By: Ahmad Al-Ghoul
Philadelphia University
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Learning Objectives
 Explain what a project is, list various attributes of projects.
 Describe project management, discuss Who uses Project
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Management.
Discuss The Project Management Process.
Explain Benefits of Project Management
Discuss how to control projects.
Discuss Suggested Steps in Project Management
Discuss the activities in a Project Life Cycle
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Learning Objectives
 Explain Project Initiation Phase, Project Planning Phase,
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Project Execution Phase, Project controlling Phase and
Project Close-out Phase.
Discuss Project Constraints includes, scope, time and cost
Understand the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
Explain and understand Project Scheduling.
Discuss and implement GANTT CHARTS.
Discuss and implement PERT and CPM
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What is Project Management?
 Project : A group of milestones or phases,
activities or tasks that support an effort to
accomplish something
 Management : is the process of Planning,
Organizing, Controlling and Measuring
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Project...
 A collection of linked activities, carried out in an
organized manner, with a clearly defined START
POINT and END POINT to achieve some specific
results desired to satisfy the needs of the organization
at the current time
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What Is a Project?
 A project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to
create a unique product, service, or result.”*
 Operations is work done to sustain the business.
 A project ends when its objectives have been reached,
or the project has been terminated.
 Projects can be large or small and take a short or long
time to complete.
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Attributes of a Project
 Has a well-defined objective
 Composed of a series of interdependent tasks
 Utilizes various resources
 Has a specific time frame
 May be a unique or one-time endeavor
 Has a customer
 Involves a degree of uncertainty
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Project Management
 A dynamic process that utilizes the appropriate
resources of the organization in a controlled and
structured manner, to achieve some clearly defined
objectives identified as needs.
 It is always conducted within a defined set of
constraints
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Why Need Project Management?
• Complex project needs coordination of:
 Multiple people
 Multiple resources (labs, equipment, etc.)
 Multiple tasks – some must precede others
 Multiple decision points – approvals
 Phased expenditure of funds
 Matching of people/resources to tasks
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Who uses Project Management?
 Nearly Everyone to some degree
People plan their Days, their Weeks, their Vacations
and their Budgets and keep a simple project
management form known as ‘’To Do’’ list
 Any Process or Means used to track tasks or efforts
towards accomplishing a goal could be considered
Project Management
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The Project Management Process
 The project management process means planning the work
and then working the plan.
 Clearly define the project objective.
 Divide and subdivide the project.
 Define the specific activities that need to be performed.
 Graphically schedule the activities in a project.
 Make a time estimate.
 Make a cost estimate.
 Calculate a project schedule and budget.
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Benefits of Project Management
 Less overall project cost
 Effective use of resources
 More timely project completion
 Higher quality of the final product
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Controlling Projects
 Establish a baseline plan.
 Monitor progress.
 Measure actual progress and compare it to planned
progress.
 Take corrective action if the project is behind schedule,
overrunning the budget, or not meeting technical
specifications.
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Suggested Steps in
Project Management
• Generate a formal definition of the project, with goals,
constraints, assumptions
• Identify project start/end dates, any mandatory milestones,
including reports, signoffs, deliverables, etc.
• List constraints – money, equipment availability, holidays,
etc.
• Identify tasks to be accomplished – high level (i.e., by
categories), then details within each, using brainstorming
method – green light
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Suggested Steps, cont.
• Refine detailed task list, dropping/ combining, adding
things omitted
Then, for each task in list:
• Estimate time (person hours, calendar period)
• Identify dependencies among tasks
• Identify resources (people, money, parts, etc.)
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Suggested Steps, cont.
Organize task groups roughly by starting date
List dependencies that should or MUST hold
Use MS Project to make a GANTT chart
• First capture tasks and task groups, milestones
• Identify critical path, see if it can be shortened
• Assign person-hours and specific team member(s) to each
task – identify “task leads”
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Suggested Steps, cont.
