MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

Unit 3

Activity Planning and Control

GANTT Charts
Project Evaluation & Review Techniques
Crashing Project Completion Time
MS Visio - Lab
MS Project - Lab
Arslan Umar
ACTIVITY PLANNING AND CONTROL
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Activity Planning and Control

• Planning includes all of the activities required to
select a systems analysis team, assign members
of the team to appropriate projects, estimate time
required to complete each task and schedule the
project so that tasks are completed in a timely
fashion
• Control means using feedback to monitor the
project
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Estimating Time Required

• For better estimation, divide the project in three phases :

• Analysis
• Design
• Implementation

• Then further broke these three into more phases

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GANTT CHARTS
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Using Gantt Charts for Project Scheduling

• A Gantt chart is an easy way to schedule tasks. It is
essentially a chart on which bars represent each task or
activity. The length of each bar represents the relative
length of the task

• In a two-dimensional Gantt chart where time is indicated

on the horizontal dimension and a description of
activities makes up the vertical dimension
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• The main advantage of the Gantt chart is its simplicity

• Another advantage of using a Gantt chart is that the bars

representing activities or tasks are drawn to scale; that is
the size of the bar indicates the relative length of time it
will take to complete each task
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10
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• In this example, the Gantt chart shows the information-

gathering phase of the project. Notice on the Gantt chart
that conducting interviews will take three weeks,
administering the questionnaire will take four weeks. and
so on. Activities A and C are to take place at the same
time
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• Figure depicts the current state of the data-gathering

project in the ninth week. The symbol signifies that it is
week 9. The bars with darker shading represent projects
or parts of projects that have been completed. This tells
us that the systems analyst is behind in activity E but
ahead in activity D. Action must be taken on the first
activity so that other activities or project may not be
delayed
PERT
Project Evaluation & Review Techniques
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Using PERT Diagrams

• PERT is an acronym .for Program Evaluation and
Review Techniques. A program (a synonym for a project)
is represented by a network of nodes and arrows then
evaluated to determine the critical activities, improves the
schedule if necessary and review progress once the
project is undertaken. PERT was developed in the late
1950s for use in the U.S. Navy's Polaris nuclear
submarine project. It reportedly saved the U.S. Navy two
years' development time
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PERT - Uses
• PERT is useful when activities can be done in parallel
rather than in sequence. The systems analyst can benefit
from PERT by applying it to systems projects on a smaller
scale, especially when team members are working on
certain activities at the same time
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PERT – comparison with Gantt Chart

• Figure compares a simple Gantt chart with a PERT
diagram

• The activities expressed as bars in the Gantt chart

are represented by arrows in the PERT diagram

• The length of the arrows has no direct relationship with

the activity durations
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PERT - Representation
• Circles on the PERT diagram are called
events/nodes and can be identified by numbers,
letters, or any other form
• The Circular Nodes are present to
• recognize that an activity is completed
• indicate which activities need to be completed before a new activity
may be undertaken (precedence)
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PERT - Precedence
• In reality, activity C may not be started until activity A is
completed
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PERT - Example
• A project has a beginning, a middle portion and
an end
• the beginning is event 10 and the end is event
50
• In order to find the length of the project, each
path from beginning to end is identified and the
length of each path is calculated
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PERT - Example
• In this example. path 10-20-40-50 has a length of
15 days, while path 10-30-40-50 has a length of 11
days

• Even though one person may be working on path

10-20-40-50 and another on path 10-30-40-50.
The project is not a race
• The project requires that both sets of activities (or
paths) be completed; consequently the project
takes 15 days to complete
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Critical Path
• The longest path is referred to as the Critical Path
• The critical path is determined by calculating the longest
path

• It is defined as path that will cause the whole project to fall

behind if even one day’s delay is encountered
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Crash Time
• Crash Time is absolute minimum time in which an
activity be completed if additional money/resources are
funneled to the activity
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Crashed Activity
• The activity that cannot be squeezed in terms of time is
called Crashed Activity

