Exercise 6 – Chapter 7
Buatlah ringkasan dari artikel berikut ini mengenai project planning.
http://www.thebusinessmac.com/features/projmgmt3.sh
tml
Essentials of Successful Project Management: Planning
Your Project
Roger Shields
Previous articles in the series:
Essentials of Successful Project Management: Introduction
Essentials of Successful Project Management: Project Definition
Plan your work and work your plan. 80% of all problems can solved in the planning
stage, and you can prepare contingencies for the other 20%
Ten minutes of planning can save you sixty minutes in crisis. This is a conservative ratio.
Steve McConnell, author of "Software Project Survival Guide" puts the ratio at 250 to 1
for software projects. According to McConnell, every hour you spend planning can save
you 250 hours of rework and crisis management in the implementation stage.
Components of a Project Plan
Before reviewing specific planning items, let's look at the general components of project
planning. Project mangers will address these elements at different levels of detail
depending on the size and type of the project, but all elements should receive some
consideration during the planning process.
1. Project Summary
The project summary is a short narrative of your project. It can include the project goal,
how the project came into being, the strategic importance of the project and other salient
facts. Tell a short story. It might only be a few sentences but it begins the process of
focusing on the project.
2. Project Requirements
What do you need in order to successfully complete your projects? Think about the Triple
Constraints and the resources required to address them. Consider your SMART goals.
3. Milestones
Milestones are the major checkpoints to determine how the project is progressing.
Determine the major points you want to reach during the project. Milestones help you
measure progress and set up points of celebrations. Milestones can also be used to keep
your people informed about progress.
4. Work Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure requires the project manager to think about the tasks
involved in completing the project. What tasks and activities are involved in your
project? What’s the sequence and who will be responsible? We will look at this in more
detail later in this section.
5. Network Diagram of Activities with Schedule Dates
The network diagram is a graphical representation of the workflow of your project.
Typically these are your Gantt Chart and CPM/PERT charts. The network diagram shows
the sequence of activities and their relationships to other tasks. If you have never heard of
a Gantt or CPM/PERT chart, don't panic. They will be explained later.
6. Budget for All Activities
Once you have prepared the work breakdown and network diagram with your schedule,
you need to prepare an activity budget. Will your boss want you to track and control your
project expenditures? Of course.
You cannot do the budget accurately until you have a schedule of activities agreed upon
by all team participants. Even when you are given a budget, you have to prepare a work
breakdown and network diagram to see if the budget can be met. This is one of the failure
points of many projects.
You may have several budgets. There will be an overall project budget. You might also
prepare detailed activity budgets and departmental task budgets for better project control.
The driver of the project will dictate the level of detail and the control required.
7. Project Management and Organization Charts
This is just what it sounds like. You should create a chart of the people on your project
and their relationships. This charting provides information relating to team members
involved in the project and where they appear in the organization.
8. Interface Definitions
Plan your communication system. This will include your e-mail system, computer
networks and other systems required for the project. You need to determine what
facilities are required for your project or how existing facilities will be used. Remember,
everyone may not have e-mail. Worse yet, they have e-mail but don't use it. How will you
communicate with these people?
9. Logistic Support
Support people are critical for success. They are an integral part of the team. Include your
accounting, clerical, legal and other support staff in the planning process. Who will you
need and how is work delivered to them? Who do they report to?
10. Acceptance Plan
The acceptance plan is a two-part element. What do you need, if anything, to secure
approval to start your project? What do you have to do to get acceptance of your project
at the end? Planning for final acceptance starts at the beginning of the project.
11. Standards for Property Control and Security
Property control and security will vary from company to company and project to project.
How are you going to protect your project site, equipment, materials and intellectual
property? Plan your security to avoid lost or stolen materials.
12.Customer Contact Points
How often will you interact with your external clients or internal customers on this
project? What format will you use (e-mail, tele-conference, meetings, written reports,
etc.)?
13. Nature of Project Reviews
How will you keep the project in control? I do not believe in micro-management but
projects have to be in control. If not, they are out of control. You must plan for the type
and frequency of project reviews. I will illustrate several different types of project
reviews in the project implementation and control section.
14. Risk Management
In its simplest form, risk management is identifying what can go wrong and planning to
minimize the adverse effects of those situations. Use your team to brainstorm a TOP TEN
list of possible problems and how to minimize them. Plan to repeat this action at various
stages throughout the project as risks go away and new risks arise.
15. Change Order Control
Create a small committee to review and approve changes to the project. If you don't, the
rate of change can exceed the rate of progress and you will never complete the project.
Every good idea does not have to be incorporated into a project. If software developers
didn't have change order control, they would never get their product to market.
Project planning starts with the big picture and then successively breaks the project into
smaller and smaller elements. The first two elements of planning, the summary and the
project requirements, relate to the overall project.
The next element, milestones, breaks the project down by major sub-groups or
accomplishments so we can check progress and plan our celebrations.
The next element, the work breakdown structure, is where project managers begin
planning the individual activities or tasks of their projects.
Work Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure is your key to breaking your project into manageable
pieces. It enables you to visualize how your project is going to come together and who is
responsible for the activities of your project.
