UNIT-I

BASIC OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

1. What is Project Management? State its objectives and Importance.

A. Introduction:- Project management is a way to the person who manage and

control the resources of a project, project management is necessary to complete
the project and project goals.

Scientifically :- Project management is a practice to initate ,manage, execute,

control and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goal’s and specific
success at specified time.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve the

project goal’s with in given contraint’s . This constraint’s are described in project
documentation created at the beginning of project development process. The
primary constraint’s are scope, time,quality, budget. The secondary constraint’s
are ambitious to challenge the necessary input’s to meet project goal’s and
complete the project.

The main object of project management is to produce a complete

project with client objectives.

Objectives of Project Management:-

There are four major objectives of project management.

1) Scope:- Scope is one of the important objective of project management. Scope

means what are the expectations from project manager and team. Every project
must be complete with in the scope of a project.

2)Performance:- A project is always expected to have a well defined performance

level. If a project is unable to bond to the desired performance of a customer, it is
certainly an unsuccessful project.
3)Time:- A successful project is the one which is completed with in the time limit’s
perceived during the planning. As the cost is dependent on time, time
management is a crucial activity of project management

4) Cost:- It is dependent on all the above objectives.

Importance of Project Management:-

1) Rapidly changing technology:- Technologies are changing very fast all the
manufacturing and service industries they must cope up with changing
technology. It leads to a big scope for project.

2) High energy to the system:-Project management providing high energy to the

system. Project due to fast changing technology the energy levels are high. To
adopt fast changing world. No organization can stick to old thing’s and systems.
Any modification (or) modernization leads to the need of project.

3) Project life cycle:-Project life cycle is a great extent with innovations taking
place at a very rapid rate. Project management are needed for the up gradation of
projects.

4) Globalization impact:-All the producers and service provider’s in the present

world they are exposed globally. They need to modify their systems of operations
to match the global practices. It creates opportunities for project’s.

5) Large organizations:- Large organizations face problems like huge work force
and work division, so they divide their work in project’s and create a team to
accomplish the objectives in the form of project’s . This also help’s the
organization to develop a method for performance appraisal.

6) Customer focus:- Increased customer focus has been a market trend in recent
times. A few year’s back cost reduction was a major formula of success for an
enterprise.
2. Write about the evolution of project management?

A. Project management is an important topic because all the organizations they

small (or) large, at one time (or) other are involved in implementing new under
takings. These undertaking’s develop a new project (or) services in the
establishment of a new production line in a manufacturing enterprises.

On a macro level organization are motivated to implement project management

techniques to ensure their undertaking’s are delivered on time, with in the cost
budget and stipulated quality. On a micro level project management combined
with an appropriate information management system have the objectives like.

Reducing project over heads cost

Customizing the project work place to fit the operational style of the project
team and team members.
Proactively informing the executive management of the strategic project’s on
a real time basis.
Ensuring that project team members share accurate meaning full document’s
and timely project document’s.
Ensuring that critical task dead lives are met.
1. Prior to 1958 Craft system to human relations :- During this time, the
evaluation of technology , such as automobile and telecommunications shortened
the project schedule. For instance, automobile allowed effective resources
allocation and mobility, with the telecommunications system increased the speed
of communication.
2.1958-1979 Application of Management science:- Significant technology
advancement took place between 1958-1979, such as the first automatic plain
paper copier by Xerox in 1959. Between 1956 and 1958 several core project
management tools including CPM and PERT were introduced. This period was
rapid development of computer technology.

3.1980-1994:- The 1980’s and 1990’s are characterized by the revolutionary

development in the information management sector with the introduction of the
personal computer and associated computer communications networking
facilities. This development resulted in having low cost multitasking pc’s that had
high efficiency in managing and controlling complex project schedules.

4.1995-Present:- creating a new environment. This period is dominated by the

development’s related to the internet that changed dramatically business
practices in the mid 1990’s.This allows automate uploading of data so that any
one around the globe with a standard browser can

Input the most recent status of their assigned task.

Find out how the overall project doing.

Be informed of any delay’s (or) advances in the schedule.

Stay in the loop for their project role, while working independently at a

remote site.

