Project Planning
Class 7
SDLC
Project Identification
& Selection
Project Initiation
& Planning
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Analysis
Logical Design
Physical Design
Implementation
Maintenance
Class today
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Project Planning in more depth
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Define the problem
Define the objectives
Project Feasibility
Produce the Project Schedule
Defining the Problem
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Concentrate on current system
Provide enough information to make it
specific to your application.
Define Objectives
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Should match to most, if not all,
problems
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Why might objectives not cover all
problems?
Can be both quantitative and qualitative
Assessing Project Feasibility
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Economic
Organizational and Cultural (or Political)
Technical
Schedule
Resource
Operational
Legal/contractual
Economic feasibility
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Identifying the financial benefits and
costs associated with the project (CBA)
At this point, probably do not know
enough to complete in detail.
What can be done: list tangible and
intangible costs and benefits.
Tangible benefits
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Can be measured in dollars and with
certainty.
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1.
2.
3.
4.
Tangible Benefit Example
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Time spent finding invoices, receipts,
and orders…
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Assume person spends 10% of time doing
this
Assume your new system will reduce the
time to 1%
This represents a 9% reduction in time
If person’s salary is $25,000/yr, then
savings is $2,250 ($25000 * .09)
Intangible benefits
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Difficult to assign dollar amount
Customer-related, societal
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1.
2.
3.
Costs
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Tangible
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One-time costs
Recurring costs
Intangible
Other Feasibility Analyses
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Organizational & Cultural (Political)
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Technical
Other feasibility analyses
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Schedule
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Resource
Other feasibility analyses
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Operational
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Legal / Contractual
Staff the Project
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Covered in earlier class
Representing and Scheduling
Project Plans
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Gantt Chart: graphical representation of a
project that shows each task activity as a
horizontal bar.
Pert chart: A diagram that depicts project
activities and their inter-relationships.
Critical path scheduling: a scheduling
technique where the order and duration of
the sequence of activities directly affect the
completion date of a project.
Steps in Project Scheduling
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Identify phases/activities/tasks in
project (use SDLC as guide)
Estimate the size of the task
Determine sequence for identified tasks
Schedule tasks
Class Activity
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A project has been defined to contain
the following list of activities and tasks
along with their required times for
completion:
ACTIVITY/task
Time (weeks)
ANALYSIS:
1 – collect requirements
2 – analyze processes
3 – analyze data
DESIGN:
4 – design processes
5 – design data
6 – design screens
7 – design reports
IMPLEMENTATION:
8 – program
9 – test and document
10 – install
Predecessors
2
3
3
1
2
7
6
1
5
2
2
3,4
4,5
4
8
2
6,7
7
8,9
Lab
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Using Microsoft PM to create a project
schedule (Gantt and PERT)