Project Management: Activity Relationships, Planning, and Agile Methods

Posted on Dec 25, 2024 in Other subjects

Activity Relationships

Activity Relationships

Finish-to-start (FS) Finish-to-finish (FF) Start-to-start (SS) Start-to-finish (SF)

FS: A logical link between two activities in which a successor endeavor cannot begin until the predecessor activity is complete. The most prevalent logical relationship is Finish to Start. The FS connection, F represents the end of action A, and it is at this point that activity B can begin. The second character “S” is the successor rule, making it dependent on the final state of the successor of the action.

SS: A logical relationship where a successor activity cannot begin until the predecessor activity has begun. As a result, if action B is dependent on this relationship, it cannot begin until the preceding (independent) activity A has begun. The start of the predecessor activity B depends on the start status of the successor activity A from activity B.

FF: A logical relationship in which a successor action cannot complete until the predecessor has completed. If activity B is associated with this relationship, it means that it cannot be completed until the previous (independent) activity A is completed.

SF: A logical connection in which successor activity cannot be completed before the start of the predecessor activity. So, if activity B is tied to this relationship, it won’t be able to finish until independent action A begins. It appears perplexing since, in most circumstances, the predecessor action is completed before the successor activity. The successor, however, comes first in this scenario.

The Critical Path is a project management concept used in scheduling and planning to identify the longest sequence of dependent activities that must be completed for the project to be finished on time. It determines the shortest possible project duration and highlights the tasks that directly impact the project’s completion date.

Remedies of Critical Path

• Shorten the construction period on the critical path.
• Changed task limits to allow greater planning flexibility.
• Breaks down key tasks into smaller tasks that different resources can handle at the same time.
• Check task relevance for greater planning flexibility.

Objectives of Project Planning

Feasibility assessment: A feasibility study is only an assessment of the feasibility of a proposed plan or project. In order to determine whether the project is feasible after considering all important factors, that is, whether it is worth solving.

Resource allocation: Resource allocation is the process of allocating and scheduling available resources as efficiently and economically as possible. Projects always need resources, but these resources are usually scarce. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the project manager to determine the appropriate time and allocate resources

Detailed costing: After generating an activity plan and allocating particular resources, we will acquire extra complete estimates of prices and their timing.

Motivation: Motivation to set goals and track progress against goals is an effective way to motivate employees, especially if they are initially involved in setting these goals.

Coordination: The project plan offers a useful service means of communication and collaboration between teams, especially for large projects with multiple project teams. Can be used as needed, will not be affected by forced shutdown.

Project Schedule

For large projects, detailed planning of later stages is deferred until necessary details are available. Before starting a project or phase, a project plan should outline activity start and end dates and resource requirements. A detailed project plan evolves into a project schedule.

Developing a project schedule involves four phases. First, activities and their sequences are identified to create an ideal activity plan, assuming no resource constraints. This plan is refined through steps 4 and 5, as shown in Fig. 3.4.1. Second, activity risk analysis identifies potential issues that could impact resource allocation. Third, resources are allocated, adjusting the ideal plan based on expected availability. Finally, scheduling assigns resources to each activity, producing a project schedule with start and end dates and resource overviews. This process ensures a structured approach to managing activities and addressing potential constraints.

Cost Monitoring

To stay inside the project budget, you’ll need precise project estimations and a solid project budget. Estimate costs and determine budget are both steps in the project planning process. approaches for monitoring and controlling project costs : 1. Budgeting for the project: Making a budget for the project at hand should preferably be done at the start of the planning session. This budget will be used to aid you with all payments and charges that you will incur during the project’s life cycle. 2. Keeping expenses tracked: It’s just as crucial to keep track of all actual expenditures as it is to use any other strategy. 3. Time management effortlessly: Time management is another useful strategy. Although this strategy can be used in a variety of management situations, it is particularly useful in project cost management. 4. Project change management: Another important strategy is project change control. Change control systems are required to account for any potential changes that may occur over the project’s duration. 5. Earned value applicability: Similarly, using the accounting technique known as ‘Earned Value’ to determine the value of the work that has been completed thus far is quite beneficial.

Earned Value Analysis

Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is a project management approach that is used for monitoring and controlling purposes. The Earned Value Analysis comprises the indicators Earned Value (EV), Planned Value (PV), Actual Cost (AC) and Budget at Completion (BAC)

(EV) The projected value is the percentage of the budget (excluding management reserve) allotted to the activities or periods under consideration. (PV) This metric represents the project’s progress. Its worth is equal to the total of the budgeted and permitted funds for the work that has already been done. (AC) The AC stands for the amount paid for the work done. (BAC) The total budget is the allowed value (plus the sum of expected costs) of a project’s scope at the end.