As project progresses:
• Monitor, record progress on all tasks, at least weekly –
use “Tracking Gantt Chart”
• Pay particular attention to those on critical path
• Revise plan as needed to take into account changes,
adapt to meet milestones
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Project Life Cycle
Initiating
Processes
Planning
Processes
Executing
Processes
Controlling
Processes
Closing
Processes
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Project Initiation Phase
 To commit the organization to a project or phase
 To set the overall solution direction
 To define top-level project objectives
 To secure the necessary approvals and resources
 Validate alignment with strategic objectives
 To assign a project manager
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Project Planning Phase
 Organize and staff the project
 Develop a Project Plan
 Sign off on the Project Plan
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Project Execution Phase
 Execute the Project Plan
 Manage the Project Plan
 Implement the project’s results
 Sign off on project’s completion
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Project controlling Phase
To keep the project on track in order to achieve its
objectives as outlined in the project plan by:
 Monitoring and reporting variances
 Controlling scope changes
 Controlling schedule changes
 Controlling costs
 Controlling quality
 Responding to risks
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Project Close-out Phase
 Document the lessons learned during the project
 After-implementation review
 Provide performance feedback
 Close-out contracts
 Complete administrative close-out
 Deliver project completion report
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Project Constraints
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project scope definition
 Project scope is the part of project planning that
involves determining and documenting a list of
specific project goals, deliverables, tasks and
deadlines.
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Project Constraint
 The time constraint refers to the amount of time
available to complete a project. The cost constraint
refers to the budgeted amount available for the
project. The scope constraint refers to what must be
done to produce the project's end result. These three
constraints are often competing constraints: increased
scope typically means increased time and increased
cost, a tight time constraint could mean increased
costs and reduced scope, and a tight budget could
mean increased time and reduced scope.
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Time
 For analytical purposes, the time required to produce
a deliverable is estimated using several techniques.
One method is to identify tasks needed to produce the
deliverables documented in a work breakdown
structure or WBS. The work effort for each task is
estimated and those estimates are rolled up into the
final deliverable estimate.
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Project Time Management
processes include:
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Define Activities
Sequence Activities
Estimate Activity Resources
Estimate Activity Durations
Develop Schedule
Control Schedule
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Cost
 To develop an approximation of a project cost depends
on several variables including: resources, work
packages such as labor rates and mitigating or
controlling influencing factors that create cost
variances.
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Cost Process Areas
 Cost Estimating is an approximation of the cost of all
resources needed to complete activities.
 Cost budgeting aggregating the estimated costs of
resources, work packages and activities to establish a
cost baseline.
 Cost Control – factors that create cost fluctuation and
variance can be influenced and controlled using
various cost management tools.
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Scope
 Requirements specified to achieve the end result. The
overall definition of what the project is supposed to
accomplish, and a specific description of what the end
result should be or accomplish. A major component of
scope is the quality of the final product. The amount
of time put into individual tasks determines the overall
quality of the project. Some tasks may require a given
amount of time to complete adequately, but given
more time could be completed exceptionally. Over the
course of a large project, quality can have a significant
impact on time and cost (or vice versa).
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The triple constraint
Quality
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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
 Breaks large project into manageable units
 Total project
 Subprojects
 Milestones (completion of an important set of work
packages)
 Major activities (summary tasks)
 Work packages (tasks, activities, work elements)
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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
 Helps to:
 Identify all work needing to be done
 Logically organize work so that is can be scheduled
 Assign work to team members
 Identify resources needed
 Communicate what has to be done
 Organize work using milestones
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Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
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Scheduling
 Scheduling -
Determination of timing and
assembly of project activities to give
overall completion time
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Basis for Project Schedule
 Project objectives
 Project scope
 Project milestones
 Project estimate (budget)
 Resource availability
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Purposes of Project Scheduling
1. Shows the relationship of each activity to others and to
the whole project
2. Identifies the precedence relationships among activities
3. Encourages the setting of realistic time and cost estimates
for each activity
4. Helps make better use of people, money, and material
resources by identifying critical bottlenecks in the project
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PROJECT SCHEDULING MODELS
 Gantt charting and the Program Evaluation and
Review Technique (PERT).
 Both are schematic models, but the PERT also is a
mathematical model.
