs& impact pathways. P!P$ has helped workshop participants with the following

*larify and communicate their own projectGs logic of intervention and its potential for achieving impact Hnderstand other projects and identify areas for collaboration /enerate a feeling of common purpose and better programmatic integration Produce an impact narrative describing the project:s intervention logic Produce a framework for subsequent monitoring and evaluation

PIPA process
P!P$ can be used at the beginning of a project, in the middle or at the end as way of documenting and learning from the project. P!P$ describes project %or program& impact pathways in two ways %i& causal chains of activities, outputs and outcomes through which a project is expected to achieve its purpose and goal# and %ii& networks of evolving relationships between project implementing organizations, stakeholders and ultimate beneficiaries that are necessary to achieve the goal. "he workshop process, shown in the diagram, develops the two perspectives in turn and then integrates them.