Module 2:Planning Projects

Defining the project scope, Project scope checklist,

Project priorities, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS),
Integrating WBS with organisation, coding the WBS for
the information system. Scheduling Projects: Purpose of
a project schedule, historical development, how project
schedules are limited and created, develop project
schedules, uncertainty in project schedules, Gantt chart
 Project scope
The scope of a project defines the boundaries of what will be
delivered and what won't be delivered. It is a statement of the
project's objectives, deliverables, and the work required to achieve
those objectives. The scope outlines what is included in the project,
and also what is not included.

Defining the scope of a project is critical to ensure that all

stakeholders have a clear understanding of what the project will
deliver. This clarity is essential in managing expectations and
avoiding scope creep, where additional work is added to the project
without proper evaluation of its impact on budget, timeline, and
resources. A well-defined scope helps in developing realistic project
plans, identifying potential risks and constraints, and allocating
resources effectively
 Project scope checklist
• Project overview and description of work.
• Project justification.
• Project goals and objectives.
• Deliverables.
• Processes.
• Resources.
• Budget.
• Costs.
• Identify all stakeholders involved in the project
• Define and understand project objectives
• Define project deliverables
• Identify project requirements
• Determine project limitations
• Define project milestones
• Define project tasks and sub-tasks
• Develop project schedule
• Estimate project costs
• Define communication strategies and plans
• Create project risk assessment
• Create project quality assurance plan
• Approval: Project Manager on Project Scope
• Prepare project scope statement document
• Approval: Stakeholders on Project Scope Statement
• Finalize and distribute Project Scope Document
• Update Project Management Plan
• Review and adjust project schedule as necessary
• Train team on project scope management
 Project priorities
Project priorities are the assignments that you designate as the most
important in your workflow. Top priority projects are tasks that you
need to start immediately and that you provide with the highest-
quality resources, while low priority projects may not even have an
immediate deadline.
There are six stages in the prioritization process

• Assess projects for business value

• Filter projects for urgency
• Map out project dependency
• Estimate the scope, timeline, and costs of each project
• Assess your budget against project costs
• Assess your team’s bandwidth against project scope and
timelines
 Work Breakdown Structure(WBS)
work breakdown structure (WBS) a hierarchical decomposition of
the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to
accomplish the project objectives and create the required
deliverables.
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a tree structure, which
shows a subdivision of effort required to achieve an objective; for
example a program, project, and contract. The WBS may be
hardware, product, service, or process oriented. A WBS can be
developed by starting with the end objective and successively
subdividing it into manageable components in terms of size,
duration, and responsibility (e.g., systems, subsystems,
components, tasks, subtasks, and work packages), which include
all steps necessary to achieve the objective.
• Purpose for Creating a WBS for Projects
There are three reasons to use a WBS in your projects.

1. The first is that is helps more accurately and specifically define and organize
the scope of the total project. The most common way this is done is by using
a hierarchical tree structure. Each level of this structure breaks the project
deliverables or objectives down to more specific and measurable chunks.

2. The second reason for using a WBS in your projects is to help with assigning
responsibilities, resource allocation, monitoring the project, and controlling
the project. The WBS makes the deliverables more precise and concrete so
that the project team knows exactly what has to be accomplished within each
deliverable. This also allows for better estimating of cost, risk, and time
because you can work from the smaller tasks back up to the level of the entire
project.

3. Finally, it allows you double check all the deliverables’ specifics with the
stakeholders and make sure there is nothing missing or overlapping.
• Process of Creating a WBS
There are several inputs you will need to get you off on the right foot:
• The Project Scope Statement
• The Project Scope Management Plan
• Organizational Process Assets
• Approved Change Requests

These inputs should give you all the information you and your team needs to
create your WBS. Along with these inputs, you will use certain tools as well.
Finally, using these inputs and tools you will create the following outputs:

