This document discusses several project management concepts including:
1) The work breakdown structure (WBS) and function point analysis (FPA) which are used to estimate project tasks and timelines.
2) Critical path analysis (CPA) which identifies the longest continuous chain of tasks in a project network diagram and determines the shortest possible timeline.
3) Earned value management which tracks project progress by comparing actual costs, planned value, and earned value.
The document outlines the activity node diagram and critical path for building an ATC tower project. The critical path consists of activities A, B, C, D, and E which are expected to take a total of 27 weeks to complete. A delay of up to 5 weeks in designing the tower will not impact the overall project completion time since all parallel activities can still finish within the 27 week critical path.
This document provides information to draw an Activity-On-Node (AON) network and Gantt chart for a construction project. It lists 9 activities with their successors, durations, and constraints. The tasks are to: 1) Draw the AON and AOA networks, 2) Determine the critical path and total time, 3) Calculate the early start, early finish, late start, late finish, total float, and free float for each activity, and 4) Draw a Gantt chart showing only non-critical activities.
This is a project management measuring tool that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen for how to look at a big project. They should do these for any government or Big IT project. It seems complicated at first, but I tried to explain exactly how it works in this. I did not create it, first saw it in 1994/1995. I made this file to try to explain it to others (still is confusing), but please comment if you know its origins.
This document provides information to draw a Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) network and analyze a project. It includes activity information like optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic durations to calculate the expected duration, variance, and probability of completing within given timeframes, like having a 90% chance of finishing within the total time. It asks to: 1) Draw the PERT network, 2) Calculate the total project time, 3) Find the probability of completing within 25 and 20 weeks, and 4) Find the total time with a 90% probability.
This document provides instructions for creating a slope formula template on a TI-Nspire CX graphing calculator. The instructions are: add two points to a graph, display their coordinates, use the text tool to input the slope formula, link the formula to the point coordinates so the slope automatically updates when the points are moved, and manipulate the points to test it.
The document outlines the activities and critical path required to build a new athletic complex on a university campus. It identifies 8 key activities - A through H - with their durations. Activity B through F and H make up the critical path of 14 weeks to complete the project. The summary also provides the activity schedule showing the earliest and latest start and finish times to ensure the project is completed on time.
The document contains 6 MATLAB programs that generate Nyquist plots for different transfer functions. Each program calculates the numerator and denominator polynomials, calls the nyquist function to generate the plot, and may include additional commands like clc, clear all, clf, grid on, and axis to clean the workspace and formatting. The output of each program is a Nyquist plot.
This document describes Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and its use in planning and scheduling a project. It provides activity details like predecessor tasks, optimistic, most probable and pessimistic durations. It then shows the steps to 1) draw the activity on arrow (AOA) network, 2) calculate the total project time using PERT, 3) determine the probability the project finishes within 50 and 44 weeks, and 4) find the project completion time with 80% probability.
The document outlines the activity node diagram and critical path for building an ATC tower project. The critical path consists of activities A, B, C, D, and E which are expected to take a total of 27 weeks to complete. A delay of up to 5 weeks in designing the tower will not impact the overall project completion time since all parallel activities can still finish within the 27 week critical path.
This document provides information to draw an Activity-On-Node (AON) network and Gantt chart for a construction project. It lists 9 activities with their successors, durations, and constraints. The tasks are to: 1) Draw the AON and AOA networks, 2) Determine the critical path and total time, 3) Calculate the early start, early finish, late start, late finish, total float, and free float for each activity, and 4) Draw a Gantt chart showing only non-critical activities.
This is a project management measuring tool that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen for how to look at a big project. They should do these for any government or Big IT project. It seems complicated at first, but I tried to explain exactly how it works in this. I did not create it, first saw it in 1994/1995. I made this file to try to explain it to others (still is confusing), but please comment if you know its origins.
This document provides information to draw a Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) network and analyze a project. It includes activity information like optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic durations to calculate the expected duration, variance, and probability of completing within given timeframes, like having a 90% chance of finishing within the total time. It asks to: 1) Draw the PERT network, 2) Calculate the total project time, 3) Find the probability of completing within 25 and 20 weeks, and 4) Find the total time with a 90% probability.
This document provides instructions for creating a slope formula template on a TI-Nspire CX graphing calculator. The instructions are: add two points to a graph, display their coordinates, use the text tool to input the slope formula, link the formula to the point coordinates so the slope automatically updates when the points are moved, and manipulate the points to test it.
The document outlines the activities and critical path required to build a new athletic complex on a university campus. It identifies 8 key activities - A through H - with their durations. Activity B through F and H make up the critical path of 14 weeks to complete the project. The summary also provides the activity schedule showing the earliest and latest start and finish times to ensure the project is completed on time.
The document contains 6 MATLAB programs that generate Nyquist plots for different transfer functions. Each program calculates the numerator and denominator polynomials, calls the nyquist function to generate the plot, and may include additional commands like clc, clear all, clf, grid on, and axis to clean the workspace and formatting. The output of each program is a Nyquist plot.
This document describes Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and its use in planning and scheduling a project. It provides activity details like predecessor tasks, optimistic, most probable and pessimistic durations. It then shows the steps to 1) draw the activity on arrow (AOA) network, 2) calculate the total project time using PERT, 3) determine the probability the project finishes within 50 and 44 weeks, and 4) find the project completion time with 80% probability.
1) A numerical model was used to simulate groundwater flow and nitrate transport in an agricultural area of Japan over 10 years.
2) The flow model showed good agreement with observed groundwater levels. Nitrate concentrations increased exponentially at first then reached equilibrium.
3) Fertilizer application is the main source of nitrate leaching into groundwater. Changing crop types could potentially reduce contamination levels up to 12%.
Borrador...differences between research project and the research proposal (3)...dannyquintero
The document outlines the key differences between a research project and a research proposal. A research project is the culmination of a research process and provides results, while a research proposal establishes the plan for how to answer a research question. Specifically:
- A research project reports results, while a proposal establishes the methodology and plan.
- Proposals must clearly define the research question, methodology, and design, while projects synthesize results.
- Proposals are evaluated for approval, while projects demonstrate skills developed through the research process.
Easy steps to network construction and critical path determinationDr. Mahmoud Al-Naimi
This document provides steps for network construction and critical path determination in project management. It includes an example problem with activities, durations, and preceding activities in a table. The steps demonstrated are: (1) drawing the activity-on-arrow network diagram for the activities, (2) calculating the critical activities using forward and backward passes to find earliest and latest start/finish times, (3) identifying the critical path, and (4) determining the project completion time. The example problem is used to illustrate drawing the network, performing the calculations, and identifying that the critical path is activities A->B->C->D->E->F->G with a project completion time of 36 weeks.
