Download - project scheduling, MS Project
Basic Concepts of Scheduling
& Use of Microsoft Project software
Bar Chart
Network
WBS
PERT & CPM
S-Curve
By Satish Yadavalli
VARIOUS STAGES OF
PROJECT
THINKING
PLANNING & SCHEDULING
DATA COLLECTION
STATUS UPDATING THROUGH NETWORK AND
GIVING EARLY WARNINGS
PAVE A PATH FOR
SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION
Project : A project is the means of converting a vision, a dream or a need to reality. A Project is a set of activities which are networked in an order and aimed at achieving the defined goals for which the project is undertaken. Upon completion of all the activities, the goals of the project will be achieved.
Management : Management is the technique of understanding the problems, needs and controlling the use of Resources, Cost, Time, Scope and Quality.
Project Management : It is an art of controlling the cost, time, manpower and hardware & software resources involved in the project.“Completion of Project on time within Budget without comprising Quality”
Project Management PlanAll the detailed planning work done for different aspects of the project is integrated into one single plan known as the Project Management Plan.
This plan is used to control the project and acts as the baseline plan for the project. Once the plan is finalised by the project manager and his team it should be approved by the project's sponsor.
The Project Management Plan establishes the project's:
Why; What; Who; When; How and How much
The ‘Why’ is from the business case.
‘Why’ and ‘What’ are management statement of the success criteria and should be agreed with the project sponsor.
The 'Who' shows – who will do the work and stakeholder awareness of project.
The ‘When’ deals with the schedules and phasing for the project.
The ‘How’ which is the project manager vision to implement project from beginning to end – IT requirements, the tools and techniques to be used, validation of the project deliverables, technical issues, risk management, resources, procurement, quality needs etc.
The ‘How Much’ covers the costs and budgets of the project.
Most important phase of the project management.
Planning is an art and science of converting a set of objectives to realization through a series of steps executed in an organized and predicted way so that there will be less requirement of changes in the plan later on.The old saying “Plan the work, Work the plan”
PLANNING
CONTROLLING
SCHEDULING
CLOSING
STAGES
Scheduling Phase is the process of formalizing the planned activities, assigning the durations, resources and sequence of occurrence in consultation with the team members.
Planning and Scheduling phases are under taken before the actual project starts.
SCHEDULING
CONTROLLING
PLANNING
CLOSING
STAGES
Controlling phase is undertaken during the actual project implementation.
Project controlling is a mechanism established to determine deviations from the project base schedule, to re-plan & reschedule during implementation to compensate the deviations on the basis of commissioning minima, flow of resources like finance, manpower, equipment & application techniques.
CONTROLLING
PLANNING
SCHEDULING
CLOSING
STAGES
Closing phase is the last phase of the project which brings close out of the complete project. Whatever the project requirements are pre-defined, during this phase the total delivery is made and it is accepted by the customer.
Maximum conflicts can arise in the project during this phase between those who have worked to deliver the outcome (contractor) and those who are accepting the results of the work (customer).
CONTROLLING
PLANNING
SCHEDULING
CLOSING
STAGES
WBS
• For effectively plan and manage the work, the entire
scope of the total project is reviewed and decomposed
or broken down into discrete tasks giving rise to what is
known as the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
• WBS is a task oriented family tree, which forms the
foundation tool or backbone for planning and controlling
the entire project. The WBS provides a graphical
representation of all the project activities.
• The lowest level of the WBS is the work package which
is a group of activities. At the work package level, it
should be possible to assign the work, estimate its
duration and cost and also keep a track of the project's
progress.
WBS
WBS Levels:
Level 1 (L1) - The highest or the top-most level of the WBS is
generally referred to as Level 1 of the WBS. This will be a single
task which is the Project or Project Name.
Level 2 (L2)- This can be based on the project phase, the
product of the project or the organizational departments.
If level 2 is based on Project, Tasks are Engineering,
Manufacturing, Construction and Testing & Commissioning.
Parent-child relationship
Each level of the WBS has a parent-child relationship. The parent
task in the WBS will finish only after all its children tasks are
complete.
WBS
WBS
TYPICAL WBS OF A PROJECT
OVERALL PROJECT
ENGINEERING
BASIC ENGINEERING
DETAILED ENGINEERING
PROJECT ENGINERING
PROCUREMENT
PLACEMENT OF ORDER ON VENDORS
MANUFACTURING & DELIVERY
EQUIPMENT
RECEIVED AT SITE
( …%)
CONSTRUCTION
SITE MOBILISATION
CIVIL WORK
STRUCTURAL STEEL WORK
EQUIPMENT INSTALLATION
PIPING INSTALLATION
ELEC. INSTALLATION
INSTRUMEN. INSTALLATION
INSULATION & PAINTING
COLD COMMISSIONING
HOT COMMISSIONING
Civil work for Main equipment
Civil work for Aux. Facilities Piling work
WBS
• It is the graphical representation of the various activities with respect to its time-bound for completion for any project.
• It consists of two (2) coordinates.
Ordinate(X-axis) represents the duration of time
required for completion of activities.
Abscissa(Y-axis) represents the jobs to be
performed.
The length of the bar shows the time required by
the activity for its completion.
