Project Scheduling and Resource Management PPT (Dinesh K. C.)

7/28/2019 Project Scheduling and Resource Management PPT (Dinesh K. C.)

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Project Scheduling and

Resource Management

Presentation by:

Dinesh K. C.III semester, MBA


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In this Presentation

What is scheduling?

Project Scheduling.

Importance of Project Scheduling.Methods of Scheduling

Resource

Resource ManagementImportance of resource management


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Introduction

A project is a collection of tasks that mustbe completed in minimum time or at

minimal cost.


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Project Schedule

Split project into tasks and estimate timeand resources required to complete eachtask

Organize tasks concurrently to makeoptimal use of workforce

Minimize task dependencies to avoid

delays caused by one task waiting foranother to complete


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Contd..


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Contd..

Objectives of Project Scheduling

Completing the project as early as possible by

determining the earliest start and finish of

each activity.

Calculating the likelihood a project will be

completed within a certain time period.

Finding the minimum cost schedule needed tocomplete the project by a certain date.


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Scheduling problems

Estimating the difficulty of problems and hence the

cost of developing a solution is hard

Common myth: If we fall behind schedule, we can

always add more programmers and catch up later in

the project Productivity is not proportional to the number of people

working on a task

Adding people to a late project makes it later because of

communication overheads


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OBJECTIVES FOR SCHEDULING

EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT

OPTIMZE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

DEFINE NECESSARY RESOURCES

MONITOR PROJECT PROGRESS


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PRIMARY COMPONENTS IN A

PROJECT SCHEDULE

ACTIVITIES

SPECIFIC FUNCTION

FINITE DURATION

DETERMINE LINKAGE SPECIFY RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS


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The PERT/CPM Approach for

Project Scheduling

The PERT/CPM approach to project

scheduling uses network presentation of

the project to

Reflect activity precedence relations

Activity completion time

PERT/CPM is used for scheduling

activities such that the projects completiontime is minimized.


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Gantt Charts

Gantt charts are used as a tool to monitor andcontrol the project progress.

A Gantt Chart is a graphical presentation that

displays activities as follows: Time is measured on the horizontal axis. A horizontal

bar is drawn proportionately to an activity s expectedcompletion time.

Each activity is listed on the vertical axis.

In an earliest time Gantt chart each bar beginsand ends at the earliest start/finish the activitycan take place.


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Gantt Charts-

Monitoring Project Progress

Graphical notations used to illustrate theproject schedule

Show project breakdown into tasks. Tasks

should not be too small. They should takeabout a week or two

Activity charts show task dependencies

and the critical path Activity Bar charts show schedule against

calendar time


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Gantt Charts

Advantages and DisadvantagesAdvantages. Easy to construct

Gives earliest completion date.

Provides a schedule of earliest possible start and finishtimes of activities.

Disadvantages Gives only one possible schedule (earliest).

Does not show whether the project is behind schedule.

Does not demonstrate the effects of delays in any oneactivity on the

start of another activity, thus on the project completion

time.


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Contd..


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Benefits of Resource Scheduling

If project delay is unacceptable, it allowssufficient time for considering alternativessuch as cost-time trade-offs and changing

of priorities.Provides information to prepare time-phased work package budgets with dates

Enables project managers to determinethe amount of flexibility they have overcertain resources.


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Resource Allocation Problem

A shortcoming of most scheduling

procedures is that they do not address the

issues of resource utilization and

availability.

Scheduling procedures tend to focus on

time rather than physical resources.


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Resource Allocation Problem

Schedules should be evaluated not merelyin terms of meeting project milestones, butalso in terms of the timing and use ofscarce resources.

A fundamental measure of the projectmanagers success in project

management is the skill with which thetrade-offs among performance, time, andcost are managed.


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Resource Management in Projects

Resource management is one of the keycorner stones of project management. If aproject manager excels in resource

management, then he has 50% of projectmanagement challenges solved, and theproject manager needs to concentrate on theremaining 50% to get the project completed

on time & on budget.


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Importance of resource

managementResources cost money, and not having the rightresources at the right time upsets the schedule.

In complex projects - especially non-IT projects, thereare several types of resources that needs to bemanaged: Equipment, supplies, machinery, people,land, clearances etc. These resources cost money toprocure.