This document discusses project scheduling techniques like the Gantt chart, critical path method (CPM), and program evaluation and review technique (PERT). It explains activity on arrow (AOA) and activity on node (AON) networks, providing examples to compare how each represents project activities and dependencies. The document then works through an example project, drawing the AON network and performing a critical path analysis to determine the project's duration. The critical path is identified as activities A through C, E, G, and H, with a completion time of 15 weeks.
COEPD - Center of Excellence for Professional Development is a primarily a Business Analyst Training Institute in the IT industry of India head quartered at Hyderabad. COEPD is expert in Business Analyst Training in Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune , Mumbai & Vizag. We offer Business Analyst Training with affordable prices that fit your needs.
COEPD conducts 4-day workshops throughout the year for all participants in various locations i.e. Hyderabad, Pune. The workshops are also conducted on Saturdays and Sundays for the convenience of working professionals.
For More Details Please Contact us:
Visit at http://www.coepd.com or http://www.facebook.com/BusinessAnalystTraining
Center of Excellence for Professional Development
3rd Floor, Sahithi Arcade, S R Nagar,
Hyderabad 500 038, India.
Ph# +91 9000155700,
helpdesk@coepd.com
This chapter discusses research design in marketing research. It defines research design and describes the main types: exploratory, descriptive, and causal research. Exploratory research is used to define problems or generate hypotheses, descriptive research describes characteristics of populations or behaviors, and causal research determines causes and effects. The chapter outlines the tasks involved in research design and compares different design methods and approaches.
This document summarizes the key components of a research study design conducted by Hungerford et al. It describes the overall research question, type of design, setting, participants, variables, hypotheses, and statistical testing used in the study. Specifically, the study aimed to determine the feasibility of screening and brief alcohol interventions with young adults in an emergency department. It used a non-randomized cohort design to recruit participants between ages 18-39 who had consumed alcohol in the past 12 months. The independent variables were screening results (positive or negative) and legal drinking age. Dependent variables included post-intervention behaviors. Appropriate research questions and hypotheses were formulated based on these variables.
A network diagram is a flow chart that maps out all the tasks in a project and how they relate to each other. It provides a logical sequence of project events and dependencies between tasks. To create a network diagram, you determine all the activities, sequence them, estimate activity durations, and identify which tasks depend on others. The diagram is drawn by linking tasks with arrows to show dependencies from one activity to the next starting with tasks that have no predecessors. Network diagrams help visualize task relationships and identify critical paths and float.
The document discusses planning for an information systems development project. It covers defining project objectives, developing a work breakdown structure and network diagram, and utilizing a project management methodology like the systems development life cycle. Key steps in planning include defining the objective, listing all required activities, and graphically depicting the sequence and relationships of activities in a network diagram using techniques like Gantt charts.
The document discusses network diagrams, which are schematics that show the logical relationships between activities in a project. It notes that network diagrams were developed in 1957 by the US Navy and Lockheed to reduce the development time of the Polaris project by 45%. There are two main types: activity-on-arrow (AOA) diagrams and activity-on-node (AON) diagrams. AOA shows activities as arrows between initial and final states, while AON shows activities on nodes connected by arrows. The network diagram must have a starting point, end point, and show all predecessors and successors of activities without loops.
1) The document outlines the steps to build a house, including activities like surveying, excavation, laying the foundation, and installing plumbing, electrical, walls, floors, and roof.
2) It then organizes the activities hierarchically into preparing the building site, building the exterior, and building the interior.
3) Finally, it models the dependencies and schedule of activities using a PERT chart, showing the start and end dates and slack time for each step in the house building process.
The slides will help you in knowing the components of research design in brief what is research design, components of research design, differnt types of research design
The document discusses network analysis and the critical path method (CPM). It explains that CPM can be used to determine the minimum time required to complete a project if activity durations are known. CPM was developed in the 1950s by researchers at DuPont and Sperry Rand. It also discusses the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) which can estimate project completion probabilities when durations are uncertain. Both CPM and PERT helped reduce the Polaris missile development time. The document provides examples of CPM and PERT applications and rules for constructing a project network diagram.
The seventh lesson of the course on Planning and Managing Software projects (http://emanueledellavalle.org/Teaching/PMSP-2011-12.html) that I give at Politecnico di Milano.
The document discusses the development of a network diagram and critical path for building a house. It describes creating a network diagram by identifying relationships between activities and their dependencies. A table lists the activities needed to build the house along with their duration and dependencies. The network diagram is constructed and forward and backward passes are performed to calculate earliest and latest start and finish times. This allows identification of the critical path, which are the activities with zero slack that cannot be delayed.
Make your LinkedIn profile pop to viewers with a background image that tells your career story.
This presentation gives you 10 thematic ideas for your background. They're all quick and easy to implement.
Each theme is illustrated with an inexpensive photo downloaded from Canva and properly sized for LinkedIn.
You can see a brief companion video on how to use Canva here: Use Canva to Make a LinkedIn Background Image (w/VIDEO) http://buff.ly/1LtX8V4.
From Donna Svei, Executive Resume Writer
http://www.avidcareerist.com/executive-resume-writer/
The document discusses the process of developing a work breakdown structure (WBS) for a housing construction project. It begins by establishing the levels of the WBS from Level 1 (the overall project) down to Level 4 (individual tasks). It then shows how to develop a WBS dictionary to define the work for each WBS element. Next, it covers creating an organizational breakdown structure (OBS) to assign responsibilities to organizational departments. Finally, it explains how to merge the WBS and OBS into a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) to allocate specific tasks to responsible parties.
The document provides information on project analysis tools and requirements specification. It discusses elicitation plans, requirements using Planguage, PERT and CPM methods for scheduling, and Gantt charts. The key points are:
1. An elicitation plan helps ensure the right stakeholders, techniques, resources and time are used to gather requirements. It addresses the problem, strategies, stakeholders, schedule and risks.
2. PERT is for non-routine projects and uses three time estimates, while CPM is for routine projects with one estimate. Both use network diagrams to plan activities and determine critical paths.
3. Gantt charts are used to plan and schedule project tasks visually on a timeline. They improve communication
This document discusses project management and the critical path method technique. It defines project management as planning, directing, and controlling resources to meet time, cost, and technical constraints. The critical path method allows project managers to identify the critical activities and completion time of a project by determining the earliest and latest times of each activity. The document provides examples of constructing critical path networks and calculating key timing metrics to schedule and control a project.