The purpose of an earned value analysis is to assist and support the control cost process. Earned Value Management (EVM) uses the outcomes of this study to analyse variations, trends, and forecasts based on the EVA results.

Types of Project Status Reports

1. Reports for the current period: These reports only cover the most recently completed period. They provide updates on activities that were open or slated for work throughout the time period.

2. Cumulative reports: These reports detail the project’s progress from the start to the end of the reporting period. Because they illustrate trends in project progress, they are more informative than current period reports.

3. Exception reports: Exception reports detail deviations from the original plan. Typically, these reports are intended for senior management.

4. Stoplight reports: Stoplight reports are a version of the previous report kinds that can be used on any of them. a) Green sticker b) Yellow sticker c) Red stickers

5. Reports on variance: Variance reports reflect discrepancies between what was intended and what really occurred. Typical variance reports are snapshots of the status of an entity being tracked in time (the current period).

Contract Management

Contract management is a complex monitoring process that includes execution, vendor selection, issue identification and control, tracking and processing of contracts from pre-award to conclusion. Contract management techniques, when effectively implemented, ensure that budgets and capabilities are in line with project goals.

The Stages of Contract Management

1. Create: The contract management system must be able to include standardised procedures with specific features tailored to the organization’s objectives. The first step is to determine the sort of contract and who will be in charge of each duty.

2. Negotiate: The contract should be designed in a way that matches the organization’s needs and beliefs, in order to enable the two parties create confidence.

3. Approve: Approval normally entails a number of signatures. Before the final deal is made, a number of managers, departments and even contractors may need to sign off on the details.

4. Finalize: The signing of contracts between businesses is the last step before the project can begin. It’s critical to get signatures from a variety of parties and bodies immediately, especially when distance is an issue, to minimise delays in the process.

5. Manage: Changes can still happen once the project starts. Revisions must be meticulously monitored and notified to all relevant parties. Deadlines, audits, revenue and expenses must all be kept track of, completed and communicated with the rest of the team.

Agile Project Management

It is one of the most innovative approaches to project management that has been offered. This is a new project management strategy that is mostly used in the software development industry. The term “agile” refers to a variety of agile development paradigms, including Scrum. Agile project management is a specific area in project management due to the differences between the agile development paradigm and traditional methodologies.

Three stages of agile project

1. Survival: Survival mode is the first step toward becoming an agile team. Regardless of whether they are agile or not, all teams begin here. They’re attempting to get projects up and running, as well as solve bugs and give a solution. There isn’t much time for innovation or proactively when we are solely focused on ‘surviving,’ getting things done, and following new processes.

2. Learning: Teams that are in the learning stage are one step ahead of those who are in survival mode. Their teething issues are no longer an issue, and they now have more time to learn and enhance their job, processes, and skill sets. Team leaders and project managers may now devote more effort to implementing these changes in their organisations.

3. Self-sufficient agile team: Any agile team’s last step and ultimate goal is to be self organizing and self-sufficient, allowing for quick and flexible response to change. Processes are fully defined and followed at this point. A truly agile team’s day-to-day activities include adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continuous improvement.

Scrum

Scrum is a popular agile process for product development, particularly software development. Scrum is a project management methodology that may be used on any project with tight deadlines, complicated requirements, or a high level of uniqueness. Projects in Scrum are progressed through a series of iterations known as sprints. A scrum team typically consists of five to nine persons, but Scrum projects can easily reach the hundreds. The product owner is a crucial stakeholder in the project who represents users, customers, and others throughout the process. The Scrum Master is in charge of ensuring that the team works as efficiently as possible. Product backlog is a prioritized feature list that includes every desired item or update to the product

Agile team roles

Scrum master: The Scrum Master keeps each sprint on track and assists in the removal or resolution of any issues or challenges that may arise. They are the team’s spokesman.

Product owner: The owner of the product. The product owner’s job is to create each sprint’s goals, manage and prioritise the team backlog, and act as the customer’s or internal stakeholder’s voice.

Team members: Members of the team. This team’s members are the ones who carry out the job in each sprint. These teams, which often consist of three to seven people, might be made up of people with diverse skills and talents, or they can be made up of people who have the same job functions.

Stakeholders: is purely an informational job. Stakeholders should be kept informed about the product and sprint goals, given the opportunity to evaluate and approve work throughout the sprint, and given the opportunity to provide feedback during the sprint retrospective.

