Project Management
Chapter 13
Project Management
© 2008 Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Introduction
Most realistic projects are large and complex Tens of thousands of steps and millions of dollars
may be involved Managing large-scale, complicated projects effectively is a difficult problem and the stakes are high The first step in planning and scheduling a project is to develop the work breakdown structure Time, cost, resource requirements, predecessors, and people required are identified for each activity Then a schedule for the project can be developed
Introduction
The program evaluation and review technique
(PERT and the critical path method (CPM are two PERT) CPM) popular quantitative analysis techniques to help plan, schedule, monitor, and control projects Originally the approaches differed in how they estimated activity times PERT used three time estimates to develop a probabilistic estimate of completion time CPM was a more deterministic technique They have become so similar they are commonly considered one technique, PERT/CPM
Six Steps of PERT/CPM
1. Define the project and all of its significant activities or tasks 2. Develop the relationships among the activities and decide which activities must precede others 3. Draw the network connecting all of the activities 4. Assign time and/or cost estimates to each activity 5. Compute the longest time path through the network; this is called the critical path 6. Use the network to help plan, schedule, monitor, and control the project
The critical path is important since any delay in
these activities can delay the completion of the project
PERT/CPM
Given the large number of tasks in a project, it is
1. 2.
3.
4.
easy to see why the following questions are important When will the entire project be completed? What are the critical activities or tasks in the project, that is, the ones that will delay the entire project if they are late? Which are the non-critical
Project Management
© 2008 Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Introduction
Most realistic projects are large and complex Tens of thousands of steps and millions of dollars
may be involved Managing large-scale, complicated projects effectively is a difficult problem and the stakes are high The first step in planning and scheduling a project is to develop the work breakdown structure Time, cost, resource requirements, predecessors, and people required are identified for each activity Then a schedule for the project can be developed
Introduction
The program evaluation and review technique
(PERT and the critical path method (CPM are two PERT) CPM) popular quantitative analysis techniques to help plan, schedule, monitor, and control projects Originally the approaches differed in how they estimated activity times PERT used three time estimates to develop a probabilistic estimate of completion time CPM was a more deterministic technique They have become so similar they are commonly considered one technique, PERT/CPM
Six Steps of PERT/CPM
1. Define the project and all of its significant activities or tasks 2. Develop the relationships among the activities and decide which activities must precede others 3. Draw the network connecting all of the activities 4. Assign time and/or cost estimates to each activity 5. Compute the longest time path through the network; this is called the critical path 6. Use the network to help plan, schedule, monitor, and control the project
The critical path is important since any delay in
these activities can delay the completion of the project
PERT/CPM
Given the large number of tasks in a project, it is
1. 2.
3.
4.
easy to see why the following questions are important When will the entire project be completed? What are the critical activities or tasks in the project, that is, the ones that will delay the entire project if they are late? Which are the non-critical