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CHAPTER

An overview
of project
3 planning

O BJECTIVES
When you have completed this chapter repeat the planning process in more
you will be able to: detail for sets of activities within a
project as the time comes to execute
approach project planning in an them.
organized step-by-step manner;
see where the techniques described
in other chapters fit into an overall
planning approach;

3.1 Introduction to Step Wise project planning

T his chapter describes a framework of basic steps in project planning upon which the
following chapters build. Many different techniques can be used in project planning
and this chapter gives an overview of the points at which these techniques can be applied
during project planning. Chapter 4 will illustrate how different projects may need different
technical approaches, but the overall framework should always apply to
the planning process.
The OGC was The framework described is called the Step Wise method to help to
previously the distinguish it from other methods such as PRINCE2. PRINCE2 is a set of
CCTA (Central project management standards that were originally sponsored by what
Computing and is now the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) for use on British
Telecommunications
government ICT and business change projects. The standards are now also
Agency).
widely used on non-government projects in the United Kingdom. Step Wise

49
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50 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

should be compatible with PRINCE2. It should be noted, however, that

Appendix A
adds some further Step Wise covers only the planning stages of a project and not monitoring
details about the and control.
PRINCE2 approach. In order to illustrate the Step Wise approach and how it might have to
be adapted to deal with different circumstances, two parallel examples are
used. Let us assume that there are two former Computing and Information Systems students
who now have several years of software development experience under their belts.

CASE STUDY EXAMPLE A: A BRIGHTMOUTH COLLEGE PAYROLL

B rigette has been working for the Management Services department of a local
authority when she sees an advertisement for the position of Information Systems
Development Officer at Brightmouth College. She is attracted to the idea of being her own
boss, working in a relatively small organization and helping them to set up appropriate
information systems from scratch. She applies for the job and gets it. One of the first
tasks that confronts her is the implementation of independent payroll processing. (This
scenario has already been used as the basis of some examples in Chapter 1.)

CASE STUDY EXAMPLE B: INTERNATIONAL OFFICE EQUIPMENT ANNUAL

MAINTENANCE CONTRACTS

A manda works for International Office Equipment (IOE), which assembles, supplies,
installs and services various items of high-technology office equipment. An
expanding area of their work is the maintenance of ICT equipment. They have now
started to undertake maintenance of equipment of which they were not the original
suppliers. An existing application built by the in-house ICT department allows sales
staff to input and generate invoices for completed work. A large organization might have
to call out IOE several times during a month to deal with problems with equipment. Each
month a batch run of the system generates monthly statements for customers so that only
one payment a month needs to be made. The management of IOE would like to provide
a service where for a single annual payment customers would get free servicing and
problem resolution for a pre-specified set of equipment. Amanda has been given her first
project management role, the task of implementing this extension to the IOE maintenance
jobs billing system.
The enhanced application will need a means of recording the details of the items
of equipment to be covered by a customers annual maintenance contract. The annual
fee will depend on the numbers of each type of equipment item that is to be covered.
Even though the jobs done under this contract will not be charged for, the work will be
recorded to allow for an analysis of costs and the profitability of each customer and
each type of equipment. This will provide information which will allow IOE to set
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3.1 Introduction to Step Wise project planning 51

future contract prices at an optimally profitable level. At the moment, job details are
only recorded after job completion so that invoices can be generated. The new system
will allow a central coordinator to allocate jobs to engineers and the system to notify
engineers of urgent jobs automatically via their mobile phones.

In Table 3.1 we outline the general approach that might be taken to planning these
projects. Figure 3.1 provides an outline of the main planning activities. Steps 1 and 2
Identify project scope and objectives and Identify project infrastructure could be
tackled in parallel in some cases. Steps 5 and 6 will need to be repeated for each
activity in the project.

0. Select project

1. Identify project
2. Identify project
scope and
infrastructure
objectives

3. Analyse project
characteristics

4. Identify the
products and
Review activities

5. Estimate effort
for each activity
Lower-
For
level
each
detail
activity
6. Identify activity
risks

10. Lower-level 7. Allocate

planning resources

8. Review/
9. Execute plan
publicize plan

FIGURE 3.1 An overview of Step Wise

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52 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

