SCM Class 14 - Project Management

Project Management

The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.

Project

A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.

Projects are non-routine, making planning difficult

Projects are complex, involving a variety of skills and capabilities

Projects typically require significant levels of cross-functional and inter-organizational coordination.

Projects have clear starting and ending points after which the people and resources dedicated to the project are reassigned.

Project Phases

• concept

• project definition

• planning

• performance

• post completion

Concept Phase

§The first of five phases of a project where project planners develop a broad definition of what the project is and what its scope will be.

•Primary Performance of a Project: Time, Scope, Money

•Scope – description of the desired outcomes of a project

•Scope Creep – the tendency for the scope to change throughout the duration of a project

Project Definition Phase

The second of five phases of a project where project planners identify how to accomplish the work, how to organize for the project, the key personnel and resources required to support the project, tentative schedules, and tentative budget requirements. Budget estimates become more accurate.

Planning Phase

§The third of five phases of a project where project planners prepare detailed plans that identify activities, time and budgets targets, and the resources needed to complete each task, while also putting into place the organization that will carry out the project. 

§Milestones – Performance , Time, & Budget targets scheduled throughout the project timeframe used to track whether the project is progressing as planned

§Acquisition and scheduling of resources

Performance Phase

The fourth of five phases of a project where the organization actually starts to execute the plan.

Costs, Quality, and Speed of this portion of the project is a function of how well managers have completed the first three phases of the project

Postcompletion Phase

The fifth of five phases of a project where the project manager or team confirms the final outcome, conducts a postimplementation meeting to critique the project and personnel, and reassigns project personnel.

Critical Path:

A sequence of tasks for which there is no extra time available. Delays on the Critical Path will delay the entire project.

Critical Task: A task along the critical path

Slack:

Extra time that is available for task completion. Tasks with available slack may be delayed without delaying the entire project.

Crashing:

Efforts to shorten the duration of a project or to make up delays that have occurred.

Gantt Chart

A graphical tool used to show expected start and end times for project activities and to track actual progress against these time targets.

Gantt Charts Demonstrate:

Task Duration

Task Precedence

Task Milestones & Deadlines

Task Responsibility

Critical Tasks/Critical Path

Tasks With Slack

Project Completion Date

CPM: Critical Path Method

A network-based technique in which there is a single time estimate for each activity.

For this class, we will be evaluating “Activity-On-Node”

Outcomes of CPM:

Provides a graphical display of project complexity

Provides a graphical display of activity or task precedence

Provides an estimate of the earliest completion-time of the project

Indicates which activities or tasks are “critical” and cannot be delayed

Indicates which activities are non-critical and how long they can be delayed without delaying the entire project (slack).