1) A numerical model was used to simulate groundwater flow and nitrate transport in an agricultural area of Japan over 10 years.
2) The flow model showed good agreement with observed groundwater levels. Nitrate concentrations increased exponentially at first then reached equilibrium.
3) Fertilizer application is the main source of nitrate leaching into groundwater. Changing crop types could potentially reduce contamination levels up to 12%.
Borrador...differences between research project and the research proposal (3)...dannyquintero
The document outlines the key differences between a research project and a research proposal. A research project is the culmination of a research process and provides results, while a research proposal establishes the plan for how to answer a research question. Specifically:
- A research project reports results, while a proposal establishes the methodology and plan.
- Proposals must clearly define the research question, methodology, and design, while projects synthesize results.
- Proposals are evaluated for approval, while projects demonstrate skills developed through the research process.
Easy steps to network construction and critical path determinationDr. Mahmoud Al-Naimi
This document provides steps for network construction and critical path determination in project management. It includes an example problem with activities, durations, and preceding activities in a table. The steps demonstrated are: (1) drawing the activity-on-arrow network diagram for the activities, (2) calculating the critical activities using forward and backward passes to find earliest and latest start/finish times, (3) identifying the critical path, and (4) determining the project completion time. The example problem is used to illustrate drawing the network, performing the calculations, and identifying that the critical path is activities A->B->C->D->E->F->G with a project completion time of 36 weeks.
This document discusses project scheduling techniques like the Gantt chart, critical path method (CPM), and program evaluation and review technique (PERT). It explains activity on arrow (AOA) and activity on node (AON) networks, providing examples to compare how each represents project activities and dependencies. The document then works through an example project, drawing the AON network and performing a critical path analysis to determine the project's duration. The critical path is identified as activities A through C, E, G, and H, with a completion time of 15 weeks.
COEPD - Center of Excellence for Professional Development is a primarily a Business Analyst Training Institute in the IT industry of India head quartered at Hyderabad. COEPD is expert in Business Analyst Training in Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune , Mumbai & Vizag. We offer Business Analyst Training with affordable prices that fit your needs.
COEPD conducts 4-day workshops throughout the year for all participants in various locations i.e. Hyderabad, Pune. The workshops are also conducted on Saturdays and Sundays for the convenience of working professionals.
For More Details Please Contact us:
Visit at http://www.coepd.com or http://www.facebook.com/BusinessAnalystTraining
Center of Excellence for Professional Development
3rd Floor, Sahithi Arcade, S R Nagar,
Hyderabad 500 038, India.
Ph# +91 9000155700,
helpdesk@coepd.com
This chapter discusses research design in marketing research. It defines research design and describes the main types: exploratory, descriptive, and causal research. Exploratory research is used to define problems or generate hypotheses, descriptive research describes characteristics of populations or behaviors, and causal research determines causes and effects. The chapter outlines the tasks involved in research design and compares different design methods and approaches.
This document summarizes the key components of a research study design conducted by Hungerford et al. It describes the overall research question, type of design, setting, participants, variables, hypotheses, and statistical testing used in the study. Specifically, the study aimed to determine the feasibility of screening and brief alcohol interventions with young adults in an emergency department. It used a non-randomized cohort design to recruit participants between ages 18-39 who had consumed alcohol in the past 12 months. The independent variables were screening results (positive or negative) and legal drinking age. Dependent variables included post-intervention behaviors. Appropriate research questions and hypotheses were formulated based on these variables.
A network diagram is a flow chart that maps out all the tasks in a project and how they relate to each other. It provides a logical sequence of project events and dependencies between tasks. To create a network diagram, you determine all the activities, sequence them, estimate activity durations, and identify which tasks depend on others. The diagram is drawn by linking tasks with arrows to show dependencies from one activity to the next starting with tasks that have no predecessors. Network diagrams help visualize task relationships and identify critical paths and float.
The document discusses planning for an information systems development project. It covers defining project objectives, developing a work breakdown structure and network diagram, and utilizing a project management methodology like the systems development life cycle. Key steps in planning include defining the objective, listing all required activities, and graphically depicting the sequence and relationships of activities in a network diagram using techniques like Gantt charts.
The document discusses network diagrams, which are schematics that show the logical relationships between activities in a project. It notes that network diagrams were developed in 1957 by the US Navy and Lockheed to reduce the development time of the Polaris project by 45%. There are two main types: activity-on-arrow (AOA) diagrams and activity-on-node (AON) diagrams. AOA shows activities as arrows between initial and final states, while AON shows activities on nodes connected by arrows. The network diagram must have a starting point, end point, and show all predecessors and successors of activities without loops.
1) The document outlines the steps to build a house, including activities like surveying, excavation, laying the foundation, and installing plumbing, electrical, walls, floors, and roof.
2) It then organizes the activities hierarchically into preparing the building site, building the exterior, and building the interior.
3) Finally, it models the dependencies and schedule of activities using a PERT chart, showing the start and end dates and slack time for each step in the house building process.
The slides will help you in knowing the components of research design in brief what is research design, components of research design, differnt types of research design
The document discusses network analysis and the critical path method (CPM). It explains that CPM can be used to determine the minimum time required to complete a project if activity durations are known. CPM was developed in the 1950s by researchers at DuPont and Sperry Rand. It also discusses the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) which can estimate project completion probabilities when durations are uncertain. Both CPM and PERT helped reduce the Polaris missile development time. The document provides examples of CPM and PERT applications and rules for constructing a project network diagram.
The seventh lesson of the course on Planning and Managing Software projects (http://emanueledellavalle.org/Teaching/PMSP-2011-12.html) that I give at Politecnico di Milano.
The document discusses the development of a network diagram and critical path for building a house. It describes creating a network diagram by identifying relationships between activities and their dependencies. A table lists the activities needed to build the house along with their duration and dependencies. The network diagram is constructed and forward and backward passes are performed to calculate earliest and latest start and finish times. This allows identification of the critical path, which are the activities with zero slack that cannot be delayed.
Make your LinkedIn profile pop to viewers with a background image that tells your career story.
This presentation gives you 10 thematic ideas for your background. They're all quick and easy to implement.
Each theme is illustrated with an inexpensive photo downloaded from Canva and properly sized for LinkedIn.
You can see a brief companion video on how to use Canva here: Use Canva to Make a LinkedIn Background Image (w/VIDEO) http://buff.ly/1LtX8V4.
