The factors which need to be balanced when planning a project.
The three factors which need to be balanced when planning a project are quality, cost and time. The quality of a product or service must meet a minimum standard, whilst the cost to produce and the selling price must be feasible and the time to produce the product must be reasonable as well. All of theses factors must be co-ordinated by a project management team to produce a successful and profitable product.
Projects are increasingly being handled using network planning techniques. The reason for this is that projects are becoming more complex as time goes by. Network planning allows a project manager to indentify the Critical Path activities. These activities must be meticulously controlled to enable a project to be completed by an agreed set date. The reason for this is to avoid penalty clauses being used against the maker thus reducing the price to the buyer. Some contracts carry such a clause these days. Network planning allows a goal to be set, a pathway to be identified and milestone review points to be established for regular monitoring to be followed. It can also provide a forecast plan whereby rescue measures can be employed should any unforeseen problems occur. Network planning can also be used for in depth cost analysis. This can ensure resources are being operated to their full potential at different phases of the project and revenue can be calculated and allotted better. Man power levels and planning can also be deduced through network planning hopefully resulting in low overtime levels, low idle times and getting skilled staff on the right jobs. This in turn should limit undue expenditure.
The three basic steps discernible in project planning are planning, controlling and scheduling. In other words a method for identifying all the activities that are needed to complete the project must be employed, information about the sequencing of these activities whether normal or not must be acquired and last of all a WBS or work breakdown structure must be set out.
There are three symbols used in a critical path method. The first of these symbols is an activities symbol .This symbol is an arrow which runs from right to left and is called activity on arrow it depicts time and resources. The second symbol is a broken arrow. This symbol is called dummy activities and takes up no time or resources but is essential to the project in hand. The last symbol is a circle. This symbol denotes events otherwise known as nodes. This identifies a point between two or more activities and normally should not take up any time or resources.
Activity times are determined by a lot of factors. First of all there needs to be a confirmation of all the activities needed to be included in the project. Next the activities need to be grouped or sole depending on whether any activities can be amalgamated which then would lead onto sequencing these activities and noting any possible variances. Next a method of work needs to be defined as well as the duration of the activity within the network. These answers are all gained by using a method called the PERT approach or to give it its full title Program Evaluation and Research Technique. This method involves using three activity duration times which are most optomistic, most likely and most pessimistic. A weighted average of these possible outcomes is then determined by using these three estimates by way of a mathematical equation.
There are three measures of float. These are called total float, free float and independent float. The total float is calculated by considering the latest time finish for the activity, the earliest start time for the activity and the duration of the activity. The free float is calculated by considering the earliest finish time for the activity and the earliest start time for the activity and the duration. The independent float is calculated concerning earliest finish time for the activity, the latest start time for the activity and the duration. The total float is the maximum time available to complete an activity. The free float is scheduled on the project being completed at the earliest time possible. The independent float indicates lost production days that need to regained or pulled back due to unforeseen happenings.
A Gantt chart is a simple but very effective tool used by project planners. An example of its worth is for things like highlighting slippage on agreed stage dates to be used for a project progress meeting. The Gantt chart is a way of calculating what is attainable concerning things like absentee rates, holidays and maintenance data and breakdowns. These factors enable the project manager to moderate a technically feasible target. Resourcing is very important in project management and the Gantt chart allows the manager to see where corners can be cut or outage improved in various areas. Monitoring of time schedules and cost budgets can easily be recorded and set out to see exactly what critical path activities are at what stage and how the floats are performing and whether they need tweaking. Progress can be recorded daily by the use of planning boards.Management reports can be taken from the evidence that a Gantt chart sets out. It can also be used for plotting milestones which are simply pre-designated points in the life of the project. These milestones can be pre-determined and agreed with the customer at the initial negotiation part of the contract also by using a Gantt chart. This shows that a Gantt chart should give a project manager a very good idea of where his overall project is at any progress meeting because he will have all the relevant data to hand.
Precedence diagrams are models showing activities and times on the node or event thus the saying activity on node. The network symbols are used as part of the diagram but arrows identify relationships between activities in logical sequences whereas the circle denotes the events. Precedence diagrams are normally used for things such as solving efficiency problems on assembly lines. To create a model methodology must be used in considering things such as the number of activities in the project, looking at skills and resources at hand which could be employed elsewhere, defining outage patterns or restraints and determining accepted loss of output and standard times and of course balancing loss. They are basically set up to try and find solutions to outage problems through analytical processing of calculations gained by using the float and critical path data. Your starting and finishing point should always be included in this calculation.
There are a number of reasons why projects fail whether totally or just in parts. The project might just reach its finale but, normally it has failed for reasons such as, poor communications, lack of support from the management, rushed decision making and general lack of planning .Although this is not an exhaustive list it should give a good idea as to why a business has failed.
When purchasing a computer network planning package certain things should be included in this package to suit your business needs. First of all it should be a suitable size to accommodate most if not all of the projects you are likely to embark on. It should be able to handle AOA and AON types of network. It should be able to identify activities on the critical path and its duration using minutes,hours,days,weeks and months and should enable the user to insert leap years using a clear and concise manual for user friendly usage. Data entry and correction should be gained with ease. The package should also be able to handle all floats,gantt charts and histograms, Pert when using three time estimates to determine the weighted average activity time, must have the ability to draw network diagrams by plotting mathematical calculations and giving out as much data as possible, should be able to compare planned progress reports, able to interface with a spreadsheet for financial work, to provide information to non specialists, should be cost relative to the facilities provided, should be able to handle both projected and crash costs and last but not least should have windows which permit different functions in different screens.