• Work Breakdown Structure

• WBS Dictionary
• Scope Baseline
• Project Scope Statement (updates)
• Project Scope Management Plan (updates)
• Requested Changes
 Integrating the WBS with the organization
• An integral part of WBS is to define the organizational units responsible
for performing the work. In practice, the outcome of the process is the
organization breakdown structure (OBS). The OBS depicts how the
firm has organized to discharge work responsibility. The purpose of the
OBS are to provide a framework to summarize organization unit work
performance, identify organization units responsible for work packages
and tie the organizational unit to cost control accounts. Cost accounts
group similar work packages. The OBS defines the organization sub-
deliverables in a hierarchical pattern in successively smaller and smaller
units.
• As in the WBS, the OBS assigns the lowest organizational unit the
responsibility for work packages within a cost account. The intersection of
work packages and the organizational unit creates a project control point
(cost account) that integrates work and responsibility. Control can be
checked from two directions – outcomes and responsibility. In the
execution phase of the project, progress can be tracked vertically on
deliverables (client’s interest) and tracked horizontally by organizational
responsibility (management’s interest).
 Coding the WBS for the Information System
• Coding system is very important to gain the maximum benefit
of a work breakdown system. The codes are used to define
levels and elements in the WBS, organization elements, work
packages, budget and cost information. The codes allow reports
to be consolidated at any level in the structure. The most
commonly used scheme is numeric indention. Some
organizations use alphabet letters and most of the organizations
use the combination of both.
 Scheduling Projects:
Purpose of a project schedule
The main purpose of project scheduling is to represent the plan to
deliver the project scope over time. A project schedule, in its simplest
form, could be a chart of work elements with associated schedule
dates of when work elements and milestones (usually the completion
of a deliverable) are planned to occur.

The point of project scheduling is to bring together the work to be

done and the timeline for completion into a single resource for the
team. It’s a document that summarizes the entirety of the project and
acts as a guide to getting the work done. It’s the roadmap for the team.

Basically, it’s hard to run a project without a schedule.

The importance of scheduling on projects cannot be
underestimated. It’s a fundamental skill for a project manager – so
much so that many large projects have people in the role of
scheduler (or planner) where scheduling and maintaining the
schedule is the main part of their job.

5 benefits of project scheduling.

• Prioritization
• Tracking
• Resource management
• Risk management
• Stakeholder satisfaction
Projects are undertaken to accomplish important business purposes, and
people often want to be able to use the project results as quickly as
possible. Many specific questions such as the following can be
answered by having a complete and workable schedule:

• When will the project be complete?

• What is the earliest date a particular activity can start, and when will it end?
• What activity must begin before which other activities can take place?
• What would happen if a delivery of material was one week late?
• Can a key worker take a week of vacation the first week of March?
• If one worker is assigned to do two activities, which one must go first?
• How many hours do we need from each worker next week or month?
• Which worker or other resource is a bottleneck, limiting the speed of our
project?
• What will the impact be if the client wants to add another module?
• If I am willing to spend an extra $10,000, how much faster can the project be
completed?
• Are all of the activities completed that should be by now?
 Historical Development
Throughout history, projects have been performed, but many early projects
such as cathedrals in Europe took decades or longer to complete. As
competition drove the need for more rapid completion, systematic methods
were developed for scheduling projects.
In the 1950s, two project scheduling methods were developed: program
evaluation and review technique (PERT) and critical path method. The critical
path method (CPM) is “a method used to estimate the minimum project
duration and determine the amount of scheduling flexibility on the logical
network paths within the schedule model.
Both CPM and PERT were founded on the concepts still in place today of
identifying activities, determining their logical order, and estimating the
duration for each.
Networks representing the activities were developed and the schedule
calculated. Each of the techniques also boasted a capability the other did not
possess.
PERT was developed in the Navy’s Special Program Office
because the Navy was developing the large and complex Polaris
Weapons System. To complete it as quickly as possible, many
activities needed to be worked on simultaneously. Furthermore,
many aspects of the Polaris used unproven technology.