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GANTT CHARTS
 A Gantt chart is a tool to monitor progress. Showing both
planned and actual outcomes for each phase, a Gantt chart
allows you to isolate and solve scheduling problems in a
methodical manner. While the project as a whole might be
overwhelming, a Gantt chart helps in managing a large
project by breaking the project into a series of smaller
phases. As each phase is completed, you can see if the final
deadline is likely to be met. If you are behind schedule, you
can attempt to get back on track by absorbing the delay in
one phase by making it up in another phase
 A Gantt chart may be constructed using several techniques
involving different combinations of lines and symbols. The
actual and planned beginning and ending points for each
phase are plotted along a time line. The first phase is
plotted at the top and the last phase is plotted at the
bottom. Gantt charts may be constructed by hand or
through computer software packages.
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Steps to create Gantt chart
 What the various activities are
 When each activity begins and ends
 How long each activity is scheduled to last
 Where activities overlap with other activities, and by
how much
 The start and end date of the whole project
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Gantt chart
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PERT and CPM
 Network techniques
 Developed in 1950’s
 CPM by DuPont for chemical plants (1957)
 PERT by Booz, Allen & Hamilton with the U.S. Navy,
for Polaris missile (1958)
 Consider precedence relationships and
interdependencies
 Each uses a different estimate of activity times
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Six Steps PERT & CPM
Define the project and prepare the work breakdown
structure
2. Develop relationships among the activities - decide
which activities must precede and which must follow
others
3. Draw the network connecting all of the activities
1.
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Six Steps PERT & CPM
4.
5.
6.
Assign time and/or cost estimates to each activity
Compute the longest time path through the network
– this is called the critical path
Use the network to help plan, schedule, monitor,
and control the project
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Questions PERT & CPM
Can Answer
1.
When will the entire project be completed?
2. What are the critical activities or tasks in the project?
3. Which are the noncritical activities?
4. What is the probability the project will be completed by a
specific date?
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Questions PERT & CPM
Can Answer
5. Is the project on schedule, behind schedule, or ahead of
schedule?
6. Is the money spent equal to, less than, or greater than the
budget?
7. Are there enough resources available to finish the project
on time?
8. If the project must be finished in a shorter time, what is
the way to accomplish this at least cost?
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PERT Diagram Example
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
Conduct Interviews
Questionnaires
Read Reports
Analyze Data Flows
Introduce Prototypes
Observe Reactions
Perform Cost/Benefit
Prepare Proposal
None
A
None
B, C
B, C
E
D
G
3
4
4
8
5
3
3
2
I
Present Proposal
H
2
20
B, 4
A, 3
10
C, 4
30
D, 8
50
E, 5
G, 3
60
H, 2
70
I, 2
80
F, 3
40
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PERT Diagram Example
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PERT Diagram Example
 For example, the optimistic time for completing
activity H is 2 days, the most likely time is 4 days, but
the pessimistic time is 12 days. The next step is to
calculate an expected time, which is determined as
follows:
 te (expected time) = (a + 4m + b) / 6
 For example, for activity H, the expected time is
 (2 + 4(4) + 12) / 6 = 30 / 6 = 5 days
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PERT Diagram Example
 As a measure of variation (uncertainty) about the
expected time, the standard deviation is calculated as
follows:
 σ = (b - a) / 6
 For example, the standard deviation of completion
time for activity H is:
 σ = (12 - 2) / 6 = 10 / 6 = 1.67 days
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COMPUTATIONS OF EXPECTED
TIME AND STANDARD DEVIATION
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Activity Predecessors a m b te σ
A None
1 3 5 3.0 .67
B
None
1 2 3 2.0 .33
C
A
1 1 7 2.0 1.00
D
B
7 9 17 10.0 1.67
E
B
2 2 2 2.0 0.00
F
E
2 5 8 5.0 .67
G
C,D,F
3 7 17 8.0 2.33
H
E
2 4 12 5.0 1.67
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Critical Path
 An easy way to find the critical path involves the
following two steps:
 1. Identify all possible paths of a project and calculate
their completion times.
 2. Pick the one with the longest amount of completion
time, which is the critical path.
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Critical Path
 In the example, we have:
 Path Completion time
 A-C-G 13 days (3 + 2 + 8)
 B-D-G 20 days (2 + 10 + 8)
 B-E-F-G 17 days (2 + 2 + 5 + 8)
 B-E-H 9 days (2 + 2 + 5)
 The critical path is B-D-G, which means it takes 20
days to complete the project.
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