1.
Preparing a Project Plan
In this section, you will learn how to put all
these together into a workable project plan. You will learn how to apply the
estimated work hours or days to the calendar to determine the duration of each
activity, considering weekends, holidays, and vacation schedules as well as the
availability of people and other resources. You will learn how to reprogram the
activities, if needed, to meet required completion dates. You may even need to
negotiate a modification of some of the basic project objectives to come up
with workable schedules, resource plans, and budget plans. You will also learn how
to identify potential risks, assess their possible impact, and prepare a plan
for responding to these risks. You will compile all this into an official project
plan and get final approvals before beginning project work.
2.
PREPARING SCHEDULES
After you have prepared the network diagram and identified the
critical path, you are ready to prepare schedules by following two simple
steps:
1. Create the initial schedule using the early start
and early finish times. If necessary, you can adjust the schedule later to the
late start and late finish times to account for the availability of resources.
In other words, if the necessary resources are not available on the early start
date, the project manager can determine to begin the activity on the late start
date.
2.
Assign
a calendar date to the beginning of the first activity and convert the time
durations on each activity to a calendar date. Alternatively, you may assign a
calendar date to the completion of the project and work backward to the
beginning of the project.
If the schedule shows the project will complete before the
requested date, keep this extra time (float) at the end of the project to allow
recovery options if the schedule slips during the life of the project. The
project manager owns the float and should not give it away indiscriminately.
The manager uses float to compensate for estimating variability or unforeseen
problems. Team members should not be allowed to use float at their discretion. The
network diagram in Figure.1 shows the pump station example with calendar dates
based on the early start and early finish times.
3. Milestones
To help define and monitor the schedule of a large project, you
may wish to define milestones that represent the completion of a major
deliverable or group of activities. For a project that includes several
functional groups or categories of activities, it may make sense to develop
milestones for each. For example, a milestone for engineering on the
development of a new product may be the development of a product requirements
document. Milestones may be inserted in the project schedule as activities that
define the completion of a group of activities. A milestone has no duration,
cost, or resource requirements. Milestones can be used to ensure that a project
is on schedule and meeting its scope.
4. GANTT Charts
Once the schedule is developed, a bar chart is a helpful way to
communicate schedule information since it provides an easy-to-read visual
picture of the project activities. It can very quickly convey considerable
information. GANTT charts (originally developed by Henry GANTT) are bar charts with
time graduations along the horizontal axis and activities listed on separate lines
down the vertical axis, making it easy to see the relationship between activities
and time.
The horizontal bars show the scheduled time frames for each
activity. Connecting lines and arrows show dependencies. Figure.2 shows the
example of the pump station as a GANTT chart.
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
5. Crashing the Schedule
If the schedule you develop does not allow the project to
complete when desired, you might have to take action to decrease the total project
duration. This is known as crashing
the schedule.Analyze all the available
options and choose those that provide the greatest compression for the lowest cost.
Concentrate on the activities on the critical path. (Remember, shortening noncritical
activities will not complete the project any sooner.) Focus first on activities
that occur early in the project and, second, those with the longest durations.
6. Resources
One way to crash a schedule is to change the way resources are applied
to the project. (The allocation of resources is discussed later in this
chapter.) The following are some options to consider:
· Relieve employees of other responsibilities to allow them to devote more hours each day to the project.
· Reallocate resources from noncritical activities to provide the extra help you need. After you reassign the
resources, check to see if the critical path has shifted to include other
activities.
· Add resources to provide additional staff,
overtime, additional equipment, vendor incentives to complete sooner, or the
ability to outsource. Make wise choices because adding too many resources can
cause problems in communication and interpersonal relations.
· Reserve overtime as a contingency. Rather than scheduling overtime in the original plan, keep it as
a contingency for unforeseen problems. Overtime is not as effective as regular
work hours. Studies show that twelve hours’ overtime by a knowledge worker increases
actual output only by the equivalent of two hours’ regular work.
Overtime might be useful if a small increment (three to four
days) will make a difference in the project, if the staff can see light at the
end of the tunnel, and if extra money is an incentive to them.
7. Activities
Another way to crash a schedule is to change the sequence of
activities or reevaluate their estimates. The following are some options to
consider:
· Fast-track the project by changing the sequence of activities in the network diagram to
allow activities to be done in parallel (at the same time) rather than in
sequence (one after another) or to allow some to overlap (for example, starting
to write code on a software project before the entire design is complete).
Fast-tracking usually increases risk.
· Reconsider the accuracy of the estimates for activities on the critical path. However, do not arbitrarily
reduce the estimates to fit the time available.
8. Project Objectives
A third way to crash a schedule is to modify the project
objectives. The following are some options to consider:
· Rethink the basic strategy to determine better ways to accomplish the same objectives.
· Renegotiate the project objectives. Reduce the scope, increase the budget, or increase the time.
· If the schedule
still won't work, readdress the basic problem or opportunity to verify that it warrants the effort it will take to complete
the project.
9. PREPARING RESOURCE PLANS
The best project plan in the world cannot be accomplished
without the right people, materials, and equipment at the right place at the
right time. This section explains how to assign the right resources when and
where they are needed.
Consider the following principles when assigning resources:
· Schedules are meaningless
unless the right resources are available when the activity is scheduled to
begin.
· If you cannot get the right
resources at the right time, you may need to re-plan. Do not assign the wrong
person to the job just because no one else is available at that time.
· Assign scarce resources to
activities on the critical path first.
· Obtain firm commitments from
team members, functional managers, and senior management. Once commitments are made,
the committed hours no longer belong to the function, but to the project.
· Too few people on a project
cannot solve the problems; too many people can create more problems than they
solve.
· Balance critical resources by
adjusting schedules where there is float. If the activity was scheduled to
begin on the early start date, try adjusting it to the late start date to see
if the appropriate resources are available at that time. Meet with functional
sections to level the workload as much as possible to keep in-house resources
busy and to use preferred outside resources as much as possible.
· It may be necessary to
increase the project duration to get the right re-sources at the right times.
10. Assigning People to Activities
Assign the most appropriate people to each activity. A useful
tool for determining the availability of resources is a resource histogram Figure.3,
which may be prepared for an individual or for a group of people with similar skill
sets.
On the resource histogram, block out time needed for the
following:
· Administrative activities (such as time cards, personnel meetings, breaks, personal leave,
and sick leave).
· Operational support (such as
training classes, coordination meetings, internal consulting, answering phone
calls, travel, research, problem solving, crisis management, and other
activities needed to maintain the operation).
· Project work (the days and hours the
person, or other resource such as equipment, is committed to project
activities). Schedules often fail because they underestimate the hours required
for administrative and operational activities. When this happens, fewer hours
than expected can be devoted to project work.