3. Discuss about project identification process?

A. Project identification is a most crucial task which start’s with an idea (or)
intention. As the idea comes there will be increase in number of possibilities
(or)alternatives. To select the best alternative, we need to follow the pre-
requisite of a project are idea generation, idea screening, monitoring the
environment. Idea scouting, and project ranking.

Project

Idea Idea Monitoring Idea Scooting Project

the ranking
Generation Screening environment

I) Idea Generation:- The project must

begin with an idea about the product (or) service is it going to create. Idea
generation is systematic search for new product. Ideas are obtained internally (or)
externally. A systematic approach to generation of ideas not only increase the
number of alternatives available but also help’s in selection of the best
alternative.

Sources of idea generation:-

 Worker’s
 Specialists
 Man agent
 Market analysts
 Publications
 Customers
 Suppliers
 Distribution channel’s

1) Worker’s:- Worker’s are the best source of idea’s especially matter’s relate to
product process improvement, re-arrangement’s (or) modifications. These ideas
come from individual worker (or) group of worker’s. To collect individual ideas
normally organizations use suggestion boxes but now-a-day’s e-mail’s and text
message are used for ideas. Brain storming is a group technique to develop ideas
to a specific problem.

2) Specialists:- Many organizations hire specialists for idea generation. They are
called idea creator’s (or) imaginers. Their job is just to do thinking.

3) Management:- Management use SWOT analysis to identify project ideas SWOT

analysis is a tool that considers organization’s strength and weakness along with
the opportunities and threat’s.

4) Market analysts:- Market analysis’s are continuously engaged in doing market

researches. So they can be useful tool to identify key project ideas.

5) Publications:- Another rich source of idea generation is publications. The

central as well as state governments publish fact’s and figures in the form of
manual’s, report’s bulletins, hand books for the benefit of investor’s .

6) Customer’s:-Demand of the customer may become a source of new project.

Many times customer complaint’s record serves as basis of new idea.
7) Supplier’s:- Many ideas come from supplier’s also not supply the ingredient’s
but increasingly supply the information’s to manufacturer’s . Therefore they are
the link between manufacturer’s and primary producer’s and a direct source of
idea generation.

8) Distribution channel’s:-Member’s of the distribution channel’s are familiar

with the needs of the market and hence can prove to be excellent sources of new
idea.

II) Idea screening:-In idea generation phase project having a large number ideas
are gathered by tapping all possible sources. But all of them are not relevant and
feasible for the business. So a process is required where all the ideas generated
are evaluated, compared to select best idea for the business.

This is done by idea screening.

The need of idea screening is

To maintain the successful ideas.

Eliminate the ideas which would be failures.

If in doubt, keep the idea until more information is obtained.

There are two stages of idea screening, initial screening and detailed screening.

Initial screening:- Initial screening is done in all stages, simple methods may be
used in initial stages. The ideas are studied to see if they are suitable with the aim,
there is a pass/fail decision made. In this stage decision is taken on tacit
knowledge of individuals (or) group with in the organization.

 Detailed screening:- In this stage every effort is done to build up the

necessary information’s for the decisions to made in quantitative and
objective way. All the internal and external factor’s considered in this stage.
A check list of screening factor’s is prepared and each idea is scored against
each other in a check list screening. The scores of each idea are added to
give a total score and the lowest scoring ideas are dropped.
Screening factor’s:-

a) Marketing factor’s:-
Potential market size for output of project
Estimated life of out put
Relationship to competing product’s
Consumer acceptance
Compatibility with existing pricing structure
Marketing resources needed
Relationship with promotional methods and resources.

b) Production factor’s:-
Production time required.
Change in cost structure
Availability of technical skills to produce the product
Raw material’s and ingredient requirement’s.
Availability of production
Cost and availability of new resources.

c) Personnel factor’s:-
Training requirement’s.
Knowledge and skills.
Available of time and human resources.
Development funds needed and available.
 Compatibility with existing strengths.
Development difficulties and risk of failure.

d) Financial factor’s:-

Capital investment resources needed and available.

