Activites and Time Planning

Copyright Aatif Kamal, NIIT (2006-07) 1
Software Project Management
Lecture 3Lecture 3
Activities & Time PlanningActivities & Time Planning
Instructor: Inam Ul Haq
Dated: Sept 4th
, 2006

Motivation for Studying Project Management
 IT Projects have terrible track record
 A 1995 Standish Group study (CHAOS) found
that only 16.2% of IT projects were successful and
over 31% were canceled before completion,
costing over 81B$ in US alone
 The need for IT Projects keeps increasing
 In 1998, corporate America issued 200,000 new
application development projects
 In 2001, there were 300,000 new IT projects
 In 2003, over 500,000 new IT projects were
started

Project – Definition
 In the broadest sense, a project is a specific,
finite task to be accomplished. Any activity
that results in a deliverable or a product.
 Projects always begin with a problem. The
project is to provide the solution to this
problem.
 When the project is finished it must be
evaluated to determine whether it satisfies
the objectives and goals.

Another Definition of Project
 A project is a temporary endeavor
undertaken to accomplish a unique purpose
 Attributes of projects
 unique purpose
 temporary
 require resources, often from various areas
 should have a primary sponsor and/or customer
 involve uncertainty

Example of IT Projects
 Northwest Airlines developed a new
reservation system called ResNet
 Many Organizations upgrade hardware,
software and networks via projects
 Organizations develop new software or
enhance existing systems to perform many
business functions
Note: “IT projects” refers to projects involving
hardware, software and networks

Software Project Management
 Concerned with activities involved in ensuring
that software is delivered:
 on time
 on schedule
 in accordance with the requirements of the
organization developing and procuring the
software

Laws of Project Management 
 No major project is ever installed on time, within budget, with the same
staff that started it. Yours will not be the first.
 Projects progress quickly until they become 90% complete, then they
remain at 90% complete forever.
 One advantage of fuzzy project objectives is that they let you avoid the
embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
 When things are going well, something will go wrong.
 When things just can’t get any worse, they will
 When things appear to be going better you have overlooked something
 If project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will
exceed the rate of progress.
 No system is ever completely debugged: attempts to debug a system
inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find
 A carelessly planned project will take three times longer to complete
than expected, a planned project will take only twice as long.

Project Stakeholders
 Stakeholders are the people involved in or
affected by the project actives
 Stakeholders include
 The project sponsor and project team
 Support staff
 Customers
 Users
 Suppliers
 Opponents to the project

Project Characteristics
 One clear objective
 A well defined set of end results
 Goal oriented
 End product or service must result
 Finite
 Fixed timeline, start date, end date, milestone dates
 Limited
 Budget, Resources, Time
 Life Cycle
 Recognizable sequence of phases

Project Characteristics (cont..)
 Divisible into subtasks (called activities)
 often numerous, essentially unique and non-
repetitive
 sequenced by precedence relationship
 require careful co-ordination and monitoring
 Change (source of Conflict)
 A single point of responsibility (the Project
Manager)

Negotiation & Conflict resolution
Two different types of negotiations
 win-lose
 your savings are other party’s losses
 win-win
 both parties try to understand the other party
needs
 The win-win approach is a set of principles and
practices which enable a set of Interdependent
stakeholders to work out a mutually satisfactory
(win-win) set of shared commitments.

9 Project Management Knowledge Areas
 Knowledge areas describes the key
competencies that project manager must
develop
 4 - core knowledge areas lead to specific project
objectives (scope, time, cost and quality)
 4 - facilitating areas are the means through which
the project objectives are achieved (human
resource, communication, risk and procurement
management)
 1- knowledge area (project integration
management) affects and is affected by all of the
other knowledge areas

9 PM Knowledge Areas (cont..)
 Project Integration Management
 Describes the processes required to ensure that various
elements of the project are properly coordinated. It consist
of project plan development, project execution and
integrated change control.
 Project Scope Management
 Describes the processes required to ensure that the project
includes all the work required and integrated change
control.
 Project Time Management
 Describes the processes required to ensure the timely
completion of the project. It consist of initiation, scope
planning, scope definition, scope verification and scope
change control.

 Project Cost Management
is completed within the approved budget. It consist of
resource planning, cost estimating, schedule development
and schedule control.
 Project Quality Management
will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. It
consists of quality planning, quality assurance and quality
control.
 Project Human Resource Management
 Describes the processes required to make the most
effective use of the people involved with the project. It
consist of organizational planning, staff acquisition and
team development.

 Project Communication Management
 Describes the processes required to ensure timely and
appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage and
ultimate disposition of project information. It consist of
communications planning, information distribution, performance
reporting and administrative closure,
 Project Risk Management
 Describes the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing
and responding to project risk. It consist of risk management
planning, risk identification, qualitative risk analysis, quantitative
risk analysis, risk response planning and risk monitoring and
control.
 Project Procurement Management
 Describes the processes required to acquire goods and services
from the outside the performing organization. It consist of
procurement planning, solicitation planning, solicitation, source
selection, contract administration and contract closeout

A Hierarchy of Activities
WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
The backbone of any project is WBS. It describes the steps
necessary to carry out the project and their relationship to each
other, Not easy and straight forward.
System:
(IEEE) collection of components organized to accomplish a specific
function or set of function.
Program > Project > Work Package > Task > Work Unit
 Program
 A Group of Related Projects that is managed together, Programs
usually include an Element of Ongoing activity
 An exceptionally large, long range objective that can be broken
into projects
 E.g. Govt. of Pakistan Poverty reduction program

A Hierarchy of Activities (cont..)
 Projects
 A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique
product or service
 A specific finite task
 Work Package
 Project major set of activities / Modules
 Each WP has clear set of Objectives, Task and deliverables
 Each WP must have WP leader
 One continuous set of work units with a clearly defined and
observable beginning and end

A Hierarchy of Activities (cont..)
 Activity
 An element of work performed during the course of a project. An
activity has an expected duration, cost and resource requirement
 Any Task, Job or Operation that must be completed to finish a
project
 Synonym for Task
 Must Result in a Tangible deliverable
 Task
 A subdivision of an activity
 Synonym for activity
 Task must have one or more responsible person
 Work Unit
 Subdivision of a work package
 Not recognized as a term

Project Management - Advantages
 Responsiveness to Clients and the
Environment
 Ability to make Timely Trade-off Decisions
 Central Locus of Decisions to insure overall
Project Optimality
 Better control, better customer relations,
Shorter development time, lower costs,
Higher quality and reliability, higher profit
margins, better co-ordination, higher morale

Project Management - Disadvantages
 Greater Organizational Complexity
 Lower Personnel Utilization
 More Managerial Conflicts

The Project Management Profession
 A 1996 Fortune article called project management
the “number one career choice”
 Other authors and IT Gurus stress that Project
managers are who add value to organizations
 Professional societies like the Project Management
Institute (PMI) have grown tremendously
 Average Salaries for Project managers are over 81K
US$ per year

Project Management Certification
 PMI provides certification as a Project Management
Professional (PMP)
 A PMP has documented sufficient project
experience, agreed to follow a code of ethics, and
passed the PMP exam
 The number of people earning PMP certification is
increasing quickly, and the certification program
department received ISO approval in 1999
 Other groups, like the Singapore Computer Society,
 have their own IT PM Certification programs

Assignment 01
 Define Project, Project Management and
Process
 Write a note on W5HH Principle
 An ill-structured will result in?
 What threats will you predict in SPM?
 What is fuzzy project?
 No project is 100% complete, why?

Activites and Time Planning

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