From Donna Svei, Executive Resume Writer
http://www.avidcareerist.com/executive-resume-writer/
The document discusses the process of developing a work breakdown structure (WBS) for a housing construction project. It begins by establishing the levels of the WBS from Level 1 (the overall project) down to Level 4 (individual tasks). It then shows how to develop a WBS dictionary to define the work for each WBS element. Next, it covers creating an organizational breakdown structure (OBS) to assign responsibilities to organizational departments. Finally, it explains how to merge the WBS and OBS into a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) to allocate specific tasks to responsible parties.
The document provides information on project analysis tools and requirements specification. It discusses elicitation plans, requirements using Planguage, PERT and CPM methods for scheduling, and Gantt charts. The key points are:
1. An elicitation plan helps ensure the right stakeholders, techniques, resources and time are used to gather requirements. It addresses the problem, strategies, stakeholders, schedule and risks.
2. PERT is for non-routine projects and uses three time estimates, while CPM is for routine projects with one estimate. Both use network diagrams to plan activities and determine critical paths.
3. Gantt charts are used to plan and schedule project tasks visually on a timeline. They improve communication
This document discusses project management and the critical path method technique. It defines project management as planning, directing, and controlling resources to meet time, cost, and technical constraints. The critical path method allows project managers to identify the critical activities and completion time of a project by determining the earliest and latest times of each activity. The document provides examples of constructing critical path networks and calculating key timing metrics to schedule and control a project.
This document provides an introduction to project management concepts. It discusses key knowledge areas in project management including scope, time, cost, risk, and integration management. It also covers project lifecycles, work breakdown structures, estimating time and costs, scheduling, resource assignment, and risk management. The goal is to give the reader an overview of fundamental project management processes and techniques.
This document discusses project scheduling techniques CPM (Critical Path Method) and PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique). It defines CPM and PERT, compares their key differences, and provides examples of how to apply them. Specifically, it covers how to calculate activity times and variances in PERT, identify critical paths, calculate project completion times and probabilities, and perform crashing in CPM. The document aims to help the reader understand how to distinguish and apply CPM and PERT for project scheduling, time and cost analysis, and probability calculations.
This document discusses key aspects of project management including defining a project, project management activities, structuring project organizations, work breakdown structures, critical path scheduling, and time-cost tradeoff models. It provides examples to illustrate work breakdown structures, critical path diagrams, expected time calculations, and probability calculations for project duration. The document outlines assumptions and limitations of critical path methodology for project scheduling.
Lecture - Project, Planning and Control.pdflucky141651
Geometric method impossible in higher dimensions
• Algebraical methods:
• Simplex method (George B. Dantzig 1949):
skim through the feasible solution polytope.
Similar to a "Gaussian elimination".
Very good in practice, but can take an
exponential time
Deadline 6 PM Friday September 27, 201310 Project Management Que.docxedwardmarivel
Deadline 6 PM Friday September 27, 2013
10 Project Management Questions with sub-questions under each question. A word document is provided with all questions and directions.
Problem 1
The following data were obtained from a project to create a new portable electronic.
Activity
Duration
Predecessors
A
5 Days
---
B
6 Days
---
C
8 Days
---
D
4 Days
A, B
E
3 Days
C
F
5 Days
D
G
5 Days
E, F
H
9 Days
D
I
12 Days
G
Step 1: Construct a network diagram for the project.
Step 2: Answer the following questions:
a)
What is the Scheduled Completion of the Project?
b)
What is the Critical Path of the Project?
c)
What is the ES for Activity D?
d)
What is the LS for Activity G?
e)
What is the EF for Activity B?
f)
What is the LF for Activity H?
g)
What is the float for Activity I?
Problem 2
The following data were obtained from a project to build a pressure vessel:
Activity
Duration
Predecessors
A
6 weeks
---
B
6 weeks
---
C
5 weeks
B
D
4 weeks
A, C
E
5 weeks
B
F
7 weeks
D, E, G
G
4 weeks
B
H
8 weeks
F
I
5 weeks
G
J
3 week
I
Step 1: Construct a network diagram for the project.
Step 2: Answer the following questions:
a)
Calculate the scheduled completion time.
b)
Identify the critical path
c)
What is the slack time (float) for activity A?
d)
What is the slack time (float) for activity D?
e) What is the slack time (float) for activity E?
f) What is the slack time (float) for activity G?
Problem 3
The following data were obtained from a project to design a new software package:
Activity
Duration
Predecessors
A
5 Days
---
B
8 Days
---
C
6 Days
A
D
4 Days
C, B
E
5 Days
A
F
4 Days
D, E, G
G
4 Days
B, C
H
3 Day
G
Step 1: Construct a network diagram for the project.
Step 2: Answer the following questions:
a)
Calculate the scheduled completion time.
b)
Identify the critical path(s)
c)
What is the slack time (float) for activity B?
d)
What is the slack time (float) for activity D?
e) What is the slack time (float) for activity E?
f) What is the slack time (float) for activity G?
Problem 4
The following data were obtained from an in-house MIS project:
Activity
Duration
Predecessors
A
5 Days
---
B
8 Days
---
C
5 Days
A
D
4 Days
B
E
5 Days
B
F
3 Day
C, D
G
7 Days
C, D
H
6 Days
E, F, G
I
9 Days
E, F
Step 1: Construct a network diagram for the project.
Step 2: Answer the following questions:
a)
Calculate the scheduled completion time.
b)
Identify the critical path
c)
What is the slack time (float) for activity A?
d)
What is the slack time (float) for activity D?
e)
What is the slack time (float) for activity E?
f)
What is the slack time (float) for activity F?
PROBLEM 5
Use the network diagram below and the additional information provided to answer the corresponding questions.
a) Give the crash cost per day per activity.
b) Which activities should be crash.
The document discusses graphs, networks, project scheduling, critical path method (CPM), program evaluation and review technique (PERT), activity-on-node (AON) and activity-on-arc (AOA) representations, activity slack, floats, crashing activities to reduce project duration, and performing time-cost tradeoffs to optimize project costs. It provides definitions of key terms like vertices, edges, predecessors, successors, critical and non-critical activities, earliest start times, latest completion times, total float and free float. It also includes an example problem demonstrating how to construct a network diagram, find the critical path, compute activity times, and determine the optimal crash time and costs to meet a deadline.
The document discusses Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), a method used to analyze and represent the tasks involved in complex projects. PERT uses three time estimates - optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely - to calculate the expected time for each task. It then builds a network diagram to identify the critical path with the longest expected duration. This determines the minimum time needed to complete the project. The document provides examples to demonstrate calculating task times, constructing the network, identifying the critical path, and using PERT to determine the probability of completing a project within a deadline. It also discusses how crashing the critical path by adding resources can potentially reduce the project duration but at an increased cost.
