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COVER SHEET
Save your work with the filename <Name_StudentID_SubjectName_AsstNumber>, paste your
answers to your assessment questions in this sheet below and upload the document with all
questions answered.

Family Name:

Vilarubia

Given Name:

Victor

Student ID: Course:

S40068834 Diploma of Project Management

Subject: Trainer’s name:

Project Time 2 Shekhar Bhutkar

Declaration: I certify that this assignment is entirely my own work. I have provided full
referencing to the work of others. The material in this paper has not been submitted before.

IMPORTANT – READ THIS FIRST

PLAGIARISM: You must compose your answers in your own words. Simply pasting text from
the Internet OR the APC workbook may result in a failing grade. It is better to write your own
thoughts in your own words – even if your English is not perfect – rather than copy word-for-
word the thoughts of someone else.

SUBMITTING IDENTICAL ANSWERS: You may discuss your assessments with other students,
but submitting identical answers to other students may result in a failing grade. Your answers
must be yours alone.

TUTORIALS: Tutorials are run every week to help you answer the assessments. The schedule
for tutorials will be announced during the first week of term. You are urged to attend the
tutorial that pertains to your online subject.
 Assessment 2 – Written or Oral Questions
1. What does a work breakdown structure involve?
2. In order to achieve project deliverables, how can you estimate the duration and effort,
sequence and dependencies of tasks?
3. How can project scheduling tools and techniques be used to identify schedule impact?
4. What is a schedule baseline and how can it be communicated with stakeholders?
5. What techniques can be used to measure, record and report the progress of activities in relation
to the agreed schedule?
6. How can you identify baseline variance?
7. How can you analyse and forecast the impact of change on the schedule?
8. Describe the methods that can be used to review progress throughout the project life cycle.
How can you implement agreed schedule changes?
9. How can you develop responses to potential or actual schedule changes? How can these be
implemented to maintain project objectives?
10. In order to determine the effectiveness of time management activities, what schedule
performance records can you review, and when?
11. Give examples of possible time management issues? Suggest potential improvements.

Answers:

1.
A Work Breakdown Structure is a tool for your project that breaks it down into smaller components
and it organises your project into smaller, more manageable sections. It provides the project manager
with an opportunity to predict outcomes based on a particular scenario. WBS involves:

 Activity and task descriptors

 High-level deliverables framework
 Multi-level task granulation
 Work breakdown task dictionary.

It also involves helping the project with effective control over the following areas:

 Budgeting
 Scheduling
 Quality assurance
 Allocation of resources
 Quality control
 Product delivery
 Risk management.
2.
We can estimate the duration and effort by taking the estimated effort and dividing this by the
estimated resources.
If you had to produce a 500-page report and you know you can roughly write
around 10 pages a day, you can estimate that the duration of your project will be
50 days. Therefore:
500 ÷ 10 = 50.

In order to estimate the duration and effort, this may include:

 Allowance for contingency and risk

 Availability of resources and supplies
 Degree of variation
 Expert opinion
 Level of accuracy
 Prior project history
 Regulations and standards governing resource performance
 Top-down or bottom-up estimating.

Sequence is concerned with the order of the tasks and activities within your project. Dependencies
are the relationships among the tasks within your project which determine the order in which the
activities need to be performed. They are the relationships of preceding tasks to succeeding tasks.
Once the tasks are created within your project, they need to be linked to show the relationships
between them. Linking your tasks will create the task dependencies. The relationships between the
project tasks drive the schedule for the project. Sequence and dependencies may include:

 Deliverable milestones
 Preferred, logical or required order of task completion
 Relationship between tasks impacting on start and finish times and dates.

3.
Project schedule is a key part of project management. It is used in the planning stage of your project
and uses estimation, educated guessing and prediction to reflect all the work that is associated with
delivering your project on time. Due to this uncertainty, your project schedule should be updated
constantly. Your project schedule is a tool that can be used to communicate what work needs to be
done within your project, which resources the work requires and the timeframes in which it needs to
be performed. It will also show you the sequence in which the project work should be done as well
as the work has already been done. The elements that you include within your project schedule may
be closely related to your WBS

Your project schedule can help you to:

 Track the progress of your project

 Assess how time delays will impact your project
 Determine the best way to allocate your resources
 Figure out where excess resources are available
 Monitor and control your project activities.

In order to identify schedule impact on project time management, resource requirements, costs and
risks, you may need to assist in using project scheduling tools and techniques. You should use these
tools and techniques to fragment your project work into smaller tasks.
Project scheduling tools and techniques may include:

 Bar charts
 Conducting or supervising qualitative and/or quantitative time analysis, such as schedule
simulation, decision analysis, contingency planning and ‘what if’ scenarios
 Critical chain management
 Critical path diagrams

4.
A schedule baseline is an approved version of your project schedule and by establishing the baseline;
Your schedule baseline will act as a point of reference and all future measurements will be compared
to it. It is used to determine any variation between the plan and actual progress of your project. From
this, you will be able to identify if any preventative or corrective action is needed. If any changes to
the scope of your project are made, you will need to establish a new baseline schedule.

In order to communicate the schedule baseline with your stakeholders it will be required from you to
have a communication plan. By having a communication plan in place, you and your project team
will know when to communicate with the stakeholders and how to do it effectively. You should aim
to keep the stakeholders well informed and to understand exactly what they desire. In most cases, you
should try and keep the communication process as a two-way exchange; don’t just talk, listen too.
You should aim to gather information from the stakeholders themselves and everyone within your
project team in order to decide on the most appropriate communication plan for you, your team and
your project. Your project schedule is something that needs communicating with the stakeholders and
you should choose the most advantageous communication channel to ensure it is effective.