CPM was developed in the Engineering Services Division of

DuPont. DuPont needed to plan large projects when it built and
refurbished enormous plants. Planners using CPM estimated the
time for each individual work activity using a single time estimate.
The focus was on understanding the longest sequence of activities,
which determined how long the project would take.
PERT and CPM originally used a method for displaying the work activities
called activity on arrow (AOA) or arrow diagramming method (ADM), in
which schedule activities are represented by arrows and connected at points
called nodes. Because it is often confusing to draw an accurate AOA network,
this method is rarely used today.
The more common method used today is called activity on node (AON) or the
precedence diagramming method (PDM). AON or PDM is “a technique in
which the scheduled activities are represented by nodes and are graphically
linked by one or more logical relationships to show the sequence in which the
activities are performed. A small project schedule is shown in figure with work
activities A through D connected by arrows showing logical relationships (A
must be complete before B and C can begin and both B and C must finish
before D can begin).
 How project schedules are limited and created
One way to understand project schedules and how they are constructed is to
understand that five factors may limit how fast a project can be completed:
1. Logical order
2. Activity duration
3. Resource availability
4. Imposed dates
5. Cash flow

The first factor is the logical order in which activities need to be

completed. For example, one needs to dig a hole before cement can be
poured in it. This is covered in the section on sequencing activities.

The second factor is how long each individual activity will take. This is
discussed in the section on estimating activity duration. It includes
methods for estimating durations, problems with estimates, and
remedies to those problems.
The third factor is how many key resources are available at
specific points in the project. For example, if six rooms were
available to be painted at the same time, and fewer than six
painters were available, progress would be slowed. This is
discussed in

The fourth factor is imposed dates. For example, a project working

on a government contract may not be able to start until the
government’s new fiscal year, which starts on October 1.

The fifth and final factor is cash flow. Projects may not start until
money is approved, but progress may also be slowed until enough
revenue arrives to cover expenses.
 Develop Project schedules
You need to complete all of the scheduling processes discussed up
to this point even if you use Microsoft Project or another
scheduling tool. At this point, you have defined, sequenced, and
estimated the duration for all the schedule activities.

Now is the time to use all of this information to develop a project

schedule. Once the schedule is developed based upon this
information, resource needs and availability and cash flow
constraints often extend the proposed schedule, while imposed
date constraints often suggest the need for schedule compression.
The first major task in developing the project schedule is to
identify the critical path, which is “the sequence of activities that
represents the longest path through the project, which determines
the shortest possible duration.
The two methods for determining the critical path are the two-pass
and enumeration methods.Each uses the same activity
identification, duration estimate, and activity sequencing data but
processes the data in a different manner. While both determine the
critical path, each also determines other useful information.
• Two-Pass Method
First or forward pass is “a critical path method technique for calculating the early start and
early finish dates by working forward through the schedule model from the project start. On the
forward pass, the project team starts at the beginning of the project and asks how soon each
activity can begin and end. If the project is being scheduled with software, actual calendar dates
are used.

Early start date (ES):the earliest possible point in time on which uncompleted portions of a
schedule activity can start, based upon the schedule network logic, the data date, and any
schedule constraints

Early finish date (EF):the earliest possible point in time on which uncompleted portions of a
schedule activity can finish, based upon the schedule network logic, the data date, and any
schedule constraints

Late start date (LS):the latest possible point in time in which uncompleted portions of a
schedule activity can start, based upon the schedule network logic, the project completion date,
and any schedule constraints

Late finish date (LF):the latest possible point in time when the uncompleted portions of a
schedule activity can finish based upon the network logic, the project completion date, and any
schedule constraints
First or Forward Pass
SECOND OR BACKWARD PASS
The second pass is sometimes called the backward pass. The
backward pass is “a critical path method technique for calculating
the late start and late finish dates by working backward through
the schedule model from the project end date.
When performing the backward pass, teams start at the end and
work backward asking, “How late can each activity be finished
and started?” Unless there is an imposed date, the late finish for
the last activity during planning is the same as the early finish
date.
SECOND OR BACKWARD PASS
Enumeration Method