If the lead times are too short, it costs more money toget the resources. So it pays to look ahead in the project

planning stage and make proper plans to procure therequired resources in a timely manner for the lowestcost.

Changes to the cost of the resources has a big impacton the viability of the project, therefore resource

management also impacts cost management.


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Components of Resource

management

1. Effort Estimation

2. Resource Identification

3. Lead time to get required resources4. Resource Utilization

5. Resource Tracking


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Effort Estimation

Effort Estimation is the first step in projectplanning. Essentially the project has to be broken

into smallest possible work packages and a project

plan is made based to meet the delivery date.Project manager needs to know the type of efforts

involved & the resources needed for that to start

the estimation process. Next step is to prepare the

estimates. The best way to get the estimate is to

talk to the actual persons who will be doing the

work. Talk to the people and ask for three

estimates: average, pessimistic & optimistic.

To Summarize the exercise of


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To Summarize the exercise of

resource estimation is as

follows:1. Break the project down into smallest possible setof tasks - also called work packages.

2. Talk to the persons who will be doing the work to

get a range of estimates3. Validate the estimate with experts & historical data

4. Determine the way the estimates are recordedand presented to customers & stake holders

5. Roll up all the estimates and present thepessimistic estimate to customers

6. Hammer all the caveats and assumptions into

customer's mind along with the estimates


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Resource Identification

Every single work package in the project

should have resources identified with. In

the initial stage of the project, if resources

for each work package is not identified andassigned for that, then that's a major gap

in project planning, and the project plan is

not complete nor it should be sharedoutside to customers.


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Contd..

It is the role of the project manager to work

with the stake holders to get resources for

each work package. In most cases, not all

the resources are identified and allocatedat the start of project, so from planning

perspective this denotes a risk & hence a

contingency resource identification mustalso be done during the planning stage.


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Lead Time for Resources

Resources are always scarce and must be

carefully used. In most cases, resources

will be committed to the project at the

beginning of the project, but it is the dutyof the project manager to know the lead

time needed to get the required resources

and plan things accordingly.


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The resource schedule should

list the following:

1. Resources needed

2. Duration of the need

3. Lead time for procuring/booking the

resources

4. Remainders/reconfirmations schedule forensuring that resources to be made available.

5. Cost of resources & cost variations ofresources.

6. Ramp-up time for the resources - i.e, time

needed for the resource to be fully effective


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Resource Utilization

Resource utilization refers to the plan on how the

allocated/available resources are utilized in the

project. Often times people succumb to the

pressure and get into over utilization of resources:i.e., make people work overtime to complete the

tasks, overload/overuse machinery etc.

Over utilization of a given resource is not astandard plan. No project manger should plan for

overloading of resources in the initial project plan.

The project plan must account for normal usage of

the resource.


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Resource Tracking

Once the resource planning, resource schedule is doneand the project is under way, the project manager musttrack the actual usage/consumption of the resources andcompare against the plan. The actual usage must be

captured into the system and this helps in refinement offuture project plans.

During the project estimation time, people have a

tendency to tell things which their managers like to hear- thus giving an overtly aggressive estimate or aconservative estimate. But when the actual efforts aretracked against the initial estimate and the variances arediscussed openly in the project meetings, people tend to

become more realistic in the future projects.


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Contingency Planning

Resources are always scarce & hence there isalways a possibility of required resources not beingavailable to the project. It is therefore a goodpractice to add resource contingency into the

resource estimates to guard against resourcescarcity.

Resource contingency is something that's added tothe initial estimates to guard against things

requiring more work than expected or simply toreflect the fact that the estimate is not reliable. It isgood practice to add contingency to individual workpackages. In some cases, contingency is added enbloc in form of additional work packages.


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Toconclude

Project managers are measured primarily on

the delivery of projects. To deliver projects on

time and on budget, one needs to have a very

tight control on the resources and time scales.Resource management is the key for

successful projects delivery and resource

utilization tracking is a key metric in measuringthe quality of the project plan, monitoring the

project status and this helps in taking any

corrective steps.


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References

John M. Nicholas, Project Management for

Business and Technology, II ed., Pearson

Education, New Delhi, 2002.

Prasanna Chandra, Projects, V ed.,

McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schedule_proje

ct_management

http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu

Documents

Project Scheduling and Resource Management PPT (Dinesh K. C.)