My presentation slides for a technical dinner presentation I delivered for the PMI\'s Arabian Gulf Chapter in Al-Khobar, KSA, on June 21, 2010.
Yousef Abugosh, PMP
Here are the steps to solve this problem:
1. Draw the network diagram and calculate early/late start and finish times
2. Determine the critical path
3. Calculate how many weeks each critical path activity can be shortened
4. Determine the cost per week to shorten each activity
5. Shorten activities in order of least cost to try to meet the 25 week deadline
6. Calculate the total cost of crashing activities vs the $100k bonus
Project management involves planning, directing, and controlling resources to complete a project on time, within budget, and according to specifications. A key tool is the work breakdown structure, which defines the hierarchy of tasks and subtasks. The critical path method identifies the longest path of activities in a project as the critical path. It is important for scheduling and determining which activities have slack time. Time-cost tradeoff models determine the least costly way to reduce a project's duration.
The document discusses key project management metrics like CPI, SPI and critical path. It defines CPI as the ratio of earned value to actual cost, which measures cost efficiency. SPI is defined as the ratio of earned value to planned value, which measures schedule efficiency. An example calculates the CPI and SPI for a project that is over budget and behind schedule after 3 months. The document also explains how to identify the critical path in a project network diagram as the longest path of activities requiring the total time to complete the project.
Scheduling Problems Complete the following problems covering pro.docxkenjordan97598
Scheduling Problems
Complete the following problems covering project scheduling methods.
1. Put the following project management activities in order, by defining immediate predecessors by placing one or more letters in the column labeled “Immediate predecessor”. One of them has been done for you.
Activity
Immediate predecessor
a) Calculate durations along all project paths
b) Calculate Te
c) Define immediate predecessors
h
d) Develop WBS
e) Draw a network diagram
f) Estimate task durations
g) Find the critical paths
h) Generate a complete, detailed task list
i) Identify project objectives
j) Write project scope statement
2. Draw network diagram for the following list of activities and their immediate predecessors. Draw start and end nodes.
Activity
Immediate predecessor
A
--
B
--
C
A, B
D
C
E
C
F
D
G
E
H
F, G
I
C
3. Given the following detailed task list, draw a network diagram, including starting and ending nodes.
Task
Immediate predecessor
A
--
B
A
C
A
D
B
E
C
F
D, E
4. Identify all paths and their summed durations from the following detailed task list.
Task
Estimated duration
Immediate Predecessors
A-define info req
2 wks
-
B- analyze existing infrastruc
1.5 wks
-
C-define network req
1 wk.
B
D-design database
3 wks.
A
E-design network
2.5 wks.
C
F-implement
7 wks.
D, E
G-test
4 wks.
F
H-document database
1 wk.
D
I-user documentation
2 wks.
C
5. What is/are the critical path(s) amongst the following paths through a project?
Path 1: A-B-D = 8.5 mos.
Path 2: B-C-I-J = 10 mos.
Path 3: A-B-E = 5.5 mos.
Path 4: B-F-G-J = 12 mos.
6. What is the shortest possible completion time for a project, given the following paths through a project from start to finish?
A-B-D-F = 14 weeks
A-G = 22 weeks
A-C-H-I-J = 19 weeks
7. Identify all non-critical activities in the project with the following paths:
A-B-C = 22 weeks
B-J-K = 18 weeks
A-B-D-E = 22 weeks
A-B-I = 14 weeks
B-L = 20 weeks
8. Identify all non-critical activities for a project with the following paths
A-B-C = 10 days
A-B-D = 8 days
A-B-E-F = 8 days
A-B-G = 9 days
9. Develop an early start early finish (ES/EF) schedule for the following project.
Activity
Duration
Predecessor
ES
EF
A
Develop specifications
2 wks
B
Design
4
A
C
Documentation
5
A
D
Implementation
8
B, C
E
Testing
4
D
10. Develop an early start, early finish (ES/EF) schedule for the following project.
Activity
Duration
Predecessor
ES
EF
A
Develop specifications
6 wks
B
Design
5 wks
A
C
User Documentation
7 wks
A
D
Implementation
11 wks
B, C
E
Acceptance Testing
8 wks
D
F
Develop marketing literature
8 wks
A
G
Technical documentation
7 wks
B, C, F
PAGE
3
Example Scheduling Problem 1 v3
Before we can schedule a project, we will need to have done the following, in order:
- Identify project objectives
- Write project scope statement
- Develop a WBS
- Generate a co.
1 Week 14 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT.docxjoyjonna282
1
Week 14 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and
Critical Path Method (CPM) Applications
Two simple, yet interesting and important applications of partial ordering relations are
the PERT and CPM techniques in job scheduling. The following description was taken
from googling PERT.
PERT 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. PERT was developed primarily to simplify the planning and
scheduling of large and complex projects. It was developed for the U.S. Navy Special
Projects Office in 1957 to support the U.S. Navy's Polaris nuclear submarine project.
[1]
It 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. It is more of an event-
oriented technique rather than start- and completion-oriented, and is used more in
projects where time, rather than cost, is the major factor. It is applied to very large-scale,
one-time, complex, non-routine infrastructure and Research and Development projects.
PERT is valuable to manage where multiple tasks are occurring simultaneously to reduce
redundancy
See exercise 66 in the text, section 9.6 for an example of the list of tasks needed to build
a house. Exercise 67 is also an interesting example. If we let A = {set of tasks given in
exercise 66} and define the relation R on A by : xRy iff task x precedes (is a prerequisite
task of) task y or task x = task y the Hasse diagram is as is given in the illustration in the
text.
The first step to scheduling a project is to determine the tasks that the project requires and
the order in which they must be completed. Many of the following examples are student
examples.
Note in the following examples read the diagrams from left to right.
Example 1.
The creation of a 3D video game
Tasks
1. General brainstorming (game type, setting, etc)
2. Design and implement game engine
3. Design and implement graphics engine
4. Write story
5. Design the characters
6. Design the world
7. Create 3D models
8. Create character animations
9. Voice actor casting
10. Sound recording
11. Program levels, characters, sounds, etc into game
12. Packaging
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Evaluation_and_Review_Technique#cite_note-0
2
1
13
9
5
7 8 10
8 12 14
18 19
Task Immediately Preceding Tasks Time required
1 1 Week
2 1 3 Months
3 1 2 Months
4 1 1 Month
5 4 2 Weeks
6 4 3 Weeks
7 5, 6 1 Month
8 7 2 Weeks
9 5 1 Week
10 9 2 Weeks
11 2, 3, 8, 10 1 Month
12 11 1 Week
Let T = { Task 1, Task 2, … , Task 11 }
Define R on T by
xRy iff x is needed for y or x = y
The Critical path seen in the figure above is 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12. This is because the
sequence requires the most time to c ...
