Lecture 3

Chapter 6
Project Time Management – Part1

Prepared by: Atef Hamza

Importance of Project Schedules

Managers often cite delivering projects on time as

one of their biggest challenges
Time has the least amount of flexibility, it passes no
matter what happens on a project
Schedule issues are the main reason for conflicts on
projects, especially during the second half of projects!
Work Breakdown Structure WBS

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a fundamental

project management technique for defining and
organizing the total scope of a project, using a
hierarchical tree structure

Hierarchical tree structure

Building House WBS
Project Time Management Processes

Planning
schedule

Controlling
Defining
the
activities
schedule

Time
Developing Management
the Sequencing
schedule activities

Estimating Estimating
activity activity
durations resources
Project Time Management Processes

 Planning schedule: involves determining the policies,

procedures, and documentation that will be used for
planning, executing, and controlling the project schedule.
 Defining activities: identifying the specific activities that
the project team members and stakeholders must
perform to produce the project deliverables
 Sequencing activities: identifying and documenting the
relationships between project activities
 Estimating activity resources: estimating how many
resources a project team should use to perform project
activities
Project Time Management Processes

Estimating activity durations: estimating the number of

work periods that are needed to complete individual activities.
Developing the schedule: analyzing activity sequences,
activity resource estimates, and activity duration estimates to
create the project schedule.
Controlling the schedule: controlling and managing
changes to the project schedule.
Schedule management plan
Schedule management plan includes the following information:
 Project schedule mode: contains project activities with estimated
durations, dependencies, and other planning information that can be
used to produce a project schedule
 Level of accuracy and units of measure: how accurate schedule
estimates should be and determines whether time is measured in
hours, days, or another unit.
 Control thresholds: Variance thresholds, such as ±10%, are established
for monitoring schedule performance.
 Rules of performance measurement: specifies how team members are
expected to track the percentage of work completed.
 Reporting formats: describes the format and frequency of schedule
reports required for the project.
 Process descriptions: describes how all of the schedule management
processes will be performed.
Defining Activities

An activity or task: is an element of work normally

found on the work breakdown structure (WBS)
that has an expected duration, a cost, and
resource requirements.
Activity definition involves developing a more
detailed WBS and supporting explanations to
understand all the work to be done so you can
develop realistic cost and duration estimates.
Activity Lists and Attributes

 An activity list is a tabulation of activities to be included

on a project schedule that includes:
The activity name
An activity identifier or number
A brief description of the activity
 Activity attributes provide more information such as
predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and
lags, resource requirements, constraints, imposed dates,
and assumptions related to the activity
Sequencing Activities

Involves reviewing activities and determining

dependencies
A dependency or relationship is the sequencing of
project activities or tasks
You must determine dependencies in order to use
critical path analysis
Types of Dependencies

 Mandatory dependencies: inherent in the nature of the

work being performed on a project, (you can’t test code
until after the code is written).
 Discretionary dependencies: defined by the project team
and follow good practices, (it’s not based on have to but
on should).
 External dependencies: involve relationships between
project and non-project activities, (The installation of a new
operating system may depend on delivery of new
hardware from an external supplier).
Task Dependency Types
Network Diagrams

Network diagrams are the preferred technique

for showing activity sequencing.
A network diagram is a schematic display of
the logical relationships among, or sequencing
of, project activities
Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)

Also called activity-on-arrow (AOA) network diagrams

Activities are represented by arrows
Nodes or circles are the starting and ending points of
activities
Can only show finish-to-start dependencies
Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram
 Creating AOA Diagrams
 Find all activities that start at node1. Draw their finish nodes and draw
arrows between node 1 and those finish nodes. Put the activity letter or
name and duration estimate on the associated arrow.
 Continue drawing the network diagram, working from left to right. Look for
bursts and merges.
➢ Bursts occur when a single node is followed by two or more activities.
➢ merge occurs when two or more nodes precede a single node.
 Continue drawing the project network diagram until all activities are
included on the diagram that have dependencies.
 All arrowheads should face toward the right, and no arrows should cross
on an AOA network diagram.
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)

Activities are represented by boxes.

Arrows show relationships between activities
More popular than ADM (Arrow Diagramming Method ).
Better at showing different types of dependencies
PDM Network Diagram
Estimating Activity Resources
 Before estimating activity durations, you must have a good idea of the
quantity and type of resources that will be assigned to each activity;
resources are people, equipment, and materials.
Important questions to answer when estimating activity resources include:
❖ How difficult will it be to do specific activities on this project?
❖ What is the organization’s history in doing similar activities?
❖ Are the required resources available?
❖ Does the organization have people, equipment, and materials that are
capable and available for performing the work?
❖ Does the organization need to acquire more resources to accomplish
the work?
Estimating Activity Durations

Duration includes the actual amount of time worked

on an activity plus elapsed time
Effort is the number of workdays or work hours
required to complete a task
Effort does not normally equal duration
People doing the work should help create estimates,
and an expert should review them
Three-Point Estimates

Instead of providing activity estimates as a discrete

number, such as four weeks, it’s often helpful to
create a three-point estimate
An estimate that includes an optimistic, most
likely, and pessimistic estimate, such as three
weeks for the optimistic, four weeks for the most
likely, and five weeks for the pessimistic estimate
Three-point estimates are needed for PERT
(Program Evaluation and Review Technique) .
 Schedule Development

Uses results of the other time management processes

to determine the start and end date of the project
Ultimate goal is to create a realistic project schedule
that provides a basis for monitoring project progress
for the time dimension of the project
Important tools and techniques include Gantt charts,
critical path analysis, critical chain scheduling, and
PERT analysis.
Gantt Charts

Gantt charts provide a standard format for displaying

project schedule information by listing project activities
and their corresponding start and finish dates in a
calendar format.

➢Arrows: dependencies between tasks

Gantt Chart