CEIE 370: Construction Management Systems Define project management Describe pro
ID: 1714396 • Letter: C
Question
CEIE 370: Construction Management Systems Define project management Describe project management processes . Discuss project planning importance Define work breakdown structure (WBS) Explain the relationship between WBS and the Schedule of the Project Describe rules about WBS Define activity, event, milestone, constraints What is Linear Scheduling and when it should be used? Describes steps in network scheduling Define early start, early finish, late start, and late finish Explain forward pass and back backward pass in scheduling Define free float, total float, Interfering Float, Independent Float, and critical pass Finish to Start (FS), Start to Start (SS), Finish to Finish (FF), and Start to Finish (SF)Explanation / Answer
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
A project in an organization is the collaboration across departments to attain a single well defined objective. The process of managing, organizing and planning resources to attain the organizational objective is known as project management.
Project management plays a key role in production of goods and services. From the idea formation to final production of the product or service, each step can be considered and subdivided as individual projects. Each and every project requires a project manager who leads the project to its helps reach its conclusion. Project manager is responsible for appointing different team members and essentially completing the project.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
The process of Project Management can be divided into 5 basic phases
1. Project conception and initiation
An idea for a project will be carefully examined to determine whether or not it benefits the organization. During this phase, a decision making team will identify if the project can realistically be completed.
2. Project definition and planning
A project plan, project charter and/or project scope may be put in writing, outlining the work to be performed. During this phase, a team should prioritize the project, calculate a budget and schedule, and determine what resources are needed.
3. Project launch or execution
Resources' tasks are distributed and teams are informed of responsibilities. This is a good time to bring up important project related information.
4. Project performance and control
Project managers will compare project status and progress to the actual plan, as resources perform the scheduled work. During this phase, project managers may need to adjust schedules or do what is necessary to keep the project on track.
5. Project close
After project tasks are completed and the client has approved the outcome, an evaluation is necessary to highlight project success and/or learn from project history.
Projects and project management processes vary from industry to industry; however, these are more traditional elements of a project. The overarching goal is typically to offer a product, change a process or to solve a problem in order to benefit the organization.
IMPORTANCE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project management is the art of managing the project and its deliverables with a view to produce finished products or service. There are many ways in which a project can be carried out and the way in which it is executed is project management.
Project management includes: identifying requirements, establishing clear and achievable objectives, balancing the competing demands from the different stakeholders and ensuring that a commonality of purpose is achieved. It is clear that unless there is a structured and scientific approach to the practice of management, organizations would find themselves adrift in the Ocean called organizational development and hence would be unable to meet the myriad challenges that the modern era throws at them. Hence, the importance of project management to organizations cannot be emphasized more and the succeeding paragraphs provide some reasons why organizations must take the practice of project management seriously.
Without a scientific approach to the task of managing the projects and achieving objectives, it would be very difficult for the organizations to successfully execute the projects within the constraints of time, scope and quality and deliver the required result. In other words, there has to be a framework and a defined way of doing things to ensure that there is a structure to the art of project management.
Thus, project management is about creating structure and managing the project commitments and the delivery of agreed upon results. By using the methods of project management as described in the PMBOK and allied technical journals, organizations can seek to achieve control over the project environment and ensure that the project deliverables are being managed. Managers face what is known as the “triple constraint”. This is the competing demands of time, scope and quality upon the project manager’s list of things to do and how well the project manager manages these constraints goes a long way in determining the success of the project. Without the use of Project Management, managers and organizations would find themselves facing an unpredictable and chaotic environment over which they have little control. Thus, Project Management is both necessary and essential to the success of the project.
WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE
The WBS is a method for getting a complex, multi-step project done. It’s a way to divide and conquer large projects so you can get things done faster and more efficiently.
Work breakdown structure (or WBS) is a hierarchical tree structure that outlines your project and breaks it down into smaller, more manageable portions.
The goal of a WBS is to make a large project more manageable. Breaking it down into smaller chunks means work can be done simultaneously by different team members, leading to better team productivity and easier project management overall.
WBS AND PROJECT SCHEDULE
In large scale projects, it is not enough to just go at it. It is necessary to have a scientific approach in order to successfully complete the project and reign in the costs. To tools in achieving this are the project plan and work breakdown structure or WBS. The main difference between the two is the scope as a WBS covers the project in its entirety while a project plan focuses on a smaller part of a project. So a project can have a WBS that compartmentalizes it into several parts. Each of these parts would then have a project plan.
In the planning process, a WBS occurs prior to the approval of the project. It shows the scale of the project and its cost, which is important for those who are commissioning it. Once the project has been approved, it is then necessary to create the project plans. This is in order to set a realistic time table of when each part is to be completed.
The main focus of the WBS, aside from segmenting the project, is the cost. It is easier to put a price on work and materials on smaller segments than on a project as a whole. In contrast, a project plan doesn’t focus on the price of the work but on the schedule of the work and making sure that the materials are available when they are supposed to. A project plan is necessary to ensure that the segment of the project stays within the budget set by the WBS. Each delay incurs additional costs that are not part of the plan.
