Project Management Assignment 02

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Project Planning
3. Roles and responsibilities of Project Manager in Planning
4. Project Scheduling
5. Project Management Tools
6. Conclusion
7. References

PROJECT PLANNING AND SCHEDULING

1. INTRODUCTION
A typical project involves a number of activities, and each activity requires human resources
support. These activities and resources must be properly planned and scheduled in order to
achieve optimum project time and cost. This paper proposes a process planning and
scheduling system which is based on the concept of process planning typically used for the
planning of project activities. An Advanced Planning System offers support at all planning
levels along the supply chain while observing limited resources. As one of the most

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challenging problems in project management, scheduling has been receiving considerable

attention not only from researchers but also from practitioners. In the past few decades, the
field of project management theory and practice has made tremendous strides forward (Rory
Burke2003) However, as projects grow in complexity, finding realizable schedules that
efficiently exploit scarce resources continues to be a challenging task within project
management.

Modern era demands an efficient scheduling to enhance the profitability of any enterprise.
The resource-constrained project scheduling problem is a general scheduling problem which
involves the scheduling of project activities subjected to some temporal constraints and
resource constraints, so as to minimize the total project duration. Temporal constraints
usually consist of precedence constraints, which imply that certain jobs must be completed
before others can be started. A resource constraint specifies that every job requires different
capacity of limited renewable resource types while being processed.

The activities are usually ranked by using the priority rule, which determines the order that
the activities are added to the schedule. There exists no constructive heuristic that
outperforms all other constructive heuristics given a variety of different performance criteria.
In addition to priority rules, another major component of constructive heuristics is the
schedule generation scheme (SGS), which determines the way in which a feasible schedule is
constructed by assigning starting times to the different activities. The serial SGS and parallel
SGS constitute the two basic schedule generation schemes. When constructing a feasible
schedule, we start with the dummy start activity and gradually schedule all activities until the
dummy end activity has been assigned a starting time. This can easily be obtained by
reversing all precedence relations and using the reverse priority list on the resulting network.
The resulting starting times can then easily be adjusted so that the starting time of the dummy
start activity equals 0. Finally, the application of all possible left shifts will result in an active
schedule for the original problem instance. To that purpose, both forward and backward
priority lists should be used in the bidirectional planning. During the each iteration of the
bidirectional parallel scheduling scheme, the decision point of each direction with the
smallest difference is considered (Rory Burke2003). In the case of a tie, both decision points
are considered. At each decision point, the activities are scheduled in the order of forward or
backward priority list. This is continued until no more activities can be scheduled to start or
finish at these decision points. Then the decision point is updated and a new iteration takes
place until all activities have been scheduled. Finally, the bidirectional schedule can be
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translated into an active schedule by shifting the backward scheduled activities to the left in
the order of their start times.

2. PROJECT PLANNING
A major responsibility for the project manager is the initial planning of the project. The early
stages of the project must be spent carefully establishing a baseline plan that provides a clear
definition of how the project the project scope will be accomplished on time, to budget and
using available resources.
1. Project initiation

At the beginning of a project, a Project Initiation Document (PID) should be

produced. The PID contains:

• What is state of recent project?

• Future project objectives

• The come up to be taken to the project

• Any areas excluded from the project

• Any constraints such as budget or available resources

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• Any interfaces between this project and others organisations or part of the
organisation

• Any statement on which the PID is based

• The communication plan (reports, meetings, etc...)

2. Time
The schedule is the timetable for activities involved in achieving the project objective.
The project will have a finite date for completion, either set by the banking
consortium. The timetable must include these.
The time plan lists all the activities, which will do that what and how long each is
planned to take. This includes the milestone finish dates of each stage of the project
life-cycle, and the estimated completion date of the whole project.

3. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF PROJECT MANAGER IN PLANNING

A project manager is the person who has the overall responsibility for the successful planning
and execution of a project. The project manager must possess a combination of skills
including an ability to ask penetrating questions, detect unstated assumptions and resolve
interpersonal conflicts as well as more systematic management skills.