Begin the work breakdown by listing every step needed to complete the project. Unless
your project is very small and involves only your operation, you need to ask for help. Get
the project team involved in the work breakdown to insure that important steps are not
missed. Decide who is responsible for each step or action item (very important for team
members to agree on who is responsible). Once you have the list, prepare a work
breakdown chart.
This chart looks like an organizational chart and in a way it is. It is your project activity
organization.
I suggest that you list those people or departments across the top and the fill in the
activities that they are responsible for. This will help you to visualize your project.
Project Tip
You can do the work breakdown structure with post-it notes. Get different color post-it
notes and have each person or department write down their tasks and activities. Only one
task or activity goes on each post-it. You then assemble your work breakdown structure
on the wall. The team can review the assembled work breakdown structure and look for
missing tasks or duplicate activities. If two people have put down the same activity,
determine who is responsible and remove the other. If each person is doing part of the
activity, create different labels for the tasks and use them both.
These post-it notes can be used in the next step, the work flow diagram.
Workflow Network Diagrams
In my previous article, we discuss a hypothetical project to install a Local Area Network
(LAN). A consulting firm was hired to design and install a LAN for 25 users who already
had PCs. In that case, the company identified a work breakdown that included 16 tasks.
1. Project Management
2. Needs analysis
3. Specifications
4. Select Server
5. Select Software
6. Select Cables
7. Purchase equipment
8. Develop User Manuals
9. Wire Offices
10. Set up server
11. Develop Training Programs
12. Install Software
13. Connect Network
14. Train Users
15. Test/Debug System
16. Get Management Acceptance
The work is divided up as follows:
Project Manager - Project management during the life of the project
Senior Management and the client - Sign off when the job is done.
Engineering - Conduct the needs analysis and specifications;
Systems - Select the server, software and cabling. They will set up the server,
install the software, and connect the network and test/debug the system.
Purchasing - Issue the purchase order for the equipment selected.
Installation - Install the cables, and connect the network
Training - Prepare manuals and procedures, develop a training program and train
the users.
If you used the post-it note process, the Work Breakdown would look something like this.
The project manager is responsible for project management (1) and for getting sign-off
from upper management and the client (16). Notice that we have both Systems and
Installation responsible for Task 13 — Connecting the Network. This could be a mistake
or maybe each does part of the operation. If only one department is responsible, then the
other should be removed. If each does a part of the task, the tasks should be split into two
tasks with different numbers. For our purposes, we will assume only Systems needs to be
involved in connecting the network and we will ignore Installation's Task 13.
The work breakdown is helpful but it doesn't show the flow of the work. In a complex
project, we still need more information to make sure everything is done on time.
In order for us to coordinate the activities of all of responsible people in our project team,
we need a workflow diagram. This chart shows the interrelation of the various tasks so
you, as project manager, will know when team members need to be involved.
The workflow network diagram for the LAN project looks like this. It does not have
times associated with the work yet but it shows the relationships of tasks.
If you used the post-it notes on a whiteboard or a flip chart, you can lay out the tasks and
connect them in the flow pattern. It is a challenging task initially, but it forces you think
about who is dependent on whom for delivery of intermediate work. If you use MicroSoft
Project or similar software, you can enter data and it will create the workflow diagram
and other charting. However, if you enter the data incorrectly, the software will not warn
you and you can have an erroneous diagram (Garbage In — Garbage Out). For that
reason, many project managers use a Task Analysis Form. After we complete the time
estimates for each task, this information can be plugged into the network diagram and we
will have a schedule with a project completion time. This will be discussed in more detail
in the Time Estimate section.
Task Analysis Form
Whether you use project management software or do the work breakdown and network
diagrams by hand, it can be helpful to create a task analysis form.
Once you have identified all of the tasks or activities in your work breakdown structure
completing a task analysis form for each activity will assist the project manager in
developing the network diagram.
Task No.:
Predecessor Task(s):
Specifications (Deliverables):
Task Name:
Resources - People/Dept.:
1
2
3
4
Equipment/Supplies:
Time Estimate:
Milestones:
1
2
3
4
To - Optimistic
Likely
Must Start:
Tp - Pessimistic
Must Finish:
Tm - Most
Cost Estimate: $
Task Number — Each task should have a unique number. Software programs will often
assign numbers. Your accounting group may require specific numbers for cost tracking
purposes.
Task Name — A short descriptive name for the task. While uniqueness is helpful, it is
not required.
Predecessor — what task or tasks have to be done immediately before this task?
Specifications — What will the task or activity accomplish, what are the deliverables
Resources — People needed for the task,
Equipment/ supplies — Are there reimbursable items that you have to track? Do you
have a supply inventory and have to account for what you take to charge against the
project?
Time Estimate — When do you have to start this task? When must it be done? In some
projects there are definite start and/or ending dates. In other projects there might not be
either.
Milestones — Is the completion of this task a milestone?
Time to complete — Optimistic, pessimistic, most likely - I will explain this in the next
section on time estimates.
Cost estimate — You may not have the cost estimate at this point but you will come
back and fill it in when you do.
Summary
In the next section, we will look at the most problematic element of project planning,
Time Estimates. Poor time estimates are the number one cause of project problems. In
this section, you will learn the difference between estimating time for delivery purposes
and cost purposes, how to create time estimates that you can meet and what to do when
you don't have enough time