Pages: 10

Project management is a field of management concerned with managing projects. It is the process of leading a project team to achieve the project objectives of finishing a project within the allocated time duration, allocated budget, and expected quality. This chapter focuses on the different steps involved in project management, which are dividing a project into small manageable parts, estimating the time duration of each part, developing an execution sequence for all parts, scheduling the different parts, project execution, and control to meet project objectives. At the end of the chapter, widely used project planning and scheduling techniques are discussed in brief along with their benefits and limitations.

Pages: 9

The first step in project management is deciding on the activities of a project. A large-scale project may contain hundreds of activities. It is difficult to prepare a complete list of project activities without any logical process. This chapter focuses on work breakdown structures, which are a very simple and logical process used widely for the identification of project activities. In project management, different management levels need project information with different levels of detail. Work breakdown structures involve splitting up a project into small divisions, sub-divisions, and further sub-divisions. It helps provide project information with the necessary levels of detail to every management level or team member. This chapter covers the development of a project's work breakdown structure in detail.

Pages: 18

Project activities are decided in the first step of project management. In the second step, their time durations are estimated. The execution sequence of project activities is developed and represented in the third step. The bar chart is a widely used graphical technique for representing the execution sequence and schedule of a project. In other words, it is a simple graphical chart used to represent the project plan. Activities are represented in a bar chart with bars. The lengths of the bars are equal to their time durations. The start of a bar depicts the start time and the end of a bar depicts the finish time of an activity. This chapter covers the development of bar charts, their shortcomings, and remedial measures.

Pages: 21

A network is a logical and chronological graphical representation of the execution sequence of certain project activities. The development of a network is the primary requirement of all the networking techniques used in project management. Arrows and nodes are the two basic elements of a network. This chapter covers the development of a network and its two types of representation: activity-on-arrow and activity-on-node. In activity-on-arrow representation, activities are represented by arrows. In activity-on-node representation, activities are represented by nodes. The chapter covers both types of representations and compares them. Finally, the chapter discusses how a network representation depicts logic or inter-dependencies among various activities more clearly than bar charts.

Pages: 18

The activities of a project are decided upon and then their time durations are estimated. In the critical path method, a deterministic approach is used in the estimation of each activity's time duration, in which a single value estimate is made for each activity's time duration. This chapter uses an activity-on-arrow representation of the network to represent the inter-dependencies between the various activities of a project. It covers the calculation of the earliest start and finish times for each activity in a project, using a time-scaled version of a network to understand the physical significance of earliest times. The chapter also covers the calculation of the latest start and finish times of each activity. The calculations of the earliest start time, earliest finish time, latest start time, and latest finish time for each activity of a network using forward and backward passes are also covered at the end.

Pages: 20

The allocated time duration of an activity may be shorter than, equal to, or longer than the estimated time duration. If the allocated time duration of an activity is higher than the estimated time duration, the time difference is considered surplus time, called float in the critical path method. Float denotes the limit or range within which the start time or finish time of an activity can fluctuate without delaying the completion of a project. The availability of float provides flexibility to a planner when scheduling the start time of an activity. This chapter covers the determination of critical paths, critical activities, and the calculation of different types of float for the various activities of a project.

Pages: 24

At times, it is necessary to complete a project within a time duration shorter than the estimated normal time duration. The completion of a project in a time duration shorter than the normal time duration is called project shortening. This chapter discusses different reasons for shortening a project. It also covers different methods used for shortening the time duration of a project. The chapter mainly covers the shortening of a project's time duration through the addition of extra resources, which is called project crashing. The objective of project crashing is to determine the optimum time duration for a project at which the total project cost is minimized.

Pages: 16

Available resources are assumed to be either unlimited or limited during the planning stage of a project. When resources are assumed to be unlimited, it is expected that all necessary types of resource are available as and when they are required. This generates variable requirements for different types of resource. In practice, variations in resource requirements become difficult to manage. Projects are planned in such a way that one's various resource requirements remain almost uniform throughout the time duration of a project. This chapter covers a procedure for smoothing resource requirements. In reality, available resources are not unlimited. Because of this, projects are planned to ensure that one's various resource requirements do not exceed the resources’ availabilities.

Pages: 12

Project control is the process of analyzing the planned and actual performance of a project to keep the plan, schedule, and expenditures on track. Effective project control helps in the detection of deviations from the initial plan and the formulation of remedial strategies. The main purpose of project control is to ensure the successful accomplishment of project objectives. Without suitable project control, a project may sometimes go off track and become unmanageable and expensive. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate project control from the point of view of project scheduling and project cost only. The chapter also discusses the regular updating of the project plan based on experience gained during the execution of the project.

Pages: 19

The program evaluation and review technique is used to plan projects which are not routine. The time durations required for the execution of the activities of such a project lack a fair degree of accuracy because of the planner's unfamiliarity with the project. The minimum, maximum, and most likely time durations of each activity in a project are decided on. The three time durations corresponding to each activity are converted into a single time duration to allow for the performance of network calculations. This chapter deals with the determination of the three time durations of each activity and the calculation of the earliest and the latest event times of each event in a network.

Pages: 19

The chapter covers the programme evaluation and review technique. This is an event-oriented technique used for planning research and development, one-time, and non-routine projects. The programme evaluation and review technique is used for those projects where the time duration of a project is the main concern, rather than the project's cost. This chapter discusses how the critical path, critical activities, and time duration of a project are calculated. The probability of completing a project within a time duration longer or shorter than the calculated time duration is also discussed. This probability depends upon the uncertainty in the estimated time durations of the various activities in a project.

Pages: 46

In the critical path method, the activities in a project network are connected to each other in a finish-to-start relationship. This chapter covers the precedence diagramming method, in which three additional relationships – finish-to-finish, start-to-start, and start-to-finish – are also used in the development of a project network. Lags or leads time duration between preceding and subsequent activities are also considered. Lag is a time duration delay at the start of an activity after the end of the preceding activity. Lead is when the subsequent activity starts before the end of the preceding activity. The precedence diagramming method represents practical situations between the various activities in a project in a much better way than activity-on-arrow representation. Thus, the precedence diagramming method is best suited for planning and scheduling complex projects. The chapter also covers the determination of the different times and total floats of various activities, and calendar date scheduling.

Pages: 19

Line of balance is a widely used technique for planning and scheduling repetitive projects. It has distinct advantages over network-based techniques when applied to repetitive projects. This chapter focuses on line of balance techniques for planning and scheduling repetitive projects like the construction of high-rise buildings, multi-housing projects, road construction, the laying of underground telephone cables, the laying of underground pipelines, etc. Line of balance ensures continuous crew engagement and takes less time and effort to develop than network-based techniques.

Pages: 13

Planning and scheduling are extremely important in project management. This chapter covers how the selection of a suitable technique for planning and scheduling plays a crucial role in a project's success. Different levels of management use plans and schedules with different levels of detail. This chapter covers how the level of detail in a plan is increased or decreased depending on the requirements of different management levels. The chapter uses a simple planning example in which a bar chart, network, precedence diagramming method, and line of balance technique are used to demonstrate the suitability of different planning and scheduling techniques. Finally, the factors which control the success or failure of a project are discussed.