The second method of determining the critical path is the

enumeration method. To complete this, a person lists or enumerates
all of the paths through the network. The advantage of this method
is that since all of the paths are identified and timed, if a team
needs to compress the project schedule, they will know both the
critical path and the other paths that may be nearly critical. It is
imperative
to keep track of both critical and near-critical paths when
compressing a schedule.
 Uncertainty in Project Schedules

On some projects, it is easy to estimate durations of activities with

confidence. On others, so many uncertainties exist that managers
have far less confidence in their ability to accurately estimate.
However, project managers still need to tell sponsors and clients
how long they believe a project will take and then be held
accountable for meeting those dates.
One common strategy for handling this potential problem is to
construct the best schedule possible and then manage the project
very closely. A different strategy is to estimate a range of possible
times each individual activity may take and then see what impact
that has on the entire schedule.
PERT and Monte Carlo are two methods sometimes used for this
approach.
Program Evaluation and Review Technique(PERT)
Program evaluation and review technique was developed during the 1950s to
better understand how variability in the individual activity durations impacts
the entire project schedule. To use PERT, a project team starts by sequencing
the activities into a network
However, instead of creating one estimate for the time to complete each
activity, they would create three estimates: optimistic, most likely, and
pessimistic. For example, the first activity, “Determine new product features,”
will most likely take five days, but it could take as little as four days if
everything works well and as long as 12 days if a variety of things interfere.
The person scheduling the project then calculates the estimated time to perform
each activity as shown in figure
The primary advantage of PERT is that it helps everyone realize
how much uncertainty exists in the project schedule. When people
use single time estimates, some times there is a tendency to
believe that the estimates foretell exactly what will happen. On
many projects, a great deal of uncertainty exists, and PERT helps
to make this visible.
Monte Carlo Simulation
Monte Carlo simulation is “a process which generates
hundreds of thousands of probable performance outcomes
based on probability distributions for cost and schedule on
individual tasks.
The outcomes are then used to generate a probability
distribution for the project as a whole. Monte Carlo is more
flexible than PERT, in that an entire range of possible time
estimates can be used for any activity.
The project schedule is calculated many times (perhaps 1,000
or more), and each time the estimate for a particular activity
is generated based upon the likelihood of that time as
determined by the project manager
For example, suppose a project manager estimated that for a
particular activity there was a 10 percent chance of taking five
days, a 30 percent chance of taking six days, a 40 percent chance
of taking seven days, and the remaining 20 percent chance of
taking eight days. Then for each 100 times the computer
generated a project schedule, when it came to that activity, 10
times it would choose five days, 30 times it would choose six
days, 40 times it would choose seven days, and 20 times it would
choose eight days. The output from the computer would include a
distribution of how often the project would be expected to take
each possible length of time. Many other possible outputs can
also be generated from Monte Carlo simulations.
 Gantt Chart
A Gantt chart is a popular project management tool used to visually
represent a project schedule. Gantt charts not only show the timeline and
status of a project but also who’s responsible for which task in a particular
project. The chart helps to show the progress of the project, identify any
delays, and track the critical path.

A Gantt chart can capture the following details about a project:

● The broken down tasks

● Beginning and end of each task
● Duration for each task
● People assigned to each task
● When important meetings, approvals, or deadlines need to happen
● The progress happening on the project
● The complete project schedule from start to finish
Sections of a Gantt Chart:
The Gantt chart is divided into the following sections:
Task List:
Timeline:
Task Bars
Dateline:
Bars:
Milestones:
Dependencies:
Progress:
Resource assigned:
A much easier to understand tool for communicating a project
schedule is a Gantt or bar chart. A Gantt chart is “a bar chart of
schedule information where activities are listed on the vertical
axis, dates are shown on the horizontal axis, and activity durations
are shown as horizontal bars placed according to start and end
dates.