Organizational Behaviour

Understanding Behaviour

People management is a key part of project management. There are two approaches, Positive approach Interpretivist approach.

Positive approach “If A is the situation, then B is likely to occur,” according to organisational behaviour theories. It has a tendency to be objective and empirical in nature. Looks for reasons for behaviour. Conduct research that can be used to a bigger group of people.

Interpretivist approach Smaller samples were used. More qualitative. Look for trends that appear in a variety of settings when it comes to consumption. The two views of how organisational behaviour might be viewed from the perspective of an organisation are internal and external perspectives.

Decision Making

Decision making can be categories in two different types as follows : i. Structured : Simple, everyday decisions ii. Unstructured : More difficult, necessitating a certain amount of ingenuity

Good decision-making process

Identify the problem – Identifying the problem is the first and most crucial phase in the decision-making process.

Identify alternatives – The project manager and team should next begin to build a list of all available options.

Evaluate the alternatives – The analysis of the alternatives begins at this point. Techniques can be used by the project manager based upon ranking.

Make a choice – After you’ve weighed your options, it’s time to make a decision. Two or more of the high-ranked alternatives should be chosen by the project manager.

Implement the decision – Before implementing the chosen solution, the project manager must revise the project plan, timeline, budget, and other resources to guarantee that the solution can be implemented.

A virtual team, also known as a geographically dispersed team, distributed team, or remote team, is a group of people who interact using technology like as email, instant messaging, and video or phone conferencing.

Challenges

• The specifications for work that is provided to contractors must be precise. The procedures to be followed must be formally stated.
• It can be challenging to coordinate dispersed labour.
• Modifications to payment mechanisms are required.
• Co-workers’ lack of trust Review Question
• Evaluation of the given products’ quality
• Different time zones can wreak havoc on communication and collaboration.

Communication Plan

Effective internal and external communication is vital to project success thus, communication plans are important in your initiatives. Communication is required for receiving feedback on a deliverable, asking a coworker where a file is saved, receiving critical information from a client, executing the review and approval process, and other everyday project chores.

Benefits of project communication plans:

Project communication plans, at their core, help people communicate more effectively. They’ll assist you avoid project failure by making your projects run more smoothly. Setting and managing expectations, better stakeholder management, and assisting with the project planning process are some of the other main advantages

ACTIVITY FLOAT • Although the total float is shown for each activity, it really ‘belongs’ to a path through the network. Activities A and C in Figure 6.16 each have 2 weeks’ total float. If, however, activity A uses up its float (that is, it is not completed until week 8) then activity B will have zero float (it will have become critical). In such circumstances it may be misleading and detrimental to the project’s success to publicize total float! • There are a number of other measures of activity float, including the following: • Free float: the time by which an activity may be delayed without affecting any subsequent activity. It is calculated as the difference between the earliest completion date for the activity and the earliest start date of the succeeding activity. This might be considered a more satisfactory measure of float for publicizing to the staff involved in undertaking the activities. • Interfering float: the difference between total float and free float. This commonly is quite used, particularly in association with the free float. Once the free float has been used (or if it is zero), the interfering float tells us by how the activity may be delayed without del much aying the project end date – even though it will delay the start of subsequent activities.

Sequencing and Scheduling Activities

• Throughout a project, we will require a schedule that clearly indicates when each of the project’s activities is planned to occur and what resources it will need. • The chart shown has been drawn up taking account of the nature of the development process that is. Certain tasks must be completed before others may start) and the resources that are available. • In drawing up the chart, we have therefore done two things we have sequenced the — tasks (that is, identified the dependencies among activities dictated by the development process) and scheduled them (that is, specified when they should take place). • The scheduling has had to take account of the availability of staff and the ways in which the activities have been allocated to them. • The schedule might look quite different were there a different number of staff or were to allocate the we activities differently. • In the case of small projects. this combined sequencing scheduling approa — ch might be quite suitable, particularly where we wish to allocate individuals to particular tasks at an early planning stage.

Best methods for staff selection

Selecting the right person for the right job  Taylor formulated this factor of selecting the right person for the right job.  The other factors which includes the use of software tools, methodologies, programming productivity and so on.  It is always better to have the best people employed in the right place of workfor effective productivity

Recruitment Process  There is a lot of stress for every project manager about choosing the right people to make up their team.  Recruitment is an organizational responsibility process of selecting theperson form their organization. Actual skills have to be taken into account while selecting a person rather than mere eligibility.

Interviews: these include the aptitude tests, technical tests, personality tests and examination of previous work. Group discussions are also used for evaluating and examining the statements provided inthe CV.

References: need to be verified and a medical examination test can also be done if needed