The document provides instructions for creating a Gantt chart to schedule a construction project. It outlines the steps as determining activities and their durations, dependencies, developing a network diagram, solving the network to find earliest and latest start/finish times, identifying the critical path, calculating float, and preparing the Gantt chart. It includes an example case problem with activity data and computations. It then shows sample Gantt charts with tasks ordered by original ID, earliest start time, and criticality/start time. The final section provides a blank Gantt chart table in Excel to recreate the project schedule.
1LocationFixed CostsVariable Costs per unitA=BB=CC=DA$85,000260006.docxdrennanmicah
1LocationFixed CostsVariable Costs per unitA=BB=CC=DA$85,000260006666.66666666677500B$55,0007C$35,00010D$65,0006average weekly demand50unitsstandard deviation 8units95%1.645Safety Stock 13unitsTherefore Target inventory level= lead time demand + safety stockLead time2WeeksLead time demand100Target inventory level=113
2Activity a=Optimistic Time Estimate(weeks)m=Most likely Time Estimates (weeks)b=Pessimistic Time Estimates(weeks)Immediate predecessor(s)T€=(a+4m+b)/6Var=((b-a)/6)^2Std.devA369none611B357A50.44444444440.6666666667C4712A7.33333333331.77777777781.3333333333D4810B7.666666666711E51016C10.16666666673.36111111111.8333333333F345D,E40.11111111110.3333333333G369D.E611H5610F6.50.69444444440.8333333333I5811G811J333H,I300ABDFHJ32.17ABDGIJ35.67ACEFHJ37.00ACEGIJ40.50CriticalStd.dev6.17probability of completing the project in 44 weeks44Z0.57probability0.71
3Forecast Ft (given a)Abs. ErrorSquare Error2-period moving averageAbs. ErrorSquare ErrorActuals (At)0.2exponential smoothing a= 0.2a= 0.2115172416.51.52.2521816.601.41.96162431416.882.888.2944151141616.300.3040.09241614.51.52.2551316.243.243210.5183462414.51.52.2561615.590.405440.1643815936160010.2325.037.5011.75exponential smoothing a= 0.22-period moving averageMSE4.17161.9583MAD1.70541.2500
1LocationFixed CostsVariable Costs per unitA=BB=CC=DA$85,000260006666.66666666677500B$55,0007C$35,00010D$65,0006average weekly demand50unitsstandard deviation 8units95%1.645Safety Stock 13unitsTherefore Target inventory level= lead time demand + safety stockLead time2WeeksLead time demand100Target inventory level=113
2Activity a=Optimistic Time Estimate(weeks)m=Most likely Time Estimates (weeks)b=Pessimistic Time Estimates(weeks)Immediate predecessor(s)T€=(a+4m+b)/6Var=((b-a)/6)^2Std.devA369none611B357A50.44444444440.6666666667C4712A7.33333333331.77777777781.3333333333D4810B7.666666666711E51016C10.16666666673.36111111111.8333333333F345D,E40.11111111110.3333333333G369D.E611H5610F6.50.69444444440.8333333333I5811G811J333H,I300ABDFHJ32.17ABDGIJ35.67ACEFHJ37.00ACEGIJ40.50CriticalStd.dev6.17probability of completing the project in 44 weeks44Z0.57probability0.71
3Forecast Ft (given a)Abs. ErrorSquare Error2-period moving averageAbs. ErrorSquare ErrorActuals (At)0.2exponential smoothing a= 0.2a= 0.2115172416.51.52.2521816.601.41.96162431416.882.888.2944151141616.300.3040.09241614.51.52.2551316.243.243210.5183462414.51.52.2561615.590.405440.1643815936160010.2325.037.5011.75exponential smoothing a= 0.22-period moving averageMSE4.17161.9583MAD1.70541.2500
Project Management
(Chapter 16)
Production & Operations Management
INFO 335-71
Week 4
Learning Objectives
Describe project management objectives
Describe the project life cycle
Diagram networks of project activities
Estimate the completion time of a project
Compute the probability of completing a project
by a specific time
Determine how to reduce the length of a project
effectively
Describe the critical chain approach to proje.
This document discusses project scheduling techniques including identifying activity relationships, network diagrams, critical paths, slack times, and Gantt charts. It provides examples of computing earliest start times, earliest finish times, latest finish times, and slack for activities. Other relationship types beyond finish-to-start and use of lead and lag times are also covered. Microsoft Project is demonstrated for building a project schedule.
Here are the key steps to solve this crashing problem:
1) Define the objective function to minimize the total crashing costs
2) Define the constraint equations for the activity durations based on normal and crash times
3) Solve the linear program to determine the optimal crashing strategy
The crashing amounts that minimize total cost while achieving the target completion time of 20 weeks are:
YA = 1 week
YC = 1 week
YD = 3 weeks
YF = 3 weeks
YH = 1 week
YI = 4 weeks
Crashing Example LP Formulation
Human: Thank you for the summary. Here is a document with more details on a project. Summarize it in 3 sentences or less
How to Download & Install Module From the Odoo App Store in Odoo 17Celine George
Custom modules offer the flexibility to extend Odoo's capabilities, address unique requirements, and optimize workflows to align seamlessly with your organization's processes. By leveraging custom modules, businesses can unlock greater efficiency, productivity, and innovation, empowering them to stay competitive in today's dynamic market landscape. In this tutorial, we'll guide you step by step on how to easily download and install modules from the Odoo App Store.
Level 3 NCEA - NZ: A Nation In the Making 1872 - 1900 SML.pptHenry Hollis
The History of NZ 1870-1900.
Making of a Nation.
From the NZ Wars to Liberals,
Richard Seddon, George Grey,
Social Laboratory, New Zealand,
Confiscations, Kotahitanga, Kingitanga, Parliament, Suffrage, Repudiation, Economic Change, Agriculture, Gold Mining, Timber, Flax, Sheep, Dairying,
CapTechTalks Webinar Slides June 2024 Donovan Wright.pptxCapitolTechU
Slides from a Capitol Technology University webinar held June 20, 2024. The webinar featured Dr. Donovan Wright, presenting on the Department of Defense Digital Transformation.
