Project Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Planning and Execution
Project Scheduling Activities
Project schedule simply means a mechanism that is used to communicate and know about the tasks that are needed and have to be done or performed, and which organizational resources will be given or allocated to these tasks and in what time duration or time frame work is needed to be performed. Effective project scheduling leads to the success of the project, reduced cost, and increased customer satisfaction.
- Creating a work breakdown structure: Break down the project into tasks to go from the plan to completion
- Estimating durations: Estimate how long each task will take
- Determining resources: Identify what resources are needed for the project
- Identifying predecessors: Identify what tasks come before others.
- Determining milestones: Identify important points in the project
- Identifying dependencies: Identify what tasks depend on other tasks
- Using a Gantt chart: A Gantt chart can help ensure that the schedule is workable and that the right people are assigned to the right tasks. It can also help keep track of progress and deadlines.
- Using the critical path method: This technique calculates the shortest route to project completion and arranges tasks accordingly
- Maintaining the project on track: A clear project plan can help guide the project team. The project should be constantly reviewed, revised, and monitored
Network Planning Model
A network model is a database model that represents objects and their relationships in a flexible way. In a network model, the schema is a graph where object types are nodes and relationship types are arcs. The schema is not restricted to being a lattice or hierarchy.
1. Supply chain network design: A working model that shows the framework of a supply chain. It helps businesses identify inefficiencies and risks in their supply chain.
2. Network optimization model: An approach that considers multiple factors to make a network as efficient as possible. These factors include cost, capacity, time, reliability, and performance metrics.
| Program Manager | Project Manager |
|---|---|
| Supervises long-term strategies that consist of multiple smaller projects. | Supervises individual projects that meet program objectives. |
| Program strategy | Work coordination |
| Long-term | Short-term |
| Implement strategies, oversee collaboration, and define success metrics. | Coordinate work, organize projects, and track progress. |
| Measured by the success of program strategies, ROI, and company-wide objectives. | Measured by the success of individual projects, timelines, and budget compliance. |
| Gantt Chart | PERT Chart |
|---|---|
| Gantt chart is defined as the bar chart. | PERT chart is similar to a network diagram |
| Gantt chart was developed by Henry L. Gantt. | PERT chart was developed by the United States Navy. |
| Gantt chart is often used for small projects | PERT chart can be used for large and complex projects |
| Gantt chart focuses on the time required to complete a task | PERT chart focuses on the dependency of relationships. |
| Gantt chart is simpler and more straightforward | PERT chart could be sometimes confusing and complex but can be used for visualizing the critical path |
PMBOK and Activities
The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is a document containing standard terminology, best practices, and process guidelines around project management as defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI).
- Project Integration Management: This refers to the process of seamlessly combining or bringing together the various moving parts of any project to work towards a common goal.
- Project Scope Management: This refers to ensuring that each project includes all and only the work identified at the beginning of the project, rather than letting the scope of the project expand as time goes on.
- Project Schedule Management: This refers to keeping an accurate and updated schedule of events for each project- including enforcing accountability and adjusting deadlines as necessary.
- Project Cost Management: This refers to planning, budgeting, and controlling the financial aspects of every project to keep labor, materials, and equipment costs under the initially approved budget.
- Project Quality Management: This refers to the establishment of quality policies and objects at the beginning of each project so that recurring checks can be made to ensure the project will satisfy the needs of everyone.
- Project Resource Management: This refers to delegating specific tasks to members of the project team in a way that utilizes knowledge, expertise, and skills in the most methodical way.
- Project Communications Management: This refers to determining the most efficient way to distribute, monitor, control, and store information surrounding the project with everyone involved.
- Project Risk Management: This refers to conducting a risk management plan for each project by identifying, analyzing, and controlling risk and establishing a response plan to address issues that may arise.
Software Project Management Activities
Software Project Management consists of many activities, that includes planning of the project, deciding the scope of product, estimation of cost in different terms, scheduling of tasks, etc.
- Project Planning: It is a set of multiple processes, or we can say that it is a task that is performed before the construction of the product starts.
- Scope Management: It describes the scope of the project. Scope management is important because it clearly defines what would do and what would not. Scope Management creates the project to contain restricted and quantitative tasks, which may merely be documented and successively avoids price and time overrun.
- Estimation management: This is not only about cost estimation because whenever we start to develop software, but we also figure out their size(line of code), efforts, time as well as cost.
- Scheduling Management: Scheduling Management in software refers to all the activities to complete in the specified order and within the time slotted to each activity. Project managers define multiple tasks and arrange them keeping various factors in mind.
- Project Resource Management: In software Development, all the elements are referred to as resources for the project. It can be a human resource, productive tools, and libraries.
- Project Risk Management: Risk management consists of all the activities like identification, analyzing, and preparing the plan for predictable and unpredictable risks in the project.
- Project Communication Management: Communication is an essential factor in the success of the project. It is a bridge between the client, organization, team members, and as well as other stakeholders of the project such as hardware suppliers.
- Project Configuration Management: Configuration management is about controlling the changes in software like requirements, design, and development of the product.
Project Life Cycle
Initiation: This is the first stage of the project, and the project manager must demonstrate that the project is worthwhile and practicable. This comprises developing a business case to justify the project’s need and a feasibility study to show that it can be completed in a fair amount of time and money.
Project planning: Following project approval, the project enters the second phase of project management: project planning. The purpose of this phase is to create a project plan that will serve as a guide for the following two phases. Every aspect of the project’s execution, including expenses, risks, resources, and deadlines, must be included in the project plan.
Project execution: The third project management phase is project execution, which involves completing the tasks and milestones indicated in the plan to generate the deliverable to the satisfaction of the customer or stakeholder.
Project monitoring and control: Project monitoring and control, the fourth project management phase, occurs concurrently with the project execution phase. It entails keeping track of the project’s development and performance to guarantee that it stays on track and within budget. To ensure quality assurance, quality control processes are used.
Project closure: Project closure is the fifth project management phase, which involves presenting the final deliverables to the client or stakeholder. Resources are released, documentation is done, and everything is signed off on once they have been approved. The project manager and team can now hold a post-mortem to review the project’s lessons learned.
Portfolio Management
Portfolio management is the selection, prioritization, and control of an organization’s programs and projects, in line with its strategic objectives and capacity to deliver. The goal is to balance the implementation of change initiatives and the maintenance of business-as-usual, while optimizing return on investment. A portfolio is a collection of projects and/or programs used to structure and manage investments at an organizational or functional level to optimize strategic benefits or operational efficiency. They can be managed at an organizational or functional level.