Step Activities within step

0 Select project
1 Identify project scope and objectives
1.1 Identify objectives and measures of effectiveness in meeting them
1.2 Establish a project authority
1.3 Identify stakeholders
1.4 Modify objectives in the light of stakeholder analysis
1.5 Establish methods of communication with all parties
2 Identify project infrastructure
2.1 Establish relationship between project and strategic planning
2.2 Identify installation standards and procedures
2.3 Identify project team organization
3 Analyse project characteristics
3.1 Distinguish the project as either objective- or product-driven
3.2 Analyse other project characteristics
3.3 Identify high-level project risks
3.4 Take into account user requirements concerning implementation
3.5 Select general life-cycle approach
3.6 Review overall resource estimates
4 Identify project products and activities
4.1 Identify and describe project products (including quality criteria)
4.2 Document generic product flows
4.3 Recognize product instances
4.4 Produce ideal activity network
4.5 Modify ideal to take into account need for stages and checkpoints
5 Estimate effort for each activity
5.1 Carry out bottom-up estimates
5.2 Revise plan to create controllable activities
6 Identify activity risks
6.1 Identify and quantify activity-based risks
6.2 Plan risk reduction and contingency measures where appropriate
6.3 Adjust plans and estimates to take account of risks
7 Allocate resources
7.1 Identify and allocate resources
7.2 Revise plans and estimates to take account of resource constraints
8 Review/publicize plan
8.1 Review quality aspects of project plan
8.2 Document plans and obtain agreement
9/10 Execute plan/lower levels of planning
This may require the reiteration of the planning process at a lower level

TABLE 3.1 An outline of Step Wise planning activities

A major principle of project planning is to plan in outline first and then in more detail
as the time to carry out an activity approaches. Hence the lists of products and activities
that are the result of Step 4 will be reviewed when the tasks connected with a particular
phase of a project are considered in more detail. This will be followed by a more detailed
iteration of Steps 5 to 8 for the phase under consideration.
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3.3 Step 1: Identify project scope and objectives 53

3.2 Step 0: Select project

Chapter 2 has
already discussed
T his is called Step 0 because in a way it is outside the main project
planning process. Proposed projects do not appear out of thin air
some process must decide to initiate this project rather than some other.
these issues in
some detail. While a feasibility study might suggest that there is a business case for the
project, it would still need to be established that it should have priority
over other projects. This evaluation of the merits of projects could be part of project
portfolio management.

3.3 Step 1: Identify project scope and objectives

T he activities in this step ensure that all the parties to the project agree on the
objectives and are committed to the success of the project. We have already
looked at the importance of the correct definition of objectives in Chapter 1.

Step 1.1: Identify objectives and practical measures of the effectiveness in

meeting those objectives

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: PROJECT OBJECTIVES

T he project objectives for the Brightmouth College payroll project have already been
discussed in Exercise 1.8.
Amanda at IOE has the objectives clearly laid down for her in the recommendations
of a business case report which have been accepted by IOE management. The main
objectives are to allow:
details of annual maintenance contracts to be recorded;
details of maintenance work covered by these contracts to be recorded;
analysis of costs to be carried out so that the optimal level of maintenance contract
fees may be identified;
recording of job requests and notification of jobs to engineers via mobile phones.
Other objectives are laid down that refer to expected timescales and the resources that
might be used.

Step 1.2: Establish a project authority

We have already noted in Chapter 1 that a single overall project authority needs to be
established so that there is unity of purpose among all those concerned.
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54 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

Step 1.3: Stakeholder analysis identify all stakeholders in the project and
their interests
Recall that this was the basis of a discussion in Chapter 1. Essentially all the parties
who have an interest in the project need to be identified. In that chapter we listed as
an example the stakeholders in the Brightmouth College payroll project.

EXERCISE 3.1

W hat important stakeholders outside the IOE organization might be considered in the
case of the IOE annual maintenance contracts system?

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: PROJECT AUTHORITIES

Throughout the text

we use capitalized
A manda finds that her manager and the main user management
have already set up a Project Board which will have overall
direction of the project. She is a little concerned as the equipment
initial letters to
indicate a term that maintenance staff are organized with different sections dealing with
has a precise different types of equipment. This means that a customer could
meaning in the have work done by several different sections. Not all the sections
PRINCE2 standards, are represented on the Project Board and Amanda is aware that
e.g. Project Board. there are some differences of opinion between some sections. It is
left to the user representatives on the board to resolve those
differences and to present an agreed policy to the systems developers.
Brigette finds that effectively she has two different clients for the payroll system: the
finance and human resources departments. To help resolve conflicts, it is agreed that the
managers of both departments should attend a monthly meeting with the vice-principal
which Brigette has arranged in order to steer the project.

Step 1.4: Modify objectives in the light of stakeholder analysis

In order to gain the full cooperation of all concerned, it might be necessary
Compare this with
the Theory W of
to modify the project objectives. This could mean adding new features
Boehm and Ross to the system which give a benefit to some stakeholders as a means of
mentioned in assuring their commitment to the project. This is potentially dangerous as
Chapter 1. the system size may be increased and the original objectives obscured.
Because of these dangers, it is suggested that this process be done
consciously and in a controlled manner.
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3.4 Step 2: Identify project infrastructure 55

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: MODIFIED PROJECT OBJECTIVES

T he IOE maintenance staff are to be given the extra task of entering data about
completed jobs. As no customer charges are generated by visits under annual
maintenance contracts, engineers may feel that completing cost details is unnecessary
bureaucracy, and start to do this in a careless and inaccurate manner. To give some
benefit to the engineers, the system is to be extended to reorder spare parts automatically
when required. It will also automatically capture timesheet details which previously had
to be completed by hand.
At Brightmouth College, the human resources department has a lot of work preparing
payroll details for finance. It would be tactful to agree to produce some management
information reports for human resources from the payroll details held on the computer.