Project managers use project management software, such as Microsoft Project, to organise
their task and workforce. These software packages allow project managers to produce reports
and charts in a few minutes, compared to the several hours it can take if they do not use a
software package.

The role of the project manager encompasses many activities including

➢ Planning and defining scope
➢ Activity planning and sequencing
➢ Resource planning
➢ Developing schedules
➢ Time estimating
➢ Cost estimating
➢ Developing a budget
➢ Controlling quality

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➢ Managing risks and issues

➢ Creating schedules and charts
➢ Risk analysis
➢ Benefits realisation
➢ Scalability, interoperability and portability analysis
➢ Documentation
➢ Team leadership
➢ Strategic influencing

4. PROJECT SCHEDULING
These are the important steps should be considered in scheduling procedures.
• Establishing objectives
• Determining available resources
• Sequencing activities
• Identifying precedence relationships
• Determining activity time and cost
• Estimating material and worker requirement
• Determining critical activities

5. PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Gantt Chart
A Gantt chart is a popular bar chart that aims to show the timing of tasks or activities as they
occur across time. Although the Gantt chart did not initially indicate the relationships
between activities, this has become more common in current use as both timing and
interdependencies between tasks can be identified.

Links Code Description Gantt Chart View

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Finish-Start FS Predecessor finishes and the other starts

Start-Finish S-F Task begins at the same time as its predecessor

Finish-Finish F-F
Both tasks finish at the same time

Start-Start S-S Start of the predecessor determines when the other starts

Logic Network
A Logic Network shows the sequence of activities in a project across time. It shows which
activity logically precedes or follows another activity. It can be used to identify the
milestones and critical path of a project.

PERT Chart
PERT is basically a method for analysing the tasks involved in completing a given project,
especially the time needed to complete each task and identifying the minimum time needed to
complete the total project.

Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)

In project management, a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) is an exhaustive, hierarchical
tree structure of components that make up a project deliverable, arranged in whole-part
relationship. A PBS can help clarify what is to be delivered by the project and can help build
a work breakdown structure.

The PRINCE2 project management method mandates the use of product based planning, part
of which is developing a product breakdown structure.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is an exhaustive, hierarchical tree structure of
deliverables and tasks that need to be performed to complete a project. Work breakdown

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structure is a very common project management tool and the basis for much project planning.

Critical Path Analysis

Critical Path Analysis (CPA) is a project management tool that:
• Sets out all the individual activities that make up a larger project.
• Shows the order in which activities have to be undertaken.
• Shows which activities can only taken place once other activities have been
completed.
• Shows which activities can be undertaken simultaneously, thereby reducing the
overall time taken to complete the whole project.
• Shows when certain resources will be needed – for example, a crane to be hired for a
building site.
In order to construct a CPA, it is necessary to estimate the elapsed time for each activity –
that is the time taken from commencement to completion.
Then the CPA is drawn up a based on dependencies such as: (Kelley JE 1963)
• The availability of labour and other resources
• Lead times for delivery of materials and other services
• Seasonal factors – such as dry weather required in a building project
Once the CPA is drawn up, it is possible to see the CRITICAL PATH itself – this is a route
through the CPA, which has no spare time (called ‘FLOAT’ or ‘slack’) in any of the
activities. In other words, if there is any delay to any of the activities on the critical path, the
whole project will be delayed unless the firm makes other changes to bring the project back
on track. The total time along this critical path is also the minimum time in which the whole
project can be completed. Some branches on the CPA may have FLOAT, which means that
there is some spare time available for these activities.

The key rules of a CPA

• Nodes are numbered to identify each one and show the Earliest Start Time (EST) of
the activities that immediately follow the node, and the Latest Finish Time (LFT) of
the immediately preceding activities
• The CPA must begin and end on one ‘node’
• There must be no crossing activities in the CPA
• East activity is labelled with its name or it may be given a label, such as ‘D’.