• Means we cannot reduce an activity’s time even by

putting more resources on that activity
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Slack Time
• Slack Time = Estimated Time – Crash Time

• Note that if you are delayed one day on path 10-

20-40-50 the entire project will take longer, but if
you are delayed one day on path 10-30-40-50,
The entire project will not suffer. The leeway to
fall behind somewhat on non critical paths is
called Slack Time
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PERT – Dummy Activities

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PERT – Dummy Activities

• Occasionally, PERT diagrams need pseudo activities,
referred to as dummy activities, to preserve the logic
or clarify the diagram
• Figure shows two PERT diagrams with dummies. Project
1 and project 2 are quite different, and the way the
dummy is drawn makes the difference clear. In project 1,
activity C can only be started if both A and B are
finished. since all arrows coming into a node must be
completed before leaving the node. In project 2,
however, activity C requires only activity B’s completion
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PERT - Advantages
• Therefore, there are many reasons for using a PERT
diagram Over a Gantt chart

• The PERT diagram allows:

• Easy Identification of the order of precedence
• Easy identification of the critical path and thus critical activities
CRASHING
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Crashing Project to Save Time

• Activities on Critical Paths may be selected for crashing

• At a time, only one activity may be selected for crashing

based on cost

• At a time, only one day must be reduced

• Paths are to be re-calculated after crashing an activity for

single day
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Activity Table
ACTIVITY ID PRE REQUISITE NORMAL DAYS SLACK DAYS COST SLOPE
(Rs.)

A - 5 1 1000

B A 4 1 500

C B 4 2 800

D B 5 2 1000

E B 3 1 500

F C, D 2 0 0

G A, E 8 2 600

H E, F 5 2 400
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• Build a PERT Diagram for the given Activity Table

• Calculate all possible paths and identify critical path.

• Crash the project by 4 days if possible

MS VISIO - LAB
MS PROJECT - LAB
 MIS
Final Project
 FINAL PROJECT TASKS – UNIT 3

Use MS Visio
to
Design DFDs, Context, Zero, One and next level DFDs of organization
Design Flow Charts of Selected Business Processes
Design Entity Relationship Diagram of Organization
Design Output Screens – Forms
 FINAL PROJECT TASKS – UNIT 3

Use MS Project
to
Define Tasks to Complete Project, Number of Days for Each Activity, Assign
Tasks to Group Members, Check for Over Allocated Members
Create Gantt Chart, Network Diagram
 GENERAL GUIDELINES

Develop Documentation Report of the organization chosen using

the following as guidelines;
in addition to already given tasks at the end of Unit 1, 2 and 3:

• Problem Definition / Requirement Definition

• Study of Existing System (manual / computerized)
• Requirement Analysis
• Data Gathering
Study of Manuals of Existing System (if any)

Study of Existing Reports

Interviews with the Management and Users of the System
Interview Report
Using Questionnaires
 GENERAL GUIDELINES

• Problems in Existing System

• Proposal for the New / Improved System
• Suggestions for the Problems in the Existing System
• Organization Chart
• List of the Entities of the System
• List of the Processes of the System
• Data Flow Diagrams
Context level DFD of the system
Zero Level DFD of the system
One Level DFD of the system (if required)
 GENERAL GUIDELINES

• Entity Relationship Diagram (printed using MS Visio)

• Activity Planning and Control
Activity Table showing all details except crashing (printed using MS
Project)
• Overloading of Work, if any, allocated to members (printed using MS Project)
• Gantt Chart (printed using MS Project)
• Two PERT Diagrams; at the start of the project and at the completion of the
project (printed using MS Project)
 SUBMISSION DEADLINE

Submit Project in printed form along with

softcopies of all relevant files (MS Word, MS
Visio, and MS Project) on or before
September 06, 2019
in Server Room.