Step 1.5: Establish methods of communication with all parties

For internal staff this should be fairly straightforward, but a project leader implementing a
payroll system would need to find a contact point with BACS (Bankers Automated Clearing
Scheme), for instance. This step could lead to the first draft of a communications plan to
read more about these, see Chapter 12.

3.4 Step 2: Identify project infrastructure

P rojects are never carried out in a vacuum. There is usually some kind of existing
infrastructure into which the project must fit. Where project managers are new to the
organization, they must find out the precise nature of this infrastructure. This could be the
case where the project manager works for an outside organization carrying out the work
for a client.

B. Iyer and Step 2.1: Identify relationship between the project and
R. Gottlieb (2004)
The Four-Domain strategic planning
Architecture: an We saw in Chapter 2 how project portfolio management supported
approach to
the selection of the projects to be carried out by an organization. Also,
support enterprise
architecture design how programame management can ensure that a group of projects
IBM Systems contribute to a common organizational strategy. There is also a
Journal 43(3) 58797 technical framework within which the proposed new systems are to
provides a good fit. Hardware and software standards, for example, are needed so that
introduction to various systems can communicate with each other. These technical
enterprise strategic decisions should be documented as part of an enterprise
architecture
architecture process. Compliance with the enterprise architecture should
concepts.
ensure that successive ICT projects create software and other components
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56 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

compatible with those created by previous projects and also with the existing hardware
and software platforms.

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: ROLE OF EXISTING STRATEGIC PLANS

A manda finds at IOE that there is a well-defined rolling strategic plan which has
identified her annual maintenance contracts subsystem as an important required
development. Because it is an extension of an existing system, the
Enterprise Resource hardware and software platforms upon which the application are
Planning (ERP) to run are dictated.
systems are Brigette at Brightmouth College finds that there is an overall
integrated software College strategic plan which describes new courses to be
applications usually developed, and so on, and mentions in passing the need for
acquired as off-the-
appropriate administrative procedures to be in place. There
shelf packages that
require considerable is a recommendation in a consultants report concerning the
customization. implications of financial autonomy that independent payroll
They integrate processing be implemented as just one module in an ERP system
all the standard which would cover all the colleges financial processing needs.
financial and trading Although the college has quite a lot of ICT equipment for teaching
applications purposes, there is no machine set aside for payroll processing and
common to most
the intention is that the hardware to run the payroll will be
businesses.
acquired at the same time as the software.

Step 2.2: Identify installation standards and procedures

Any organization that develops software should define their development
See discussion of
the ISO/IEC 12207 procedures. As a minimum, the normal stages in the software life cycle to
standard in be carried out should be documented along with the products created at
Chapter 1. each stage.
Change control and configuration management standards should be
in place to ensure that changes to requirements are implemented in a safe
and orderly way.
See Chapter 9 on The procedural standards may lay down the quality checks that need to
monitoring and be done at each point of the project life cycle or these may be documented
control. in a separate quality standards and procedures manual.
The organization, as part of its monitoring and control policy, may
have a measurement programme in place which dictates that certain statistics have to
be collected at various stages of a project.
Finally the project manager should be aware of any project planning and control
standards. These will relate to how the project is controlled: for example, the way that
the hours spent by team members on individual tasks are recorded on timesheets.
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3.4 Step 2: Identify project infrastructure 57

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: IDENTIFYING STANDARDS

A manda at IOE finds that there is a very weighty volume of development standards
which, among other things, specifies that a specific structured systems analysis and
design method be used. She finds that a separate document has been prepared which lays
down quality procedures. This specifies when the reviews of work will be carried out
and describes detailed procedures governing how the reviews are to be done. Amanda
also finds a set of project management guidelines modelled on PRINCE2.
Brigette finds no documents of the nature that Amanda found at IOE except for some
handouts for students that have been produced by different lecturers at different times
and which seem to contradict each other.
As a stop-gap measure, Brigette writes a brief document which states what the main
stages of a project (perhaps job for the user would be a better term in this context)
should be. This happens to be very similar to the list given in Chapter 1. She stresses
that:
no job of work to change a system or implement a new one is to be done without
there being a detailed specification first;
the users must record agreement to each specification in writing before the work is
carried out.
She draws up a simple procedure for recording all changes to user requirements.
Brigette, of course, has no organizational quality procedures, but she dictates that
each person in the group (including herself ) has to get someone else to check through
their work when they finish a major task and that, before any new or amended software
is handed over to the users, someone other than the original developer should test it.
She sets up a simple system to record errors found in system testing and their resolution.
She also creates a log file of reported user problems with operational systems.
Brigette does not worry about timesheets but arranges an informal meeting with her
colleagues each Monday morning to discuss how things are going and also arranges to
see the vice-principal, who is her official boss, and the heads of the finance and human
resources sections each month to review progress in general terms.

