Understanding & controlling the project

Production Process

Lecture content

Understanding the project plan– Who should write the plan?

Control– Quality– Time & cost– Environment

Project Failure

Recap on last week

Managing resources– Identifying resources– Resource constraints– Resource levelling (also called smoothing)

The ‘Mythical Man Month’

Understanding the project

Project Plan

Executive summaryProject objectives

Assumptions & risks

Project Milestones

WBS

Network diagram

Resource details

Budget detailsOperating procedures

Assessment &

Review standards

Contact Points

Project approvals

Who should write the plan?

On your own? Advantages

– Speed– Know what you’re doing

before forming team

On your own? Disadvantages

– Error identification– Missing/incomplete tasks– Objectivity– Complexity– Negativity

Who should write the plan? II

Team? Advantages

– Responsibility– Understanding– Conflict identification– cohesion

Team? Disadvantages

– Time consuming– Differing expertise– Conflict– preplanning

Project control cycle (Hughes p172)

Publish revisedplan

Take remedial action

End

Start

Publish initial plan

GatherProject info

Compare progressv. targets

Satisfactory?

ProjectCompleted

?yes

yes

No

No

Control of major constraints

Quality (Time & cost) Environmental

Time control

Various methods – Gantt charts– Slip charts– Ball charts– Timeline

Slip Charts

Slip charts capture when a schedule slips and by how much. They plot expected completion date (Y) against calendar dates (X)

Why?

Project Completion Prediction: They allow for better prediction of schedule through slip trending and problem diagnostic.

Scheduling: slip charts of previous projects can be used to prevent slips in future projects through post mortems, learning cycles, process reengineering

Example Slip Chart

AFS Slip Chart/Schedule Slip

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

June

July

Aug

Sep

t

Oct

Nov

Dec

Calendar Time

AF

S S

lip -

Com

plet

ion

Dat

e (I

n M

onth

s)

-40481216202428323640444852

Sch

eudl

e S

lip(I

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eeks

) AFS SlipChart

ScheduleSlip

Cost control

Cumulative expenditure chart– Simple way to show expected v.

actual cost– Not really useful unless you are using

to predict forward costs– See page 182 of Hughes for example

Cost control II

Earned value– Needs 3 measures

Actual cost of work performed (ACWP)Budgeted cost of work performed

(BCWP)

– Cost variance = ACWP-BCWP

Cost control III

Estimated cost at completion

– Cost variance is incidentalECAC = total budget + cost variance

– Cost variance is indicativeECAC = project budget x Performance index(performance index = ACWP/BCWP)

Cost control exercise

ACWP = 120kBCWP = 100kTotal Budget = 200kWhat is the ECAC if the cost variance

is believed to be– Incidental?– Indicative?

Cost control Answer

Cost variance – actual cwp - budget cwp – 120-100 = 20k

ECAC incidental – total budget + cost variance – 200+20=220

ECAC indicative– total budget x performance index – total budget x (ACWP/BCWP) – 200 x (120/110) – 200 x 1.2 = 240

Environmental constraints

Need to be aware of any environmental impact of what you are doing & perform accordingly

Effect of legislation

Reasons for failure

Resources Time Expectations Scope misunderstood Disagreement among stakeholders