Avondale Professional Development
2017
PM & U
A Brief intro to Project Management
What can it do for you
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Session activities
• For this session and the one on Thursday at 3pm (also LT1)
• Some small activities
• Can work either as a group or individual
• Would be good to come along to both sessions
• Laptop could be useful
• Files for this session can be downloaded at:
http://amberwell.net/PD_01.html
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
What is PM?
• A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to
accomplish a unique purpose
• Project Management (PM) is the application of
knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities
in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and
expectations from a project
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Attributes of a Project
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Purpose
Time frame
Ownership/stakeholders
Resources
Roles
Interdependent tasks
Non-dependant tasks
Risks and assumptions
• etc
The Three Forces
• All project have competing constraints of time, cost, and quality
When you will deliver
TIME
Goals
&
Expectations
QUALITY
What you will deliver
BUDGET
How much it will cost
• Which of these three is the primary force for your project?
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
What does a PM do?
 Plans the project
 Ensure the project is completed on schedule, on budget
and to quality
 Manage administrative details
 Manage development aspects
 Oversee quality assurance
 Manage resources (staff, hardware, software...)
 Monitor progress against the plan
 Document, document, document and document..
 Consider including up to 20% of budget for doing PM
 Add contingency in time and budget
 Project Managers should allow 20% of their time for R&D
A model for your project
• This is a generic model, but you could choose/make your own
adding other phases or items.
Effort &
Resources
Required
Progress Reports
Define
project goal
Start
Plan
Project
Execute
project Plan
Close
project
Project Time Line
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Evaluate
Project
Finish
Apple Computer Multimedia
Production Model
Defining a project
• Consider client brief or proposal templates
• Outline the project’s objectives & outcomes (what is required)
• Agree on the success criteria and major constraints of the
project, in writing with the client (usually ends in a proposal)
• List the tasks and consider key milestones (Activity based)
• Estimate time and costs for each task (as accurately as possible)
• This will give you a good idea of the project’s scope and allow
you to work out the critical path of the project
• Note other items: travel & conferences, research & staff costs
software and training, evaluation etc.
• Identify any obstacles or risks that might thwart the project
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Tasks list activity
• Work as a group or individual
• Write a task list for a simple project
• For example:
• Writing a paper with multiple authors
• Birthday party
• Building a deck
• Organising bus trip etc.
As you consider the component tasks
try to think about them as a progression.
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• A WBS is a way of showing what your project consists of at
various levels
• You start with the top level as the project’s goal
• Break this down into its constituent tasks
• You will need to consider granularity (how much to break down
the a task into sub-tasks.
• Depending on project complexity, individual tasks may need
breaking down further to make practical sense to those
responsible (but not necessarily always on main Gantt)
Needed if complex project.
In this case we will skip the WBS and go
straight to the network diagram
Network diagram • A network diagram is planning for making a Gantt chart
Try not jump straight into a Gantt chart.
• Network diagrams can be used for:
1. Showing logical sequence of activities (team communication)
2. Finding the critical path and estimating the project duration
3. Identifying areas for slack and possible problem areas
Often the available time will be dictated if the project is running
to a definite end date, like writing a conference paper.
If your planning shows that you will finish later, then you will
need to replan and reduce the time spent on tasks or you may
even need to go to stakeholders and tell them you can’t do it
(a Gantt chart is a useful tool to show your argument).
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Network diagram - Activity
• How do we start:
1. Armed with your task list
2. Arrange the tasks in terms of dependencies – e.g. you must do a
particular task, before you can carry out another
3. Construct a network diagram showing the how the tasks fit into
the project time-wise (which tasks are dependant on others
4. Assign a time for doing each task
One way to do this in a group is using post-it notes on a whiteboard etc.
Network diagram
• Xxxx
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Critical Path (project length)
• With your network diagram you can figure out the critical path
• The critical path is the longest path where tasks are dependant
on previous tasks being completed.
• The critical path also shows you the shortest time the project
can be completed in.
• Assess task dependencies and draw critical path (longest path
time wise) though your diagram
• Add up the times and that will be the shortest time to complete
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
THANK YOU
Questions
• Next Session we build a Gantt - Thursday 3:00pm (same place)
• Bring your laptop if you want to follow along
while I demonstrate a example Gantt in Excel
Files for this and the next session can be downloaded at:
http://amberwell.net/PD_01.html
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Next session
• Thursday 3:00pm (same place)
• Bring your laptop if you want to follow along
while creating a example Gantt in Excel
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Scheduling & Gantt charts
• Can use Excel or other Gantt softwares (MS Project, FastTrack)
• Three reasons for doing a Gantt chart
1. Planning
2. Communicating the big picture
3. Monitoring Progress
Doing the Gantt
• Now we will look at constructing a basic Gantt Chart in Excel
• The steps used today are explained in this YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjxL_hQn5w0
Files for this and the next session can be downloaded at:
http://amberwell.net/PD_01.html
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
THANK YOU
Questions
Files for this and the next session can be downloaded at:
http://amberwell.net/PD_01.html
Jack Seddon – [email protected]
Title
• Xxxx
Jack Seddon – [email protected]