A Free 200-Page eBook ~ Brain and Mind Exercise.pptxOH TEIK BIN
(A Free eBook comprising 3 Sets of Presentation of a selection of Puzzles, Brain Teasers and Thinking Problems to exercise both the mind and the Right and Left Brain. To help keep the mind and brain fit and healthy. Good for both the young and old alike.
Answers are given for all the puzzles and problems.)
With Metta,
Bro. Oh Teik Bin 🙏🤓🤔🥰
Creative Restart 2024: Mike Martin - Finding a way around “no”Taste
Ideas that are good for business and good for the world that we live in, are what I’m passionate about.
Some ideas take a year to make, some take 8 years. I want to share two projects that best illustrate this and why it is never good to stop at “no”.
20. K 5 days 0 5 10 5 Total Slack is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the project completion date Total Slack = LS - ES Activity Total Slack K 5 – 0 = 5
21. K 5 days M 7 days 0 5 10 17 17 10 10 5 Free Slack is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the next activity. Free Slack = ES M - EF K Activity Free Slack K 10 – 5 = 5
23. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 8 Hrs 8Hrs 8Hrs 8Hrs Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 2 Hrs 2 Hrs 4 Hrs 8Hrs 8 Hrs 8 Hrs Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 8 Hrs 8 Hrs 8 Hrs 4Hrs 2 Hrs 2 Hrs
31. Illustrative Case Progress at the end of 5 days Actual Cost (AC) $6,000 Earned Value (EV) $4,000 Planned Value (PV) $5,000
32. Illustrative Case Progress at the end of 5 days Actual Cost (AC) $6,000 Earned Value (EV) $4,000 Planned Value (PV) $5,000
Editor's Notes
This material is used to give you an overview of the basics of project management. This will supplement the handout “Project Management Tools” in your case packet. I expect MBA students to read it own their own outside class so that we can save class time for case discussions and topics that may need more explanation. I will be available for answering any questions related to this material after the evening class on Week 5. You WILL be tested on the material presented here in the QUIZ (Week 6) and Final Exam (Week 8) . So don’t ignore it just because it wasn’t covered during class time. Students with a background in Project Management can consider this as a refresher. But make sure you know the material. If any part of the printed slides is not legible, please refer to the power point slides uploaded on LMES.
There are 4 major phases in project management. Project planning involves specifying the goals of the project, breaking the goal into sub-activities, organizing them into a logical structure (called the Work Breakdown Structure, WBS) and estimating the amount of work needed for each activity. The Project scheduling phase takes input from the project planning stage (the WBS and the estimates of duration and cost). The main job in this stage is to specify when an activity will start and end (i.e. setting a time table). This would also be the stage where you would assign resources (workers/ other material etc.) to activities. After a project has started, the manager needs to monitor the cost and schedule and take corrective action if needed. There are a number of tools available to monitor the cost and schedule such as tracking Gantt chart and Earned Value Management. Project management tools such as MS Project allow you to generate a lot of reports that can be used to update senior management on project progress.
In the planning stage, one crucial activity is: defining what the project plans to achieve (the scope). After the main goal is specified, it may be broken up into sub-objectives. The sub-objectives are grouped into a logical grouping of activities/tasks called the Work breakdown structure (WBS). The PM (project manager) also needs to estimate the cost and time of the project. PM’s usually write up a document called as the “Scope document” that specifies what will be done as part of the project. Scope refers to all the work involved in creating the output of the project. Large projects where the scope doesn’t change are literally unheard of. This constant increase in what is considered to be the scope of the project is called “scope creep”.
This is an example of a WBS for an “Intranet Project”. Notice how different activities/tasks are hierarchically arranged in three levels. The Project Management Institute (PMI) recommends that having more than 5 levels in a WBS may not be useful. In the next slide you will see where this WBS appears in a project management software.
The WBS of the Intranet project from the previous slide appears on the left side of the slide. Notice how the Level 2 and Level 3 activities are indented. The Gantt chart of the project appears on the right.
For estimating the amount of work involved in a project activity, the PM may need some experience in the area. There are some other techniques available to a PM. Parametric analysis is a statistical technique that looks at other similar projects and uses the duration of tasks on those projects to estimate models for predicting amount of work needed. In case of some projects, such as projects developing a software, some additional techniques may be available such as Function Point Analysis.
Without getting into the details, Function Point Analysis (FPA) is a technique that is useful for software projects. Using this technique the number of lines of code to do a particular task can be estimated. Then a rule of thumb (the formula described above) can be used to estimate the amount of work needed (in person months).
The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) advises that it is a good idea to estimate three numbers (optimistic, pessimistic and likely, work estimates). Using these three numbers PERT suggests using the above formula to calculate the expected time for a task/activity.
In this stage, the PM specifies the task dependencies (for e.g. one task may start only after another task has finished). If there is a pool of resources at a company, workers can be assigned from that pool. This is important because depending on the wage rate of the assigned resource and the time he/she works on the activity the cost of the activity will be determined.
There are basically two tools which can be used in Project scheduling – Gantt Chart and Network Diagram. In some sense these are complimentary tools and most PMs end up using both. Gantt Chart is better at showing the duration and assigned resources, while Network Diagram shows dependencies and start and end date well.
The Gantt Chart of “Intranet Project” appears on the right hand of the slide. This Gantt Chart shows the start date, end date, as well as the duration (the length of the bar) for each of the tasks. The bars that appear in black color are called Summary tasks, and the duration of the summary task is from the start date of the first task to the end date of the last task under it. For e.g. “Concept” which is a Level 1 activity is a summary task whose start and end date is determined by start date of the first task and the end date of the last task under it.
The arrow shows a task dependency (see next slide for more infromation). For example, Web Site Development can only be started after Web Site Design is finished.
There are 4 types of dependencies which can be used in Project Management. Finish-to-Start (FS): the dependent task cannot begin until the task that it depends on is complete. This is the most commonly used dependency. Finish-to-Finish: (FF) The dependent task cannot be completed until the task that it depends on is completed. The dependent task can be completed anytime after the task that it depends on is completed. The FF link type does not require that both tasks be completed simultaneously. Start-to-Start (SS):The dependent task cannot begin until the task that it depends on begins. The dependent task can begin anytime after the task that it depends on begins. The SS link type does not require that both tasks begin simultaneously. Start-to-Finish (SF): The dependent task cannot be completed until the task that it depends on begins. The dependent task can be completed anytime after the task that it depends on begins. The SF link type does not require that the dependent task be completed concurrent with the beginning of the task on which it depends.