Finance needed and available for market launch and ongoing products
Support.
Return on investment required.
Payout period.
Break even point.
Impact on cash flows.

e) Administrative and other external factor’s:-

Government requirement’s.
Stake holder’s reactions.
Managerial capacity to direct and control.
Competitor’s reactions.
Office staff resistance.

III) Monitoring the Environment:- Project success depends on how will it adjusts
with the environment in which it is to operate. So it becomes imperative to study
to monitor such environment before the start of project.
IV) Idea scouting:- Idea scouting means to examine the sources to get business
ideas and give them the shape of project.
The Following are the few sources of idea scouting.
Demand and supply trends.
Import’s and export’s statistics
Emerging trends in trending technology
Industry profile.
Product/ process profile.
Skill labour profile.
Offer’s by govt financial institution and development banks.
Local materials and natural resources availability.
Economic and social trends.
Analysis of sick unit’s.

V) Project ranking:- The project ranking is the most important and difficult step in
project management. In this stage making the right project choice and epically
choosing which project should be done now (or) later and which is important.
Here project manager never prioritize the project’s. Most of them used point
scoring method under this method factor’s relevant for project ranking are
identified and an index called project ranking index. Project’s that fall at low score
are rejected and highest score are selected.

4) what is project life cycle? Explain the stage of life cycle?

A. The project manager and project team have a goal to carry out the work of the
project. For the purpose of meeting the project’s objective. Every project has a
beginning, a middle period, and an ending. A standard project typically has four
major stages like ,initiation, planning, implementation, and closure.
i) Project initiation stage:- The project initiation stage is the first stage in project
life cycle. It involves starting up a new project, you can start a new project by
defining it’s objectives, scope purpose and deliverable to be produced you ‘’ hire
your project team, setup the project office and review the project, to gain
approval to begin next phase.
ii) Project planning stage:- In this stage, the effort level increases and plans are
developed to determine what the project will do, when it will be scheduled,
whom it will benefit , what quality level should be maintained and what the
budget will be. This stage will include planning schedules, budget’s, resources,
risks and staffing.
iii) Project implementation stage:- In this stage a major portion of the project
work takes place. The physical product is produced. Time , cost and specification
measure are used for control. More specifically this stage will take care of status
report’s, changes in quality and fore casts.
iv) Project closure stage:- This is the final stage which includes two activities i.e.,
delivering the out come of the project to customer and redeploying the project
resources. Delivery of the project might include customers training and
transferring document’s. Redeploying usually involves releasing project
equipment material to other project’s.

5) What is project initiation?

A) The Project Initiation Phase is the 1st phase in the Project Management Life
Cycle, as it involves starting up a new project. You can start a new project by
defining its objectives, scopes, purpose and deliverables to be produced. You’II
also hire your project team, setup the Project Office and review the project, to
gain approval to begin the next phase.
Overall, there are six key steps that you need to take to properly initiate a new
project.

1. Develop a business case

2. Undertake a feasibility study
3. Establish the project character
4. Appoint the project team
5. Setup the project office
6. Perform a phase review
The Project Initiation Phase is the most crucial phase in the Project Life Cycle, as
it’s the phase in which you define your scope and hire your team.
only with a clearly defined scope and a suitably skilled team, can you ensure
success. The Project Initiation Templates will help you to do this, by giving you all
of the templates you need to initiate new projects now.
These templates describe in depth, the steps taken to initiate a project. They also
include loads of practical examples, tips and hints. Using these templates, you’II
always have a head-start and you’II never have to start-from-scratch.

6 . Explain the phases of Project management?