Step 2.3: Identify project team organization

Project leaders, especially in the case of large projects, might have
Some of these
issues will
some control over the way that their project team is to be organized.
be discussed in Often, though, the organizational structure will be dictated to them.
Chapter 12 on For example, a high-level managerial decision might have been taken
working in teams. that software developers and business analysts will be in different
groups, or that the development of business-to-consumer web applications
will be done within a separate group from that responsible for traditional database
applications.
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58 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

If the project leader does have some control over the project team organization then
this would best be considered at a later stage (see Step 7: Allocate resources).

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: PROJECT ORGANIZATION

A t IOE, there are groups of business analysts set up as teams which deal with
individual user departments. Hence the users always know whom they should
contact within the information systems department if they have a problem. Software
developers, however, work in a pool and are allocated to specific projects on an
ad hoc basis.
At Brightmouth College, a software developer has been seconded to Brigette from
the technicians supporting the computing courses in the college. She is also allowed to
recruit a trainee analyst/programmer. She is not unduly worried about the organizational
structure needed.

3.5 Step 3: Analyse project characteristics

Chapter 4 elaborates
on the process of
T he general purpose of this part of the planning operation is to ensure
that the appropriate methods are used for the project.
analysing project
characteristics.
Step 3.1: Distinguish the project as either objective- or
product-driven
This has already been discussed in the first chapter. As development of a system advances
it tends to become more product-driven, although the underlying objectives always remain
and must be respected.

Step 3.2: Analyse other project characteristics (including

quality-based ones)
For example, is an information system to be developed or a process control system, or
will there be elements of both? Will the system be safety critical, where human life could
be threatened by a malfunction?

Step 3.3: Identify high-level project risks

Consideration must be given to the risks that threaten the successful outcome of
the project. Generally speaking, most risks can be attributed to the operational or
development environment, the technical nature of the project or the type of product
being created.
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3.5 Step 3: Analyse project characteristics 59

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: HIGH-LEVEL RISKS

W e have already noted that Amanda has raised concerns about the possibility
that engineers lack the motivation to complete with due care and attention the
cost details for jobs done under annual contracts. Another risk relates to the software
functionality which will produce cost analysis reports used for the future pricing of
annual contracts. If the analysis is incorrect IOE could suffer financially. Amanda decides
therefore that the analysis functionality will be produced using an iterative approach
where an IOE marketing analyst will look at versions of the reports produced and suggest
improvements to the methods of calculation and presentation before the system is finally
made operational.
Brigette at Brightmouth College considers the application area to be very well defined.
There is a risk, however, that there may be no package on the market that caters for the
way that things are done at the moment. Brigette, therefore, decides that an early task in
the project is to obtain information about the features of the main payroll packages that
are available.

Step 3.4: Take into account user requirements concerning

implementation
The clients may have their own procedural requirements. For example, an organization
might mandate the use of a particular development method.

Step 3.5: Select development methodology and life-cycle approach

The development methodology and project life cycle to be used for the project will be
influenced by the issues raised above. The idea of a methodology, that is, the group
of methods to be used in a project, was discussed in Chapter 1. For many software
developers, the choice of methods will seem obvious: they will use the ones that they
have always used in the past. In Chapter 4 we recommend caution in assuming that
the current project is really similar to previous ones.
As well as the methods to be used, there are generic ways of
Chapter 4 discusses structuring projects, such as the use of the waterfall life cycle outlined
life cycles in in Chapter 4, that need to be considered. While the setting of objectives
more detail. involves identifying the problems to be solved, this part of planning is
working out the ways in which these problems are to be solved. For a
project that is novel to the planner, some research into the methods typically used in
the problem domain is worthwhile. For example, sometimes, as part of a project, a
questionnaire survey has to be conducted. There are lots of books on the techniques
used in such surveys and a wise move would be to look at one or two of them at the
planning stage.
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60 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

Chapter 5 goes into Step 3.6: Review overall resource estimates

more detail on this Once the major risks have been identified and the broad project approach
topic. Function
has been decided upon, this would be a good point at which to re-estimate
points are an
attempt to measure the effort and other resources required to implement the project. Where
system size without enough information is available an estimate based on function points might
using lines of code. be appropriate.

3.6 Step 4: Identify project products and activities

T he more detailed planning of the individual activities now takes place. The longer-term
planning is broad and in outline, while the more immediate tasks are planned in
some detail.

