CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Project Management

Project management is a set of principles, methods, and techniques that people use to
effectively plan and control project work. It establishes a sound basis for effective
planning, scheduling, resourcing, decision making, controlling, and re- planning. The
objective of project management is to ensure that projects meet agreed goals of time,
cost, and scope. Large and small organizations recognize that a structured approach to
planning and controlling projects is a necessary core competency for success.

It is important to set up a formal planning and control system that is flexible enough
to operate in the real world, but still rigorous enough to provide control. A project
management system must allow for adjustments to the plan as needed throughout the
project’s life. The system helps you define the problem or opportunity, establish
project objectives, develop the project plan, begin project work, monitor and control
the work, and then close the project.

1.2 Project Planning

Project planning is a discipline for stating how to complete a project within a certain
timeframe, usually with defined stages, and with designated resources.

The key steps in planning are as follows:

1. Define the problem or opportunity that this project addresses.
2. Establish project objectives in terms of time, cost, and scope.
3. Perform project reviews to ensure the project is needed, feasible, and practical.
4. Define the work (activities) that must be done to complete the project.
5. Estimate the cost and time needed to accomplish each activity.
6. Sequence the activities into a logical order, considering the dependencies
between activities.
7. Calculate the critical path to determine the longest sequence of activities.
8. Schedule the activities by applying calendar dates.
 9. Prepare resource plans by assigning specific personnel and equipment to each
activity.
10. Prepare budget plans to determine what funds are needed at what times.
11. Plan for risk to be ready to respond to events that may effect the project for
better or worse.
12. Get approvals and compile a formal project plan.

1.3 Project Scheduling

The project schedule is the tool that communicates what work needs to be performed,
which resources of the organization will perform the work and the timeframes in
which that work needs to be performed. The project schedule should reflect all of the
work associated with delivering the project on time. Without a full and complete
schedule, the project manager will be unable to communicate the complete effort, in
terms of cost and resources, necessary to deliver the project.

A class of problems called Resource-constrained scheduling has emerged over years

to tackle these situations. CPM and PERT has gained wide spread use to solve
unconstrained project scheduling problems. scheduling resource constrained
determined using heuristic algorithms, in which there are no other measures to shorten
the project completion time delayed due to the resource constraint.

1.3.1 CRITICAL PATH METHOD (CPM)

Critical Path Method (CPM) is a project management technique, which has been
created out of the need of industrial and military establishments to plan, schedule and
control complex projects .

CPM provides an integrated frame work for planning, scheduling and control of
project management. The scheduling of a project includes answers to important
questions, like

 How long will the entire project take to be completed? What are the risks
involved?
 Which are the critical activities or tasks in the project which could delay the
entire project if they were not completed on time?
  Is the project on schedule, behind schedule or ahead of schedule?
 If the project has to be finished earlier than planned, what is the best way to do
this at the least cost?

Some activities are serially linked. The second activity can begin only after the first
activity is completed. In certain cases activities are concurrent, because they are
independent of each other and can start simultaneously. This is especially the case in
organizations which have supervisory resources so that work can be delegated to
various departments which will be responsible for the activities and their completion
as planned.

Two types of precedence network diagrams are constructed for presenting

project activities data:
1. Activities-on-arcs (AOA) network diagrams use directed arcs to present an
activity. Nodes represent start and terminal occurrence of various project
activities. Besides representing activities, the arcs also contain information
about precedence relationships and duration of activities

Arc Duratio
Node
4 n
1 2

Fig 1.1 Activity - On - Arc

2. Activity-on-Node (AON) precedence network diagram is the second way of

presenting project data. The nodes present activities. Directed arcs present
precedence relationship which join the nodes. The duration of activities is
written inside or above the node.

Precedence
Relationship

A, 2 B, 6
Activity
Name
Duration

Fig 1.2 Activity - On - Node

1.3.2 PERT METHODOLOGY

PERT differs from CPM in that it bases the duration of an activity on three estimates:

1. Optimistic time, which occurs when execution goes extremely well

2. Most likely time, which occurs when execution is done under normal conditions.
3. Pessimistic time, which occurs when execution goes extremely poorly.

PERT approach is useful, because it can accommodate the variation in activities

completion times, based on an expert’s or an expert committee’s estimates.

1.3.3 Heuristic Techniques

This method is suitable for large and complex projects. It seeks the near-optimal
project schedule using criteria such as:
1. The activity with the longest duration first (LAF);
2. The activity with the shortest duration first (SJF);
3. First come first serve (FCFS);
4. The activity with the latest finish time first (LFT);
5. The activity with the smallest earliest completion time first (MEF);
6. The activity with the smallest slack time first (MSF);
7. The activity with the largest slack time first (MSF);
8. The activity with the largest ratio of the resource over activity time first
(ROT).

The existing project scheduling software commercialized include Super Project

Expert, Timeline, Primavera, Microsoft Project for Windows, Harvard Total Project
Management, Premaster Advanced and Hornet. Most of them use PERT and CPM to
compute the earliest and latest completion time. Some of them provide resource-
leveling capability to resolve resource conflict. However, most software does not
allow segmentation of the activity and extension of the task duration. Therefore, when
applied for resource leveling, all software's give similar results.