A . Project management is a complex process consisting of different phases
arranged in a sequential order. Different author’s have described these phases in
different sequential manner. But the concept is same.
All the phases given in different studies can be grouped in to three main phases.
1. Pre-investment phase
2. Implementation phase
3. Operational phase
i) Pre-investment phase:- In this pre-investment phase describes the preliminary
evaluation of idea. It consists of identification of investment opportunities,
preliminary project analysis, feasibility study and decision making. During this
phase the following aspect’s of the project must be carefully designed to
implementation.
 Project infrastructure and services.
 System design and basic engineering package.
 Organization and man power.
 Schedules and budget’s.
 Licensing and government clearances.
 Finance.
 System and procedure.
 Identification of project manager.
 Design basis, general condition for purchase and contract’s.
 Construction resources and materials.
 Work packaging.
This phase is involved with preparation for the project to take out smoothly. Once
a project opportunity is conceived it needs to be examined preliminary project
analysis concerns with marketing, technical, financial and economic aspect’s of
the project.
ii) Implementation phase:- Implementation phase involves in setting up of
manufacturing facilities. After judging the worthiness, project needs to be
designed for implementation. Drawing’s, blue print’s and the various activities of
the project need to be carried out. The main activities under this phase are.
a) Project engineering and Design:- It consists of site probing and
prospecting, preparation of blue print’s, plant design, plant engineering,
selection of machinery, equipment.
b) Negotiation and contractions:- It cover’s the activities like project financing
acquisition of technology, and civil works, provision of utilities supply of
machine and equipment marketing etc.
c) Construction:- This involves the activities like site preparation, construction
of building, exactions and installation of machinery and equipment training
engineers, technicians and worker’s.
iii) Operation phase:- It is the longest phase it begins when the project is
commissioned and ends when the project is windup. This is a transition phase in
which the hardware built with the active involvent of various agencies is
physically handed over for production. This phase is basically a clean up phase for
project personnel. The main aim of this phase is smooth and uninterrupted
operation of machinery and plant, development of suitable norms of productivity,
establishment of a good quality for the product and securing the market
acceptance of the product. Project monitoring and project evaluation are two
important activities under this phase.

7) Explain the classification of Projects?

A. The projects can be classified into various types.
1) Based on Ownership:
a) Public Projects: These are the projects which are done by Government.
E.g. Construction of Roads & Bridges, Institution etc.
b) Private Projects: These are the projects which are undertaken by private
enterprises. E.g. any business related projects such as a construction of
houses by real estate builders, software development, marriage contracts,
etc.
c) Public Private Partnership: These projects which are undertaken by both
government and private enterprises together. E.g., Generation of Electricity
by Windmill, Garbage Collection, etc.
2) Based on Investment:
 a) Large scale Project: These projects involve a huge investments, say, cores.
E.g. Real Estate Projects, Road Construction of manufacturing facilities,
Satellite sending projects of ISRO, Unique identification Number project of
Indian, etc.,
b) Medium Scale Project: These projects involve medium level investment
and are technology oriented Example: Computer industry and electronic
industry.
c) Small Scale Project: These projects involve only a lesser investment. E.g.
Agricultural projects, manufacturing projects.

3. Based on Nature:
a) Conventional Projects: These projects are traditional projects which do not
apply any innovative ideas or technology or method. For example,
conventional irrigational projects, handicraft projects, etc.
b) Innovative Projects: These projects involve the use of technology, high
Researched development of new products and services.
4. Based on Time:
a) Long term projects: These projects take a very long duration to complete.
These projects are run for many years till the objective is reached. For
example, Eradication of diseases like Polio, Filaria, etc.
b) Medium term projects: These projects take a medium term duration like 3
to 5 years. For example, Modernization projects, computerization of
operations, etc.
c) Short term projects: These projects are executed within a short period,
normally within a year. For example, pond cleaning project, health camps,
software development, etc.
d) Very short term projects: These projects are completed within a very short
period, say, within a day. For example, product launch project.
5. Based on Risk:
a) High Risk Projects: These project involve a very high degree of risk, for
example, nuclear energy project, thermal energy project, satellite project,
etc. If the project is not handled properly, the effect will be very adverse.
Thus high precautionary measures are to be taken to handle.
b) Low Risk Projects: These projects do not involve risk and they are carried
out in the normal course of action. For example, road and bridge
construction, house construction.
6. Based on Investment Decisions:
a) Independent Projects: An independent project is one, where the
acceptance or rejection does not directly eliminate other projects from
consideration or affect the likelihood of their selection. For example, if
management plans to introduce a new product line, as well as, replace a
machine which is currently producing a different product.
b) Mutually exclusive Projects: The mutually exclusive projects are projects
that cannot be followed at the same time. The acceptance of one prevents
the substitute proposal from accepting. Most of them have ‘either or’
decisions.
c) Contingent Projects: A contingent project is one where the acceptance or
rejection depends on the decision to accept or reject multiple number of
other projects. Such projects may be complementary or substitutes.