Step 4.1: Identify and describe project products (or deliverables)

In general, there can be no project products that do not have activities that create them.
Wherever possible, we ought also to ensure the reverse: that there are no activities that
do not produce a tangible product. Identifying all the things the project is to create
helps us to ensure that all the activities we need to carry out are accounted for. Some
of these products will be handed over to the client at the end of the project these are
deliverables. Other products might not be in the final configuration, but are needed as
intermediate products used in the process of creating the deliverables.
These products will include a large number of technical products, such as training
material and operating instructions. There will also be products to do with the
management and the quality of the project. Planning documents would, for example,
be management products.
The products will form a hierarchy. The main products will have sets of component
products which in turn may have sub-component products and so on. These relationships
can be documented in a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) see Figure 3.2. In this
example the products have been grouped into those relating to the system as a whole,
and those related to individual modules. A third group, which happens to have only one
product, is called management products and consists of progress reports. The asterisk in
the progress reports indicates that there will be new instances of the entity progress report
created repeatedly throughout the project.
Note that in Figure 3.2 the only boxes that represent tangible products
PRINCE2 suggests are those at the bottom of the hierarchy that are not further subdivided.
that the PBS be Thus there are only six individual product types shown in the diagram.
presented as a The boxes that are higher up for example module products are simply
hierarchy diagram. the names of groups of items.
In practice it may be Some products are created from scratch, for example new software
more convenient to components. A product could quite easily be a document, such as a
produce a
software design document. It might be a modified version of something that
structured list.
already exists, such as an amended piece of code. A product could even be
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3.6 Step 4: Identify project products and activities 61

Project
products

System Module Management

products products products

Module
Module Progress*
design
code report
documents

Tested
Overall Integration
integrated
specification test cases
software

FIGURE 3.2 A fragment of a Product Breakdown Structure for a system development task
* indicates that further progress reports can be added during the course of the project.

a person, such as a trained user, a product of the process of training. Always remember
that a product is the result of an activity. A common error is to identify as products
things that are really activities, such as training, design and testing. Specifying
documentation as a product should also be avoided by itself this term is just too vague.
This part of the planning process draws heavily on the standards laid down in
PRINCE2. These specify that products at the bottom of the PBS should be documented
by Product Descriptions which contain:
the name/identity of the product;
the purpose of the product;
the derivation of the product (that is, the other products from which it is derived);
the composition of the product;
the form of the product;
the relevant standards;
the quality criteria that define whether the product is acceptable.

EXERCISE 3.2

At Brightmouth College, Brigette has decided that the finance department at the college
should carry out acceptance testing of the new payroll system. This type of testing ensures
that the application has been set up in a way that allows the users to carry out their jobs
accurately using the new system. As the finance department staff are not sure what test
case documents should look like, Brigette draws up a product description of a test case.
Write the content for this product description.
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62 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: PRODUCT BREAKDOWN STRUCTURES

A t IOE, Amanda finds that there is a standard PBS that she can use as a checklist for
her own project.
Brigette at Brightmouth College has no installation standard PBS, although she can,
of course, refer to various books for standard checklists. She decides that one part of the
PBS should contain the products needed to help select the appropriate hardware and
software for the payroll application (Figure 3.3).

Selection
products

List of
Volume Office User Invitation
potential
figures layouts requirements to tender
suppliers

Existing Users
Test
system modified
examples
description requirements

FIGURE 3.3 A Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) for the products needed to produce an invitation to tender (ITT)

Step 4.2: Document generic product flows

Some products will need one or more other products to exist first before
The PFD effectively
documents, in
they can be created. For example, a program design must be created before
outline, the method the program can be written and the program specification must exist before
(see Chapter 1) for the design can be commenced. These relationships can be portrayed in a
the project. Product Flow Diagram (PFD). Figure 3.4 gives an example. Note that the
flow in the diagram is assumed to be from top to bottom and left to right.
In the example in Figure 3.4, user requirements is in an oval which means that it is used
by the project but is not created by it. It is often convenient to identify an overall product
at the bottom of the diagram, in this case integrated/tested software, into which all the
other products feed.
PFDs should not have links between products which loop back iteratively. This is
emphatically not because iterations are not recognized. On the contrary, the PFD allows
for looping back at any point. For example, in the PFD shown in Figure 3.4, say that
during integration testing it was found that a user requirement had been missed in the
overall system specification. If we go back to overall system specification and change it we
can see from the PFD that all the products that follow it might need to be reworked. A new
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3.6 Step 4: Identify project products and activities 63

User
requirements

Overall system
specification

Module Integration
design system test cases

Module code

Integrated/
tested software

FIGURE 3.4 A fragment of a Product Flow Diagram (PFD) for a software development task

module might need to be designed and coded, test cases would need to be added to check
that the new requirements had been successfully incorporated, and the integration testing
would need to be repeated.
The form that a PFD takes will depend on assumptions and decisions about how the
project is to be carried out. These decisions may not be obvious from the PFD and so a
textual description explaining the reasons for the structure can be helpful.

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: IOE HAS STANDARD PFD

A t IOE, Amanda has an installation standard PFD for software development projects.
This is because a recognized software development method is used which lays
down a sequence of documents that have to be produced. This sequence of products
can be straightforwardly documented as a PFD.

