The 6P Rule of Project Management:

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Project

Performance

If you fail to plan, you will plan to fail

Anonymous
 Project best understood by breaking it down into
its parts
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
powerful tool for doing this (not just a task list)
defines the total scope of the project
fundamental to much of project planning & tracking
Start at top, progressively break work down (tree
structure) into work packages
Roll up the packages for bottom up estimating
Packages give clear work assignments
Project time management involves
processes required to ensure timely
completion of a project
Processes include:
Activity definition
Activity sequencing
Activity duration estimating
Schedule development
Schedule control
 Project best understood by breaking it down into
its parts
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
powerful tool for doing this (not just a task list)
defines the total scope of the project
fundamental to much of project planning & tracking
Start at top, progressively break work down (tree
structure) into work packages
Roll up the packages for bottom up estimating
Packages give clear work assignments
Intranet WBS in Tabular Form
1.0 Concept
1.1 Evaluate current systems
1.2 Define Requirements
1.2.1 Define user requirements
1.2.2 Define content requirements
1.2.3 Define system requirements
1.2.4 Define server owner requirements
1.3 Define specific functionality
1.4 Define risks and risk management approach
1.5 Develop project plan
1.6 Brief web development team
2.0 Web Site Design
3.0 Web Site Development
4.0 Roll Out
5.0 Support
Intranet WBS and Gantt Chart

Project 98 file
I ntranet WBS & Gantt Chart Organized by PM
Groups
Lots of reasons for poor estimates
inexperience, technical problems, changes
optimists, low-balling, politics
Bottom-up cost estimating
rollup the WBS packages
Top-down or Parametric estimating
from experience to complex models
Which technique is better?
ideally use both
early on don t have WBS so must use
top-down
accuracy of top-down depends on
availability/ quality of historical data
building complete WBS can be
expensive, but guesses can be even
more costly
Deliverables
Tangible, verifiable work products
Reports, presentations, prototypes, etc.
Milestones
Significant events or achievements
Acceptance of deliverables or phase
completion
Cruxes (proof of concepts)
Quality control
Keeps team focused
Develop work packages for each of the
phases and deliverables defined in the
Deliverable Structure Chart (DSC)
The seeds of major software disasters are usually
sown in the first three months of commencing the
software project. Hasty scheduling,irrational
commitments, unprofessional estimating
techniques,and carelessness of the project
management function are the factors that tend to
introduce terminal problems. Once a project
blindly lurches forward toward an impossible
delivery date, the rest of the disaster will occur
almost inevitably.

T. Capers Jones
Lines of Code (LOC)
Function Points
Most traditionally used metric for
project sizing
Most controversial
Count comments?
Declaring variables?
Efficient code vs. code bloat
Language differences
Easier to count afterwards than to estimate
Analysis based on evaluation of data
and transactional types:
Internal Logical File (ILF)
External Interface File (EIF)
External Input (EI)
External Output (EO)
External Inquiry (EQ)
Value Adjustment Factor based on
Degrees of Influence (DI) aka Processing
Complexity Adjustment (PCA)
General Systems Characteristics (GSC)
Total Adjusted Function Points (TAFP)
transformed into development estimates
converted in equivalent LOC
Backfiring
The Mythical Man-Month Frederick
Brooks
1. 0ur techniques of estimation are poorly
developed.More seriously, they reflect
an unvoiced assumption which is quite
untrue i.e., that all will go well.
2. Our estimating techniques fallaciously
confuse effort with progress, hiding the
assumption that men and months are
interchangeable.
The Mythical Man-Month Frederick
Brooks

3. Because we are uncertain of our

estimates,software managers often
lack the courteous stubbornness of
Antoines chef
4. Schedule progress is poorly
monitored.Techniques proven and
routine in other engineering
disciplines are considered radical
innovations in software engineering
The Mythical Man-Month Frederick
Brooks
5. When schedule slippage is recognized, the
natural tendency (and traditional) response
it to add more manpower. Like dousing a
fire with gasoline,this makes matters worse,
much worse. More fire requires more
gasoline, and thus begins a regenerative
cycle which ends in disaster.
Gantt Charts
Critical Path Method (CPM)
Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT)
Time Boxes
Critical Chain
(Theory of Constraints)
Base documents
Project charter
start/ end dates (tentative), budget
Scope statement
what will be done (& not done)
Activity definitions
develop detailed WBS
plus supporting explanations to understand all
work to be done
Review activities & determine
dependencies
Mandatory dependencies: inherent in the
nature of the work; hard logic
Discretionary: defined by the project team; soft
logic
External: involve relationships between project
and external activities
Must determine dependencies to use
critical path analysis
Created 1800
Standard format for displaying
project schedules
activities, durations, start/ end finish
dates displayed in calendar format
Advantages
enforces planning
easy to create & understand
preferred for summary/ exec-level
information
Symbols include:
black diamond: milestones
Thick black bars: summary tasks
Lighter horizontal bars: tasks
Arrows: dependencies between tasks
Bar Charts
Simplified version
Serve similar function
Sample Project Gantt Chart
Sample Tracking Gantt Chart