The WBS is a result oriented tool as each sections goal is to have the component that is needed at the upper sections. In contrast, we can say that the project plan is action oriented primarily because each step or process in the plan needs to occur within a given time period in order for the plan to be followed. If the project plan was not done correctly, the errors can cascade exponentially and needs to be corrected on the ground.
WBS RULES
ACTIVITY
An activity is a scheduled phase in a project plan with a distinct beginning and end. An activity usually contains several tasks upon completion of which the whole activity is completed. Several activities can be combined to form a summary activity. The duration of an activity is determined by the effort it takes to complete each of its designated tasks.
EVENT
Event is a step that leads to the action or status change in the project management. It has no time and is the start or the end of the activity. The event is represented by a node in the network. A network that consists of the descrete-event nodes, the activities without definite duration but a completion date (milestone), is an event-on-node network (ENN). Events and their dependencies contain therefore th activity-on-arrow network (AoA) and the activity-on-node network (AoN). The project management checks the event effects on the project to obviate or minimize the project risks such as unforeseeable and occurred events.
MILESTONE
A milestone is a specific point in time within a project lifecycle used to measure the progress of a project toward its ultimate goal. In project management, milestones are used as signal posts for: a project’s start or end date, a need for external review or input, a need for budget checks, submission of a major deliverable, and much more. Milestones have a fixed date but no duration.
CONSTRAINTS
A milestone is a specific point in time within a project lifecycle used to measure the progress of a project toward its ultimate goal. In project management, milestones are used as signal posts for: a project’s start or end date, a need for external review or input, a need for budget checks, submission of a major deliverable, and much more. Milestones have a fixed date but no duration.
Constraints include Scope, Schedule, Budget, Quality, resources, Risks etc
LINEAR SCHEDULING
Linear Scheduling Method (LSM) is a graphical scheduling method focusing on continuous resource utilization in repetitive activities. It is believed that it originally adopted the idea of Line-Of-Balance method.
LSM is used mainly in the construction industry to schedule resources in repetitive activities commonly found in highway, pipeline, high-rise building and rail construction projects. These projects are called repetitive or linear projects. The main advantages of LSM over Critical Path Method (CPM) is its underlying idea of keeping resources continuously at work. In other words, it schedules activities in such a way that:
NETWORK SCHEDULING
Steps In Using Network Technique
• Plan the project
• Schedule the project
• Monitor the project
Plan the project:
– Analyze the project by determining all the individual activities that must be performed to complete it.
– Show the planned sequence of these activities on a network (graphical representation where arrow and circle represent the relation among activities
in the project)
Schedule the project
• Estimate how long it will take to perform each activity.
• Perform calculation to locate the critical path (the longest time chain of sequential activities which determines the duration of the project).
• Use this information to develop a more economical and efficient schedule.
Monitor the project
• Use the plan to control and monitor the progress.
• Revise and update the schedule throughout the execution of the project so that the schedule represent the current plans and the current status of the project.
Early Finish Date – In the critical path method, the earliest possible point in time on which the uncompleted portions of an activity (or the project) can be finished based upon the network logic and any schedule constraints. Early finish dates can change as the project progresses and changes are made to the Project Plan.
Early Start Date – In the critical path method, the earliest possible point in time in which the uncompleted portions of an activity (or the project) can start, based upon the network logic and any schedule constraints. Early start dates can change as the project progresses and changes are made to the Project Plan.
Late Finish Date – In the critical path method, the latest possible point in time that an activity may be completed without delaying a specified milestone (usually the finish date).
Late Start Date – In the critical path method, the latest possible point in time that an activity may begin without delaying a specified milestone (usually the project date).
Forward Pass – The calculation of the early start and early finish dates for the uncompleted portions of all network activities.
Backward Pass – The calculation of late finish dates and late start dates for the uncompleted portions of all network activities. Determined by working backwards through the network logic from the project's end date.
Free Float – The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start of any immediately following activities.
Total Float – The amount of time an activity may be delayed from its early start without delaying the project finish date. Float is a mathematical calculation and can change as the project progresses and changes are made to the Project Plan
Independent float is that portion of the total float within which an activity can be delayed for start without affecting the float of the preceding activities. It is computed for an activity by subtracting the tail event slack from its total float.
Interfering float is the time available to delay an activity without delaying the project's estimated completion time, but delaying an activity into interfering float will delay the start of one or more following non-critical activities.
Critical Path – The sequence of tasks that determine the minimum schedule for a project. If one task on the critical path is delayed, the schedule will be late.
Finish-to-start (FS)
A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has finished.
Start-to-start (SS)
A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has started.
Finish-to-finish (FF)
A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has finished.
Start-to-finish (SF)
A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has started.