EXERCISE 3.3

D raw up a possible Product Flow Diagram (PFD) based on the Product Breakdown
Structure (PBS) shown in Figure 3.3. This identifies some of the products of the
Brightmouth payroll project, particularly those generated when gathering information to
be presented to potential suppliers of the hardware as part of an invitation to tender. The
volume figures are such things as the number of employees for whom records will have to
be maintained.
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64 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

This may be delayed Step 4.3: Recognize product instances

to later in the project Where the same generic PFD fragment relates to more than one instance of
when more
a particular type of product, an attempt should be made to identify each of
information is
known. those instances. In the example in Figure 3.2, it could be that in fact there
are just two component software modules in the software to be built.

Step 4.4: Produce ideal activity network

In order to generate one product from another there must be one or more activities that
carry out the transformation. By identifying these activities we can create an activity
network which shows the tasks that have to be carried out and the order in which they
have to be executed.

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: ACTIVITY NETWORK FOR IOE MAINTENANCE ACCOUNTS

P art of the initial activity network developed from the PFD in Figure 3.4 for the
software development task might look like Figure 3.5.

Design
integration
test cases

Specify Test
Design Code
overall integrated
module A module A
system software

Design Code
module B module B

FIGURE 3.5 An example of an activity network

EXERCISE 3.4

D raw up an activity network for the Product Flow Diagram that you created in Exercise
3.3 (or the PFD given in the solution if you prefer!).
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3.7 Step 5: Estimate effort for each activity 65

The activity networks are ideal in the sense that no account has been taken of resource
constraints. For example, in Figure 3.5, it is assumed that resources are available for both
software modules to be developed in parallel. A good rule is that activity networks are
never amended to take account of resource constraints.

Step 4.5: Modify the ideal to take into account need for stages
and checkpoints
The approach to sequencing activities described above encourages the formulation of a
plan which will minimize the overall duration, or elapsed time, for the project. It assumes
that an activity will start as soon as the preceding ones upon which it depends have been
completed.
There might, however, be a need to modify this by dividing the project
Strictly, a milestone
into stages and introducing checkpoint activities. These are activities which
is a dummy activity
with no duration that draw together the products of preceding activities to check that they are
indicates the start or compatible. This could potentially delay work on some elements of the
end of a group of project there has to be a trade-off between efficiency and quality.
activities. The The people to whom the project manager reports could decide to leave
milestone would the routine monitoring of activities to the project manager. However,
therefore be after there could be some key activities, or milestones, which represent the
the checkpoint
completion of important stages of the project of which they would want to
activity.
take particular note. Checkpoint activities are often useful milestones.

EXERCISE 3.5

I n the example in Figure 3.5, it has been decided that the designs for modules A and B are
to be checked for consistency by dry-running them against the integration test cases
before committing staff to software coding. Redraw the activity network to reflect this.

3.7 Step 5: Estimate effort for each activity

Step 5.1: Carry out bottom-up estimates

Some overall estimates of effort, cost and duration will already have been done (see
Step 3.6).
At this point, estimates of the staff effort required, the probable elapsed
Chapter 5 on time and the non-staff resources needed for each activity will need to be
software effort produced. The method of arriving at each of these estimates will vary
estimation deals depending on the type of activity.
with this topic in The difference between elapsed time and effort should be noted. Effort
more detail.
is the amount of work that needs to be done. If a task requires three
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66 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

members of staff to work for two full days each, the effort expended is six days. Elapsed
time is the time between the start and end of a task. In our example above, if the three
members of staff start and finish at the same time then the elapsed time for the activity
would be two days.
The individual activity estimates of effort should be summed to get an overall
bottom-up estimate which can be reconciled with the previous top-down estimate.
The activities on the activity network can be annotated with their elapsed times so
that the overall duration of the project can be calculated.

Step 5.2: Revise plan to create controllable activities

The estimates for individual activities could reveal that some are going to take quite a
long time. Long activities make a project difficult to control. If an activity involving system
testing is to take 12 weeks, it would be difficult after six weeks to judge accurately whether
50 per cent of the work is completed. It would be better to break this down into a series of
smaller subtasks.

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: IOE ANNUAL MAINTENANCE CONTRACTS CARRY

OUT BOTTOM-UP ESTIMATES

A t IOE, Amanda has to estimate the lines of code for each of the software modules.
She looks at programs that have been coded for similar types of application at IOE
in the past to get some idea of the size of the new modules. She then refers to some
conversion tables that the information systems development department at IOE have
produced which convert the lines of code into estimates of effort. Other tables allow her
to allocate the estimated effort to the various stages of the project.
Although Brigette is aware that some additional programs might have to be written to
deal with local requirements, the main software is to be obtained off the shelf and so
estimating based on lines of code would clearly be inappropriate. Instead, she looks at
each individual task and allocates a time. She realizes that in many cases these represent
targets as she is uncertain at the moment how long these tasks will really take (see
Step 6 below).