UNIT-2
PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
1. Explain the need, objectives and functions of Project Planning?
Ans : Project Planning is part of project management, which relates to the use of
schedules such as Gantt charts to plan and subsequently report progress within
the project environment.

NEED FOR PROJECT PLANNING:

One of the objectives of project planning is to completely define all work

requested, so that it will be readily identifiable to each project participant.
Besides that there are four basic reasons for project planning.

 To eliminate or reduce uncertainty

 To improve efficiency of the operation
 To obtain a better understanding of the objectives
 To provide a basis for monitoring and controlling work

OBJECTIVES :

The basic processes of the project planning phase are:

Defining the Scope: Define the scope of the project and its limitations.

Preparing the work breakdown structure: Divide the whole project into
smaller activities.

Role assignment : Assign jobs to individuals or group of individuals as

predefined activities or tasks.

Fund allocation: Allocation of funds for individual activities.

FUNCTIONS:

The following functions are to be performed carefully in the Project Planning

process.

 It should provide a basis for organizing the work on the project and
allocating responsibilities to individuals.
 It is a means of communication and co-ordination between all those
involved in the project.
  It induces the people to look ahead.
 It instills a sense of urgency and time consciousness.
 It establishes the basis for monitoring and control.

2. Explain the project premises / process ? or

What are the activities involved in planning?

Ans : Planning premises refers to what all is to be planned. It involves activities

like

1. Scope Planning :
Scope planning refers to the process of progressively elaborating the work
of a project. Which includes developing written statement that includes
project justification, project deliverables and project objectives. The project
management gets the scope from concept phase. If it is well defined then it
is becomes easier to the project management to proceed further. If not
well defined we cant proceed to further phase.
2. Schedule Planning :
Schedule Planning means the deadlines for the project schedule
management plan is prepared by the project team in consultation with
management. The schedule management plan provides details of project
milestones activities and deliverables with start and finish dates. There are
three techniques of schedule planning
 Network diagram
 Gantt charts
 Mile stone charts
3. Resource planning :
The project needs various kinds of resources like peoples equipment and
other facilities, management and the project team plans for the resources
which are to be arranged from with in the organisation and outside the
organisation.
4. Risk planning :
 Risk Planning is the process of deciding how to approach and conduct the
risk management activities in the project. It should be completed early
during project planning. It is crucial to successfully performing the other
processes.

5. Communication planning :
All stake holders including project team have different needs of information
about project. These information needs are put in to communication plan.
The main purpose of communication plan is to improve the flow of
information about the project to all stake holders. The communication plan
shows how the information will flow with in the project and its members.
6. Quality planning :
Here quality planning refers to both project deliverables and project
management. Quality planning is a process of identifying quality
requirements and standards for the product and project. Benchmarking
and control charts are used to maintain quality.
7. Procurement planning :
The Procurement planning is the last planning activity in the planning
phase. The procurement plan provides a detailed description of the
products to be procured from suppliers.
8. Financial Planning :
Financial plain is prepared to identify the amount of money required for
each stage in the project. The total cost of labour, equipments, materials
and other expenses are defined in the plan. Preparing detailed financial
plan is extremely important for project success.
9. Acceptance planning :
Generally in project management the acceptance planning is used to
gaining the acceptance from customers on goods and services provided by
the project. This is used to judge each deliverable for acceptance.

3. Explain the Role/Responsibilities of Project Manager?

Ans: Project Managers are the persons who are responsible for managing the
project. In other words, project managers are the spearheads of a project and
ensure that the project is completed within the specified deadline and delivered
to the client without any flaws. In short, a project manager is responsible for all
the aspects of the project from project initiation to project delivery. In the
following paragraphs, we will be focusing on the roles and responsibilities of a
project manager and project management team.