white diamond: slipped milestone

two bars: planned and actual times
Developed 1957
CPM diagram shows activities, durations,
start/ end dates & sequence in which they
must be completed
Critical path for project is the series of
activities that determines the earliest time
by which project can be completed
Critical path is longest path through
network diagram, has least (zero) slack or
float
Critical path helps you make
schedule trade-offs
Slack or float amount of time
activity can be delayed without
delaying early start of dependent
activities
Simple Example of Determining Critical Path
consider following network diagram
assume all times in days

C=2 4 E=1
A=2 B=5
start 1 2 3 6 finish

D=7 5 F=2

a. How many paths are on this network diagram?

b. How long is each path?
c. Which is the critical path?
d. What is the shortest amount of time needed to
complete this project?

Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram

Precedence Diagramming Method
(PDM)

Activities are represented by boxes

Arrows show relationships between
activities
More popular than ADM method as
used by PM software
Better at showing different types of
dependencies
Task Dependency Types
Activity Description Estimated Predecessor
Duration (Days)

A Evaluate current technology platform 2 None

B Define user requirements 5 A

C Design Web page layouts 4 B
D Set-up Server 3 B
E Estimate Web traffic 1 B
F Test Web pages and links 4 C,D
G Move web pages to production 3 D,E
environment

H Write announcement of intranet for 2 F,G

corp. newsletter

I Train users 5 G
J Write report to management 1 H,I
Activity on the Node (AON) Network
Diagram
Possible Paths Path Total
Path 1 A+B+C+F+H+J 18
2+5+4+4+2+1
Path 2 A+B+D+F+H+J 17
2+5+3+4+2+1
Path 3 A+B+D+G+H+J 16
2+5+3+3+2+1
Path 4 A+B+D+G+I+J 19*
2+5+3+3+5+1
Path 5 A+B+E+G+I+J 17
2+5+1+3+5+1
Longest path
Shortest time project can be completed
Zero slack (or float)
The amount of time an activity can be delayed
before it delays the project
Must be monitored and managed!
PM can expedite or crash
Can fast track
The CP can change
Can have multiple CPs
Techniques for Shortening a Project
Schedule
Shortening durations of critical tasks:
add more resources
change their scope
Crashing tasks by obtaining the greatest
amount of schedule compression for the
least incremental cost
Fast tracking tasks by doing them in parallel
or overlapping them
Developed 1959 for Polaris project
Similar to CPM but addresses
uncertainties in task durations
Uses probabilistic time estimates
optimistic, most likely, pessimistic
estimates of activity durations
 PERT weighted average formula:
optimistic time + 4X most likely time + pessimistic time
6
Example:
PERT weighted average =
8 workdays + 4 X 10 workdays + 24 workdays = 12 days
6

where 8 = optimistic time, 10 = most likely time, and 24 =

pessimistic time
Activity Predecessor Optimistic Most Likely Pessimistic Expected
Estimates Estimates Estimates Duration
(Days) (Days) (Days) (a+4b+c)
6