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• The activities on the critical path are usually marked with a ‘//’ or dark line
(Kelley JE ,1963)
The first stage in constructing a network for a project is to consult with the technical experts
and summarise the information that they provide in a table, as in the following simple
example.

Activity Predecessors Duration

A None 4 months
B None 3 months
C A 2 months
D A, B 4 months
The predecessors impose constraints on the project: C cannot begin until A has been
completed, whereas D cannot begin until both A and B has been completed.
There are two types of network that we can draw for this project:
1. activity-on-arrow (AOA)

2. activity-on-node (AON)

The dummy activity (shown by the dotted line) is needed in the AOA network to show the
predecessors correctly, i.e. that D depends on both A and B, but C depends only on A. AOA
networks often need several dummy activities. AON networks do not need dummy activities.

In the example below

• The Node is number 3
• The EST for the following activities is 14 days
• The LFT for the preceding activities is 16 days
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• There is 2 days’ float in this case (difference between EST and LFT)
• The activity that follows the node is labelled ‘D’ and will take 6 days

Problem Environment
In the resource constrained project scheduling (RCPS), the main objective is the
minimization of makespan while considering temporal and resource constraints. In order to
ease the solution strategy it is generally modelled as a travelling salesman problem (TSP)
with precedence constraints. In this model, travelled distance between the two nodes (where
nodes represent activities) corresponds to the processing time of the nodes. The precedence
relationship shows the relation between two activities which are predecessor and successor to
each other. While solving the RCPS problem the following assumptions are taken in
consideration:
1. The processing time of each activity should be predefined.
2. The precedence relationship among the activities should be followed, i.e., any activity
cannot be completed without performing its precedent activity.
3. The maximum numbers of resources available should be predefined. However, the number
of available resources will change according to the completion and starting time of activities.
4. There should be no interruption between the activities.

6. CONCLUSION

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Project planning and scheduling are the very important process in every project, Project
Manager is the most responsible person for these activities so first he/she should have good
management skill and good experience. Project manager should have good software skill
because nowadays all the planning and scheduling works are computerized and that software
are helping to save the time and cost. Micro Soft Project is the famous software in worldwide
so having a good experience in this software may be advantage for a Project Manager and
their team. In a project every activities dependence so anybody they can’t do planning or
scheduling works individually therefore working as a group may be more advantage. By
updating every day activities project manager may be identify which activities are delay and
he/she can mitigation for that. For a successful project proper planning and scheduling is
important.

7. REFERENCES

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1. Rory Burke2003, Project Management planning and controlling techniques.

2. Lock D,2007.Project Management. 9th Edition Aldershot Gower.
3. Kelley JE (1963) The critical path method: resources planning and scheduling. In:
Muth JF, Thompson GL (eds) Industrial scheduling. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle
River, NJ
4. Blażewicz J, Lenstra J, Rinnooy KA (1983) Scheduling subject to resource
constraints: Classification and complexity. Discrete Appl Math 5:11–24
5. Alvarez-ValdEs R, Tamarit JM (1993) The project scheduling polyhedron: dimension,
facets and lifting theorems. Eur J Oper
6. Mingozzi A, Maniezzo V, Ricciardelli S, Bianco L (1998) An exact algorithm for the
resource-constrained project scheduling problem based on a new mathematical
formulation.
7. Stinson JP, Davis EW, Khumawala BM (1978) Multiple resource constrained
scheduling using branch and bound.
8. J Sched (2006) Knowledge integration using problem spaces: A study in resource-
constrained project scheduling
9. Babcock, D. (1996) Managing Engineering and Technology,Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall. Chen, J., K. Chu-hua and C. Madu (1995) A decision support systems
approach to adjust maintenance float system availability levels, Computers and
Industrial Engineering.
10. Expert Choice Inc. (2000) Analytic network process,
http://www.expertchoice.com/methodology. Fordyce, K., B. Gerard, R. Dunki-Jacobs,
R. Sell and G.
11. Sullivan (1992) Logistics management system: an advanced decision support system
for the fourth decision tier dispatch or short-interval scheduling, Productions and
Operations Management,

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