Formal methods to communicate with stakeholders:

 Newsletters;
 Reports;
 Social media;
 Email;
 Meetings;
 Conference calls.

5.
There are many techniques that you can use to measure the progress of your project. The technique
that you use may depend on the type of project you are involved with or the requirements of the
project manager or team. Your method for measuring the progress of you report should have been
identified and planned within the early stages of your project. The methods that can be used to
measure the progress of your project activities may include:

 Reporting periods
 Project status
 Project phases
 Highlight report
 Milestone chart
 Checkpoint report
 Percentage complete
 S-Curve
 Exception report
 Earned value management.
The reporting of a project’s progress is a key activity of project management. When recording and
reporting the progress of your project in relation to the planned schedule, the way that you should do
this may depend on the project itself. You should be aware of the recording and reporting process in
relation to your own project. Throughout your project, you will need to conduct regular reports on
the progress against your budget, your scope and your schedule. Aim to keep your report brief and
sum up all of the key points.

There are many things you can include in your progress report, including:

 The overall status of your project

 Your project summary
 The key issues
 Any identified risks
 The tasks that are involved in your project
 The suggested next steps
 Any decisions that are needed
 Your budgeted cost
 The money that has been spent so far.

6.
In order to identify any baseline variance, it’s necessary to conduct an ongoing analysis. It requires a
constantly track of the project and monitor the schedule. It might be required to compare a position
or status within your project with an earlier version of it. It is possible to view your baseline data
alongside the current planned data, the actual data and the variance between them.

A variance table might be the answer as it shows the start and finish dates for both the scheduled
information and the baseline information. From this, you can identify any difference between the two
types of information. In order to evaluate your progress prediction, you can compare this prediction
with how your project is actually progressing. If there is a difference between your actual and planned
progress, it may indicate that your original plan is no longer accurate.

7.
On analysing and forecasting the impact of the change on the schedule, it is necessary to assess and
predict the impact that it will have on all aspects of your project, including the schedule. In order to
achieve this we may wish to discuss the potential change with everyone that will be involved, the
stakeholders. This will allow us to gain an insight into the impact of this change from all perspectives.

For that, we consider the following questions:

 Does the change support your overall project plan?

 What will happen to the project if the change is not implemented?
 If this change is implemented, what other areas of the project will be
 affected?
 Does the change conflict with your existing project schedule?
 Does the positive impact of this change outweigh the negative impact?
 Is there another change that can be implemented rather than this one?
 If the change is accepted and implemented, will training be necessary?
 What skills will you need in order to implement the change successfully?
 Will the implementation of the change introduce any possible performance issues?
The analysing and forecasting process may involve an Impact Analysis (IA) which can ensure that
any requests for change are considered with the overall impact on the project in mind. You need to
know what the potential risks and consequences of implementing the change, as well as the potential
risks and consequences of not implementing it. By analysing the impact of any change that occurs
within your project, you can avoid any surprises. Analysis can also help you to avoid overlooking
your project schedule dates.

8.
Throughout the life cycle of a project, we must regularly review its progress. We should review the
progress of your project against the project plan, look at the relevance of the remainder of the plan
and adjust the plan if necessary.

Before starting your project, it is important that you have defined how you will
measure progress and performance. We will need to identify your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
These KPIs will tell you whether your project is being successful and, if so, to what degree. They will
enable you to assess the progress and performance of your project in terms of the achievement of the
desired objectives. When assessing the progress of your project, you should use these pre-agreed
measurements to do this.

Typical KPIs may include:

 Schedule compliance
 Budget compliance
 Number of scope changes
 Number of issues
 Stakeholder satisfaction.

A project schedule can never be adhered to; there will always be changes that are required. The
biggest problem within a project is the unexpected and uncontrolled changes.

Agreed schedule changes may include:

 Applied constraints
 Changing objectives
 Changing scope
 Delayed or advanced task completion
 Resource availability.

It may be necessary to make schedule changes in order to maintain the

project objectives. All schedule changes should be identified and planned for
before implementation;

9.

You can develop responses through Contingency plans. It helps to prepare to be able to respond
coherently to an unplanned schedule change that may occur.

Within the contingency plan you will need to consider what is going to happen, what management
are going to do about it and if anything can be prepared ahead of time.
As well as throughout the life cycle of the project, we should regularly manage the progress of the
project in relation to the initial plan. There are some other methods to measure the progress of each
activity such as: Reporting Period, Project Status, Project Phases, highlight report, milestone charts
etc.

10.
Time has always been a valuable resource that needs to be treated carefully and identifying the
priorities can bring the success of the project.

A review of schedule performance may occur at:

- Agreed major milestones;

- Change of key personnel;
- Completion of major deliverables.

In any project it’s possible to track the time and analyse the records made. It is good to identify any
problems that have occurred.

11.
Time management issue:

- Overcomplicated time management systems;

- Talking and taking breaks too much;
- Failure due to distraction;
- Not prioritizing correctly.

For improvements there a few example:

- Ensure the scope is accurate;

- Ensure the project aligns with the scope;
- Be aware of current issues which may impact the schedule;
- Keep the time management documentation up to date;
- Keep the managers involved;
- Allow the team to get on.