Project Management (ENG) — Ünite 2 Soru-Cevap

More clearly, a project can also be defined as follows: “A project is a non simple, non-repetitive, one-time effort limited by budget, schedule and performance specifications designed to meet customer needs”. 

The major aim of the project is to satisfy the requirements of customers; to achieve this, a project needs to have some characteristics.

First, a project has a pre-defined, specific and unique aim which describes the desired outcomes. The aim of a project must meet time, cost and performance constraints.

Having a defined beginning and end point is a characteristic of a project since there is a specific aim, which is different from the ongoing duties and responsibilities of traditional jobs. Workers are generally assigned different projects after finishing the current job contrary to doing the same job in a firm.

Third, a project should be non-routine and includes considerable uniqueness.  This feature is often characterized by the first time of performing a job/process such as first MARS landing with NASA orbiter and development of the first laptop.

In order to accomplish something for the first time, it is clear that cutting-edge technology as well as good problem solving techniques are required to overcome unsolved problems.

Lastly, a project has specific time, cost and performance requirements.

A project is not related with every day’s routine and repetitive/ordinary work. While the routine work, often called Business As Usual (BAU), occurs/repeats in cycles, a project is performed just once, and when the desired result is reached, the project ends.

There are three phases of Scope Management. The first one is the initiation/ defining phase, where the objectives and goals of the project are defined, tasks and resources are allocated, and budget & time constraints are established, and lastly the limitations of the project are identified.

The second phase of Scope Management is to generate Scope Plan which includes the work breakdown structure and writing a scope statement. Scope statement clearly indicates what activities are involved in the project as well as the limitations of the project.

Scope Change Controlling is regarding to the operations whether the project scope is required to be changed when some modifications are appropriate.

Clearly, project scope is the keystone engaging all elements of a project plan. To guarantee that scope definition is complete, the following checklist can be used:
a. Project objective
b. Deliverables
c. Milestones
d. Technical Requirements
e. Limits and Exclusions
f. Reviews with customer

The project objective gives answers to the “what, when and how much” questions.

A significant point or event in the project. A milestone is a point with zero duration that indicates a cumulative sequence of events while performing the project. It also symbolizes an important achievement in a project.

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is the output of this hierarchical decomposition process. The WBS organizes and defines the total scope of the project, and represents the work specified in the current approved project scope statement.

Develop a hierarchical WBS, there are some major groupings used. To define the final deliverable is the first step of WBS. First, the major project deliverables are defined; to accomplish these larger deliverables, the subdeliverables are identified. This process continues until the subdeliverable can be tackled by one person and is small enough to be manageable. Then, the subdeliverable is broken down into work packages. While creating WBS, work packages are the lowest components that a project can be subdivided.

Seven important points about defining a project work package are as follows:
• The work package typically forms the lowest level in the WBS. 

• A work package has a deliverable result.

• A work package has one owner assigned—a project team member who will be most responsible for that package’s completion. 

• A work package may be considered by its owner as a project in itself.

• A work package may include several milestones. 


• A work package should fit organizational procedures and culture. 

• The optimal size of a work package may be expressed in terms of labour hours, calendar time, cost, report period, and risks.

In order to develop project networks, there are two approaches that can be used: activity-on-node (AON) and activity-on-arrow (AOA) methods.

To draw an AON project network, one needs to obey the following general rules:
• A network commonly flows from left to right.

• When all preceding connected activities have been performed, a new activity can start.

• Precedence relations and flows are represented by arrows on networks, arrows can also cross over each other. 

• An identification number should be given to each activity.

• Activity numbers should be given in an order; it is not convenient to give a smaller number to an activity if other activities follow it.

• Any loop of activities is not allowed in the network.

• There should be no conditional statements between activities.
• A typical begin and end node should be used to depict the start and end dates of the project.

This activity has more than one activity immediately following it (more than one dependency arrow flowing from it). 

This is an activity that has more than one activity immediately preceding it (more than one dependency arrow flowing to it).

These are activities that can take place at the same time, if the manager wishes.

Path means a sequence of connected, dependent activities.

When this term is used, it means the path(s) with the longest duration through the network; if an activity on the path is delayed, the project is delayed for the same amount of time.

This term is used to represent a point in time when an activity is started or completed. It does not consume any time.

These are given below.
1. What is the earliest possible time that an activity can be begun? (the early start time- ES)
2. What is the earliest possible time that an activity can be finished? (the early finish time- EF)
3. What is the earliest possible time that a project can be finished? (expected time- TE).

To be ableto compute early times in the forward pass, there are three characteristics that need to be remembered:
1. Throughout each path in the network, the activity times are added to the predecessors’ activity times (ES+Duration=EF).
2. The early finish (EF) can be passed into the next activity in which it turns its early start (ES), except for;
3. If the next succeeding activity is a merge activity, the ES of that activity depends on the activity’s immediate predecessors, the choice would be the largest EF times of them.

To be able to compute latest in the backward pass, there are three characteristics that need to be remembered;
1. Throughout each path in the network, starting with the last activity, the activity times are subtracted (LF-Duration=LS).
2. The late finish (LS) is passed into the next preceding activity in which it turns to thenext preceding activity’s late finish (LF), except for;
3. If the next preceding activity is a burst activity; the LF of that activity depends on the activity’s immediate successors, the choice would be the smallest of LS.

Free slack is computed by the following formula:

Free slack for activity = ES (earliest start of the successor) - EF (activity).

Dummy activities are performed when one tries to define a logical dependency although the activities are not on the same path; one activity cannot begin after the other one is accomplished.