A None 1 2 4 2.2

B A 3 5 8 5.2

C B 2 4 5 3.8

D B 2 3 6 3.3

E B 1 1 1 1.0

F C,D 2 4 6 4.0

G D,E 2 3 4 3.0

H F,G 1 2 5 2.3

I G 4 5 9 5.5

J H,I .5 1 3 1.3

30 days 31.6 days

Consider project size, risk and
complexity
Gantt
senior management
smaller, less complex projects
CPM
medium size/ complexity/ risk
PERT
high risk projects
medium to high complexity
Deals with delivering in short time
frames
Focuses on prioritization
Facilitator brings stakeholders together
to agree on priorities
It s customer developer partnering
win-win
Compromise on scope to achieve early
delivery
Addresses challenge of meeting or beating project finish
dates
Application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC)
Developed by Eliyahu Goldratt in his books The Goal and
Critical Chain
Method of scheduling that takes limited resources into
account when creating project schedule & includes buffers
to protect completion date
Assumes resources do not multitask as it often delays task
completions & increases total durations
A buffer is additional time to complete a
task
Critical chain schedule removes buffers
from individual tasks & instead creates
A project buffer, which is additional time added
before the project s due date
Feeding buffers, which are addition time added
before tasks on the critical path
Simple view:
in critical situation, don t try to strengthen all
of the links in the chain
focus on the weakest link
Some organizations view as best thing since sliced
bread
But does it sound like common sense?
1) Specify the end-item deliverables
2) Subdivide the work, reducing the dollars and
complexity with each additional subdivision
3) Stop dividing when the tasks are manageable work
packages based on the following:
Skill group(s) involved
Managerial responsibility
Length of time
Value of task
The work packages (tasks or activities) that are defined
by the WBS must be:
Manageable
Independent
Integratable
Measurable
 The usual mistake PMs make is to lay out too many tasks;
subdividing the major achievements into smaller and
smaller subtasks until the work breakdown structure
(WBS) is a to do list of one-hour chores. It s easy to get
caught up in the idea that a project plan should detail
everything everybody is going to do on the project. This
springs from the screwy logic that a project manager s job
is to walk around with a checklist of 17,432 items and tick
each item off as people complete them .
The Hampton Group (1996)
 WBS level 1 1. Charity Auction

1.1 Event 1.2 Item 1.3 Marketing 1.4. Corporate

WBS level 2 Planning Procurement Sponsorships
 WBS level 1 1. Charity Auction

1.1 Event 1.2 Item 1.3 Marketing 1.4 Corporate

WBS level 2
Planning Procurement Sponsorships

1.1.1 Hire Auctioneer

1.2.1 Silent 1.3.1 Individual
auction items ticket sales
1.1.2. Rent space
WBS level 3 1.2.2 Live auction
1.3.2 Advertising
1.1.3 Arrange for
items
decorations
1.2.3 Raffle items
1.1.4 Print catalog
Probability density
function

Completion time of task j

Time
Optimistic Timetoj
Most Likely Time =tm Pessimistic Timetpj
Expected duration =
For each task j, we must make three estimates:
toj most optimistic time
tpj most pessimistic time
tmj most likely time

toj + tpj + 4tm

j
Expected duration j =
6

2
tpj - toj 2
Variance of task j = j =
36
 Estimating Task Durations:
Painting a Room
Task: Paint 4 rooms, each is approximately 10 x 20 . Use flat paint on walls,
semi-gloss paint on trim and woodwork. Each room has two doors and four
windows. You must apply masking tape before painting woodwork around the
doors and windows. Preparation consists of washing all walls and woodwork
(some sanding and other prep work will be needed). Only one coat of paint is
necessary to cover existing paint. All supplies will be provided at the start of the
task. Previous times on similar painting jobs are indicated in the table below.
hours min hours min
27 25 31 52
38 25 19 15
33 12 26 27
17 44 30 27
26 7 25 21
22 1 24 28
14 2 32 58
30 27 32 1
28 30 13 43
21 13 42 45
23 59 22 57
27 44 32 15
23 15 32 31
37 6 27 15
17 54 26 11
17 13 21 52

What is your estimate of the average time you will

need? What is your estimate of the variance?
Task: Consider the painting job that you
have just estimated. Now, however,
there are explicit incentives for meeting
your estimated times. If you finish
painting the room before your specified
time, you will receive a $10 bonus
payment. HOWEVER, if you finish the
painting job after your specified time,
you will be fined $1000.
Revised estimated time =
Task: Consider the painting job that you
have just estimated. Now, however,
there are explicit incentives for meeting
your estimated times. If you finish
painting the room before your specified
time, you will receive a $10 bonus
payment. If you finish the painting job
after your specified time, there is no
penalty.

Revised estimated time =

 Client Top
Management
Project Manager

Subcontractors

Project Team

Regulating Functional
Organizations Managers
To the organization and top management
Meet budget and resource constraints
Engage functional managers

To the project team

Provide timely and accurate feedback
Keep focus on project goals
Manage personnel changes

To the client
Communicate in timely and accurate manner
Provide information and control on changes/modifications
Maintain quality standards

To the subcontractors
Provide information on overall project status
What is a project team?
A group of people committed to achieve a
common set of goals for which they hold
themselves mutually accountable

Characteristics of a project team

Diverse backgrounds/skills
Able to work together effectively/develop synergy
Usually small number of people
Have sense of accountability as a unit