Responsibilities of a Project Manager:

The responsibilities of a project manager can vary from organization to

organization and some times they may change depending upon the project
requirement. But there are some core responsibilities that they have to carry
which are practiced by the project managers in most of the companies.

Listed below are some of the important duties are responsibilities of a project
manager.

Planning :

Planning is a key responsibility of a project manager. In this phase, the project

manager defines the project scope and accordingly develops a project plan and
schedule. They have to develop efficient procedures and policies. so that the
project is delivered to the customer within specified time and within a given
budget. If required the project managers have to change the plans or design a
new backup plan if the situation demands.

Organizing :

Organizing is the next phase where project managers focus. In this phase, the
project managers concentrate on organizing project team structure. While
organizing, the project managers also have to take care about the existing
structure in the organization. After this, they have to identify the roles and
positions that have to be assigned to the team members.

Leading : One of the most demanding roles of being a project manager is to lead
the project team in an efficient manner. The project manager has to take the lead
right from the word go. The project manager must coordinate with different
levels of the organization in order to make that the project goes smoothly. They
have to always motivate team members and keep a regular check on the
developments of the project.

Controlling : project managers have to ensure that the project is heading in the
right track and will be completed by the team members within the time-frame.
Project managers use a three-step controlling process and they are :

 Measure : Keep a strict vigil on the progress of the project.

 Evaluate : they have to determine the root causes of deviations.
 Correcting : Make appropriate corrections to address the issue of deviation.

Communication : one of the important responsibilities of the project manager is

to communicate with the senior management and other top tier officials. They
have the responsibility to provide status reports, risk management issues, issue
relating to t he budget, and also get approvals of deliverable from the project
sponsors and stakeholders.

Q4. Explain the role of Team Work in Project?

Ans : The success of a Project will depend on how efficient project teams are in
executing project goals and objectives during the project management lifecycle.
This will be impacted, work assignments. Here, project managers can help by
determining the project goals and objectives are clearly defined to making the
right work assignments, and encouraging team work and commitment.

1. Individual Assignments:

To avoid unnecessary problems, project managers should start with the

work and not with the team. This ensures that the right people are assigned to
the right work assignments. Each project team member is placed on the project
because of core competencies that are necessary to further project goals or
objectives. In making assignments, it is important for project managers to have a
clear idea of individual skills, personality and motivations.

2. Shared Resposibilities:
 Shared work is a core requirement on projects. Here, effective teamwork
occurs when each participant involved in a shared assignment is clear about the
specific tasks he is responsible for completing. Clearly defined task assignments
will encourage personal accountability and reduce the like hood of
misunderstandings and conflicts among project team members.

3. Priorities:

Assignment prioritization dictates how it is treated by team members.

Project team should be on the same page, when it comes to knowing which
elements are assigned objectives and activities are critical. Here, prioritization
becomes an important tool that can reduce tension among team with different
ideas about project priorities. The best practice is to allow team members to
establish consensus can be referred over to the project manager for final
resolution.

4. Motivation:

A motivated team takes ownership of projects goals and objectives and

exhibit maximum commitment to deliver project team responsibilities. Project
Managers can help motivate teams by ensuring that the scope of a project
remains well-defined throughout the course of the project. Conflicts should be
resolved quickly and fairly. Additionally, training in team roles and teamwork
assists each team member and strengthens their ability to execute project
objectives and assignments.

5. What is Team Dynamics ? Explain its importance ?

Ans : The success of a project depends up on efficient project teams. Here team
dynamics means it is a psychological forces influencing the performances and
behaviours of the teams. These dynamics are created by the personalities
involved and how they interact. In team dynamics the project managers are the
persons help to the team members about their work then the team members
easily know how to achieve the project goals and objectives. Team dynamics are
very important to improve their performance with the help of communication,
motivation, innovation, efficiency.
 1. Communication :
Communication is important for a successful project. The project leader
must give directions and advice clearly to the team to understand their task
and the team must feel comfortable to receive problems and question to
each other and the manager, project managers who keep communication
open to create a flexible team that reacts to challenges quickly and exactly.
2. Motivation :
Team dynamics are important to improve motivation in workers. Motivated
workers are exited to contribute more to the project. Unmotivated workers
are not having excitement to contribute they just do their best. For
improving motivation project managers use incentives to motivate their
team to work together well.
Ex : announcing bonus. It leads to encourage team members to support
each other.
3. Innovation :
Innovations are raising from the communication dynamics of the entire
team not just from the rare brilliant individual. If the atmosphere creates
rewards and avoids negative criticism. Team members will feel comfortable
to taking chance of innovations.
4. Efficiency :
Efficiency team dynamics allow each participant to serve their best
capacity. The various skills of the team members complement one another,
leading to speedy, efficient work. Improper team dynamics rise unfriendly
behaviour preventing people, stop cooperation and limiting the entire
teams ability to get the job done.