There might be a number of activities that are important, but individually take up very
little time. For a training course, there might be a need to book rooms and equipment,
notify those attending, register students on the training system, order refreshments, copy
training materials and so on. In a situation like this it would be easier to bundle the
activities into a single merged activity make training course arrangements which could
be supplemented with a checklist.
In general, try to make activities about the length of the reporting period used for
monitoring and controlling the project. If you have a progress meeting every two weeks, then
it would convenient to have activities of two weeks duration on average, so that progress
meetings would normally be made aware of completed tasks each time they are held.
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3.8 Step 6: Identify activity risks 67

3.8 Step 6: Identify activity risks

Step 6.1: Identify and quantify activity-based risks

Risks inherent in the overall nature of the project have already been
Chapter 7 on risk
touches on this topic considered in Step 3. We now want to look at each activity in turn and
in more detail. assess the risks to its successful outcome. Any plan is always based on
certain assumptions. Say the design of a component is planned to take
five days. This is based on the assumption that the clients requirement is clear and
unambiguous. If it is not then additional effort to clarify the requirement would be needed.
The possibility that an assumption upon which a plan is based is incorrect constitutes a
risk. In this example, one way of expressing the uncertainty would be to express the
estimate of effort as a range of values.
As will be seen in Chapter 7, a simple way of dealing with uncertainty is to have
a most likely estimate for where everything works with no problems (such as users
changing their requirements) and a second estimate that includes a safety margin so
that it has an estimated 95 per cent chance of being met.
A project plan will be based on a huge number of assumptions, and so some way of
picking out the risks that are most important is needed. The damage that each risk could
cause and the likelihood of it occurring have to be gauged. This assessment can draw
attention to the most serious risks. The usual effect if a problem materializes is to make
the task longer or more costly.

Step 6.2: Plan risk reduction and contingency measures where appropriate
It may be possible to avoid or at least reduce some of the identified risks. On the other
hand, contingency plans specify action that is to be taken if a risk materializes. For
example, a contingency plan could be to use contract staff if a member of the project
team is unavailable at a key time because of serious illness.

Step 6.3: Adjust overall plans and estimates to take account of risks
We may change our plans, perhaps by adding new activities which reduce risks. For
example, a new programming language might mean we schedule training courses
and time for the programmers to practise their new programming skills on some
non-essential work.

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: IDENTIFYING RISKS

A s well as the new software modules that will have to be written, Amanda has
identified several existing modules that will need to be amended. The ease with
which the modules can be amended will depend upon the way that they were originally
written. There is therefore a risk that they may take longer than expected to modify.
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68 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

Amanda takes no risk reduction measures as such but notes a pessimistic elapsed time
for the amendment activity.
Brigette identifies as a risk the possible absence of key staff when investigating the
user requirements, as this activity will take place over the holiday period. To reduce this
risk, she adds a new activity, arrange user interviews, at the beginning of the project.
This will give her advance notice of any likely problems of this nature.

3.9 Step 7: Allocate resources

Chapter 8 on Step 7.1: Identify and allocate resources

resource allocation The type of staff needed for each activity is recorded. The staff
covers this topic in
available for the project are identified and are provisionally allocated
more detail.
to tasks.

Step 7.2: Revise plans and estimates to take into account resource
constraints
Some staff may be needed for more than one task at the same time and, in this case, an
order of priority is established. The decisions made here may have an effect on the overall
duration of the project when some tasks are delayed while waiting for staff
to become free.
Gantt charts are Ensuring someone is available to start work on an activity as soon as
named after Henry the preceding activities have been completed might mean that they are
Gantt and Gantt idle while waiting for the job to start and are therefore used inefficiently.
should therefore not The product of Steps 7.1 and 7.2 would typically be a Gantt chart
be written in capital see Figure 3.6. The Gantt chart gives a clear picture of when activities will
letters as if it stood
actually take place and highlights which ones will be executed at the same
for something!
time. Activity networks can be misleading in this respect.

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: TAKING RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS INTO ACCOUNT

Amanda has now identified three new major software modules plus an existing software
module that will need extensive amendment. At IOE the specification of modules is
carried out by the lead systems analyst for the project (who in this case is Amanda)
assisted by junior analyst/designers. Four analyst/programmers are available to carry
out the design, coding and unit testing of the individual modules. After careful
consideration and discussion with her manager, Amanda decides to use only three
analyst/programmers so as to minimize the risk of staff waiting between tasks and thus
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3.10 Step 8: Review/publicize plan 69

reduce staff costs. It is accepted that this decision, while reducing the cost of the project,
will delay its end.
Brigette finds that she herself will have to carry out many important activities. She
can reduce the workload on herself by delegating some work to her two colleagues, but
she realizes that she will have to devote more time to specifying exactly what they will
have to do and to checking their work. She adjusts her plan accordingly.