You will note that some of the task are in Red, while some of them are in Blue (Refer to the power point slide uploaded on LMES to view in color) . If a task is in red, it indicates it is a critical task, meaning that if that task gets delayed, the project will be delayed. The ones in blue are non-critical tasks, and some delay in that task won’t affect the completion date of the project. In other words the tasks in blue have a buffer/slack.
This is an example of a Network Diagram. You would notice that the Network Diagram more or less provides the same information Gantt Chart does, but in a different format. You can clearly see the task name, start and end dates, as well as the duration of each task. We are going to see how a Network Diagram could help us with the Critical Path Analysis. Critical path analysis tells a manager how much slack there exists for each task in the project i.e. by how many days the task can be delayed without delaying the project completion date. More information later on Critical Path Analysis.
Suppose we have a Project X here, the durations and the dependencies are as shown above. The dependencies are to be interpreted as follows: for e.g. Task H can only be started when both tasks D and E are complete. Let’s look at the path B-E-H-J, this is the longest duration path. All tasks on this path have zero slack, which means that if they are delayed the project completion date will be affected. This is the critical path . So a project manager needs to pay extra attention on all tasks on the critical path. Now let’s say the duration of task D is increased to 6 days instead of 4, the path A-D-H-J is now 16 days. In this case, the project will have two critical paths. Critical path is the longest duration through the network diagram. All activities along a critical path are critical tasks. More than one critical paths are possible.
Critical path analysis (CPA), CPA calculate two important values for each task. One is Total Slack Time and the other is Free Slack Time. We use four notations here to help us to do the analysis: ES – Earliest start date, EF – Earliest finish date, LS – Latest start date and LF – Latest finish date. ES is the earliest date on which a task can begin. EF is the earliest date on which a task can be finished. LS is the latest date by which the task has to be started without delaying the whole project. LF is the latest date by which the task has to be finished without delaying the whole project.
Let’s take a look at task K, L and M in Project Y. the duration and dependencies are showing above, and we can see that task M can only be started after K and L are finished.
We will calculate the ES and EF first. For task K, the ES is Day 0 (which means start right now), since the duration is 5 days, then the EF day is Day 5. You can use the same method to come up with the numbers for task L. Notice that the EF day for L is Day 10 which is later than the date task K finishes. Because that M can only be started after K and L finished, that is to say, M can be started on Day 10, and finished on Day17. It is important to know that the EF and LF are always same for the last task in the project. In this case, LF for task M is 17 and LS is 10. Now, we will go backward to calculate the LF and LS for task L and K. the Latest Start day of M is Latest Finish day for both task K and L. Latest Start day for K is 10-5 =5. Latest Start day for L is 10-10=0.
Total Slack is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the project completion date Let us look at ES, EF, LS & LF for task K as calculated earlier. ES=0 and LS= 5. Task K can be delayed by 5 days without delaying project completion date. So task K in this case is not a critical task, because Total Slack > 0
Free Slack is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the next activity. EF for K is 5 and ES for M is 10. So task K can be delayed by 5 days without delaying task M.
While using PM software, you will need to understand the relationship between three terms: Duration, Units, and Work. Work is measured by man-hours or man-days (usually a person will work 8 hours a day). Units usually refer to the number of resources (if you have three people working on a project, you have 3 possible resources to assign). If you make one person work at 150% his capacity, you have assigned 1.5 units to this task. Duration is number of days on schedule. The equation (Duration = Work/Units) shows the relationship between the three terms.
Work contour specifies how a resource time is assigned to a task. Consider a task the requires 32 man-hours and one resource is assigned to the task. In a project management software, by default, the work contour is Flat which means the work is uniformly assigned on all days. Assuming an 8 hour working day. The duration of the task is 4 days. However, this may not be efficient because for some tasks there may be more work in the beginning days than on later days or vice versa. Assigning resource time uniformly for these types of tasks is not efficient. Hence, PM software allow you to allocate resource time assigned to task non-uniformly. For example, a back loaded contour will assign more work in the later part of the project. Front loaded contour , on the other hand, will assign more work at the beginning of the project.
Project Monitoring plays a critical role in project management. Once the project has been started, a project manager needs to check whether the project is on schedule and whether the cost is within the budget or not. PMs’ can use tracking Gantt chart and/or Earned Value Management to monitor a project.
Tracking Gantt Chart can visually give the information on what percentage of a task has been completed and whether the task is delayed. The black lines filled in the task bar represent the percentage of completion of the task.
The gray line is called the baseline (initial schedule of tasks), if you see any stagger between the gray line and the actual start date of the task, the task is delayed. For e.g. one can see that tasks A and B have started late. Task A was supposed to start on Friday but could only start on the following Monday. Since tasks A and B have started late the PM software assumes they will end late (unless corrective action is taken) which will thus affect the start dates of tasks C and D which depend on tasks A and B finishing before they can start.
Once we notice the delay, we need to anticipate the new cost as well new completion date. Earned Value Management will help with that.
Say for example we have a task Y which is schedule for 10 days. Planned budget is $10,000.
By day 5, only 40% of the task has been completed, and the actually cost is $6,000.
Based on the amount of work completed, only 40% has been completed, so Earned Value = 40% * 10,000 = $4,000 Earned value is thus a measure of how much the project should have cost based on the amount of work that has been completed. Based on the time elapse, 5 days has been spent on this project, so Planned Value =(5/10) *10,000 = $5,000 Planned value is a measure of how much work should have been completed based on the time that has elapsed.
CPI is the efficiency measure of how well we are doing in terms of cost. Intuitively, for every $1 spent, how much amount of work is getting done. In this case, we spend $1 dollar but only got $0.67 worth of work done. So clearly the task is costing more than planned. So a CPI above 1 is good (activity is costing less than planned). A CPI below 1 means that activity is costing more than planned. An alternative measure of how well a task is doing is Cost Variance. If the CV is negative, such as in this case, activity is costing more than planned. If CV is positive, task is costing less than they planned. Base on the CPI, we can estimate the budget at completion. Planned budget was $10,000. CPI =0.67. So budget at completion = $10,000/0.67 = $15,000 Another way to look at this is: We planned to spend $4,000, but we actually spent $6,000 . So if we planned to spend $10,000 on the whole project, it will actually cost us: $15,000 = ($6,000/$4,000)* $10,000
SPI is an efficiency measure of how well the project is doing in terms of time. This activity is going at 80% of our planned pace of work. A SPI greater or equal to 1 is good, that means we are on schedule or even ahead of schedule. A SPI smaller then 1 means the project is running behind schedule. An alternative measure of how well a task is doing is Schedule Variance. If the SV is negative, the project is behind schedule and if SV is positive value indicates that the project is ahead of schedule.