6. What is PERT? Explain its advantages and disadvantages ?

Ans : PERT stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique. PERT was
originally developed by U.S Navy in 1950’s. It was developed as a network flow
chart to facilitate the planning and scheduling of the project. PERT is suitable for
research and development programs like aero space projects and other projects
involving new technology.

PERT is useful technique in project planning and control. It is a method of

minimizing delays and interruptions. It helps in coordinating the various parts of
overall job and seeing that every activity is finished in time.

Advantages :

 It compels managers to plan their projects critically, analyze all factors

affecting the progress of the plan. The project planning be conducted on
considerable detail from the start to finish.
 It provides a tool for management to forecasting the impact of schedule
changes and be prepared to correct such situation.
 The task relationships are graphically represented for easy evaluation.
 The PERT time is based upon 3 way estimate and hence is the most
objective time in the light of uncertainties and results in greater degree of
accuracy in time forecasting.
 It results in improved communications and the network provides a common
ground for various parties such as designers, contractors, project managers
etc.

Disadvantages :

 Uncertainly about the estimate of time and resources.

 The carts may be higher than the conventional methods of planning and
controlling
 It needs a high degree of planning skills and greater amount of details
which would increase the cost in time and man power resources.
 It is not suitable for relatively simple and repetitive projects.
 It is based on beta distribution and the assumptions of beta distribution
may not always true.

7. What is CPM? Explain its advantages and disadvantages?

Ans : CPM stands for Critical Path Method. Critical path method is a step by step
project management technique for the process of planning and controlling the
schedule progress in projects. CPM defines the activities like critical and non
critical. It was developed by the Du Pont in the US in 1956. CPM was used to solve
scheduling problems in industrial settings. CPM is generally used for simple
repetitive types of projects for which the activity times and costs are exactly
known.

Ex : projects like construction of buildings, roads, bridges..

Advantages of CPM :

 It organizes simple and complex projects.

 It enables the calculation of the float of each activity.
 It encourages the project manager to reduce the project duration by
optimizing the critical path technique.
 It provides a standard methods for communicating project plans, schedules
and cost.
 Enables the project manager to allocating resources optimize to reduce the
overall cost of the project.
 It provides opportunities to respond to the negative risk of going over-
schedule by identifying the activities that are most critical.

Disadvantages of CPM :

 It operates on the assumption for each activity which may not be true in
real situation.
 CPM can become ineffective and difficult to manage, if it is not well defined
and stable.
 The allocation of resources cannot be properly monitored.
 Using CPM identifying and determined a critical part is difficult when they
are many other similar duration parts in projects.
 This very difficult to large process.
 CPM is time consuming. It is difficult to estimate the activity completion
time in a multidimensional project.
8. Differences between CPM and PERT?
Ans :
PERT
1. It is an origin of Military
2. It is time based
3. It is an event oriented system
4. It is a technique for planning,
scheduling and controlling of
projects whose activities are
subject to uncertainity
5. It is a probabilistic model
6. Basically does not differentiate
critical and non critical activities
7. It does not deals with process of
crashing
8. Used in projects where resources
are always available when
required
CPM
1. It is an origin of Industry
2. It is cost based
3. It is an activity oriented system
4. It is a technique for planning,
scheduling and controlling of
projects whose activities are well
defined
5. It is a deterministic model
6. Differentiate the critical and non
critical activites
7. It does deals with process of
crashing
8. Used in projects where overall
cost is primarily important.
Therefore better utilized
resources