January February March April May

Specify overall Jane

system

Devise integration Jane

test cases

Design module A Fred

Code module A Fred

Design module B Avril

Code module B Avril

Test integrated Mo
software

FIGURE 3.6 Gantt chart showing when staff will be carrying out tasks

3.10 Step 8: Review/publicize plan

Step 8.1: Review quality aspects of the project plan

A danger when controlling any project is that an activity can reveal that an earlier
activity was not properly completed and needs to be reworked. This, at a stroke, can
transform a project that appears to be progressing satisfactorily into one that is badly
out of control. It is important to know that when a task is reported as completed, it
really is hence the importance of quality reviews. Each task should have quality
criteria. These are quality checks that have to be passed before the activity can be
signed off as completed.
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70 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: IOE EXISTING QUALITY STANDARDS

A manda finds that at IOE, the Quality Standards and Procedures Manual lays down
quality criteria for each type of task. For example, all module design documentation
for any group of modules that interact with one another has to be reviewed by a group
of colleagues before the coding can commence. This is to reduce the likelihood of
integration problems when the components are finally executed together. Amanda adds
an activity to her plan to deal with this.

EXERCISE 3.6

B rigette has no installation standards to help her apart from the minimal ones she has
written herself. What quality checks might Brigette introduce to ensure that she has
understood the users requirements properly?

Step 8.2: Document plans and obtain agreement

It is important that the plans be carefully documented and that all the parties to the project
understand and agree to the commitments required of them in the plan. This may sound
obvious, but it is amazing how often this is not done. Chapter 12 describes the use of a
communications plan to ensure appropriate communications between stakeholders at the
right points in the project.

EXERCISE 3.7

A t the end of Chapter 1 the main sections of a project plan document were listed. Draw
up a table showing which Step Wise activities provide material for which sections of
the project plan.

3.11 Steps 9 and 10: Execute plan/lower levels of planning

O nce the project is under way, plans will need to be drawn up in greater detail for
each activity as it becomes due. Detailed planning of the later stages will need
to be delayed because more information will be available nearer the start of the stage.
Of course, it is necessary to make provisional plans for the more distant tasks, because
thinking about what needs to be done can help unearth potential problems, but sight
should not be lost of the fact that these plans are provisional.
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3.13 Further exercises 71

CASE STUDY EXAMPLES: LOWER-LEVEL PLANNING

W hile work is going on with the specification of the individual modules, Amanda
has some time to start planning the integration tests in some detail. She finds that
one of the modules the one that deals with recording job requests does not actually
communicate directly with the other new modules and can therefore be reviewed
independently of the others. She schedules an earlier review of this module as this
allows coding of the module to be started earlier.
When Brigette comes to consider the activity draft invitation to tender, she has to
familiarize herself with the detailed institutional rules and procedures that govern this
process. She finds that in order to draft this document she will need to obtain some
additional pieces of information from the users.

3.12 Conclusion

T his chapter has presented a framework into which the techniques described in the
other parts of the book should slot. It is suggested that any planning approach should
have the following elements:
the establishment of project objectives;
the analysis of the characteristics of the project;
the establishment of an infrastructure consisting of an appropriate organization and set
of standards, methods and tools;
the identification of the products of the project and the activities needed to generate
those products;
the allocation of resources to activities;
the establishment of quality controls.
Project planning is an iterative process. As the time approaches for particular activities to
be carried out they should be replanned in more detail.

3.13 Further exercises

1 List the products created by the Step Wise planning process.
2 What products must exist before the activity test program can take place? What
products does this activity create?
3 An employee of a training organization has the task of creating case study exercises
and solutions for a training course which teaches a new systems analysis and design
method. The persons work plan has a three-week task learn new method. A colleague
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72 Chapter 3 An overview of project planning

suggests that this is unsatisfactory as a task as there are no concrete deliverables or

products from the activity. What can be done about this?
4 In order to carry out usability tests for a new word processing package, the software has
to be written and debugged. User instructions have to be available describing how the
package is to be used. These have to be scrutinized in order to plan and design the
tests. Subjects who will use the package in the tests will need to be selected. As part of
this selection process, they will have to complete a questionnaire giving details of their
past experience of, and training in, typing and using word processing packages. The
subjects will carry out the required tasks using the word processing package. The tasks
will be timed and any problems the subjects encounter with the package will be noted.
After the test, the subjects will complete another questionnaire about what they felt
about the package. All the data from the tests will be analysed and a report containing
recommendations for changes to the package will be drawn up. Draw up a Product
Breakdown Structure, a Product Flow Diagram and a preliminary activity network for
the above.
5 Question 4 in the further exercises for Chapter 1 refers to a scenario relating to a
training exercise. Using that scenario, draw up a Product Breakdown Structure, a
Product Flow Diagram and a preliminary activity network.