MGSC-346 Project Management

Project Management/Project Scheduling

Unique one-time event; start date, tasks, end date

Production Management/ Production Scheduling

Routine; day to day activities

Goals of Project Management

1. Finish on time

2. Finish within budget - costs

3. Meet Quality/ Specifications

Need for tradeoffs

• often need to sacrifice or tradeoff 1 or 2 goals caused by over-optimistic original projections caused by factors not planned for in original plan

Tools for Project Management

1. Gantt Chart

2. PERT

3. CPM

Parkinson’s Law

If you give a person or team “x” amount of time, they will take x amount of time; often waiting until the last day for completion. This results in quality errors and no reserve or slack time cushion to correct needed changes. A good manager should build in time cushion to allow time to make needed changes.

Planned Progress

does not equal reported progress or actual progress

Verify as a manager that reported progress is actually progress planned progress in most cases is not actual progress

Project Organizing Structure

Pure project, Functional, and Matrix

Gantt Chart Advantages and Limitations

+ easy to understand, has been around a long time; easy to read commonly used and people have seen charts east to prepare (can prepare in excel) allows you to plan (show original plans) to organize (start later or earlier) to control (update actual progress vs plan)

- should use with simple projects only don’t use with complex projects because it does not clearly show inter-relationships among tasks like shown with PERT

PERT

Program Evaluation + Review Technique

Used by the US Navy in WWII and used by businesses to speed up research and development projects

CPM

Critical Path Method (need to first have PERT Diagram)

Critical Path - tells the earliest a project can be finished, it is the longest path in time from start to end in PERT diagram

AOA

Activity on Arc

AON

Activity on Node

Advantages and Limitations for PERT/CPM

+ can be used with complex projects, can determine the critical path, and allows you to calculate slack on the path; slack per activity can speed up project finish by doing several tasks at the same time

- too complex for some managers, for advanced analysis needs software like Microsoft Project