Bar Chart Representation
Bar Chart
Typical Bar Chart
Sl.
No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. AWARD OF CONTRACT
2. SURVEY WORK
3. EXCAVATION
4. FOUNDATION & WALLS
5. SLAB CASTING
6. BRICK WORK
7. PLUMBING & ELECTRICAL WORK
8. FINISHING WORK
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Duration in Months
ActivitiesDuration in Months
Bar Chart
X
Y
In today’s globalized market place, to stay ahead of all means facing tremendous pressure.“Time is crucial, Time is money”. An excellent but delayed project means cost overruns. In this scenario proper scheduling of the project is even more of a concern than ever before in managing the project.
Many of us have heard of the term networks in relation to projects.
What is the project network? What role does it play in managing the project?
A project network can be described as:
A set of activities or the schedule of all the activities required to complete the aims and goals of the project in stipulated time.
A graphical or a schematic display that shows the logical relationships and sequence of all the activities that are required to be done in the project in the shortest possible time frame.
Network
What is an Activity ?
Differences one can attribute to distinguish a living being from a non-living being can perhaps lie in the word 'activity'.
From being in state 'A' to go to state 'B', we would need some kind of force or energy to move. An activity requires physical or mental energy. An activity in a project is the:-
• Lowest level of effort consuming time and resources.
• Has a definable start and finish.
• Performs a part of the total work package .
In other words, to achieve work in the project it would require performance of one or many activities.
Network
Duration of an activity: The amount of time needed to complete an activity. The original duration is the planned estimate, and the remaining duration is the number of work periods to finish activity.
Zero date : It is the go-ahead date of a project or the date of start of a project.
Milestone : Milestones add significant value to project scheduling
which can only be a Start type or Finish type & doesn't have any duration.
Constraint : A Scheduling restriction you impose on the Start or Finish of an
activity. Constraints are used to reflect real Project requirement for example all outdoor activities must be completed before the onset of monsoon etc.
Network
Logical relationshipsLet us examine two activities A and B:A is the independent activity and B is the dependent activity. This means that A is the preceding activity and B is the succeeding activity.How many different types of logical combinations can there be between the two activities A and B?
Activity A can have started or have finished. Based on these 2 possible combinations of activity A, activity B can either start or finish as well. This means that there can be 4 possible combinations of activity B which is dependent on activity A.
These 4 logical combinations are shown below:
A can finish and B can start thereafter (Finish to Start).A can start and B can start thereafter (Start to Start). A can start and B can finish thereafter (Start to Finish). A can finish and B can finish thereafter (Finish to Finish).
Network
Logical relationships
Finish to Start Dependency (F-S)
The independent activity A must finish before B can start.
The arrow shows the 'from to' relationship.
Generally in a project about 70 to 80% of dependency relationship is of finish-
start type.
Start to Start Dependency (S-S)
The independent activity A must start before activity B can start. The arrow shows the 'from to' relationship.
The 'from' activity must start before the 'to' activity can start
Network
Logical relationshipsStart to Finish Dependency (S-F)
A must start before B can finish. The arrow shows the 'from to' relationship.
The 'from' activity must start before the 'to' activity can finish
Finish-to-Finish Dependency (F-F)
A has to be completed before B can finish. The arrow shows the 'from to' relationship.
the 'from' activity must finish before the 'to' activity can finish
Network
Lead and lag are activity relationships that are used as special modifiers to advance or delay the succeeding activity.
Lead: This is a modification of a logical relationship between two activities, which allows an acceleration of the successor activity. For example, in a Finish to Start dependency, with a 14 days lead, the successor activity can start 14 days before the predecessor activity has finished.
A lead means that the succeeding activity will start earlier than it otherwise would have.
Lag: A modification of a logical relationship, which delays the successor activity. For example, in a Finish to Start dependency, with a 14 days lag, the successor activity cannot start until 14 days after the predecessor has finished.
A lag means that the succeeding activity will start later than it otherwise would have.
NetworkLead & Lag
The Calculation of Early dates for a project. The Forward Pass starts from the beginning of the Project and continues to the end to calculate the Earliest Start and Finish dates for each activity.
EARLY START (ES)
The date a project is scheduled to start.
EARLY FINISH (EF) The date a project is scheduled to start.
NetworkForward Pass
The Calculation of Late dates of activities in a network. The calculation begins with the latest Early finish date of the last activity or the imposed Project finish date, if one exists, and works backwards to the first activity in the project.
LATE START (LS) The latest start date an activity can start
without delaying the finish date of a project
LATE FINISH (LF) The latest finish date an activity can finish
without delaying the completion of the project.
NetworkBackward Pass
FLOAT :This is the amount of time that 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 these changes are incorporated in the project plan.Float is the measure of the sluggishness in starting an activity.
TOTAL FLOAT (TF)The duration of time that an activity can be delayed or extended without delaying the project completion date.
· TF = LS - ES = LF - EF,· If TF = 0, then activity is on critical path.
FREE FLOAT (FF) It is the length of time that can delay the Early Start of an
activity without delaying the early start of a Successor activity. It is never less than zero.
Network
Shown above is a Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) network of 8 activities - A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. The duration of each activity is shown in the node.
As we go from left to right in the forward pass, let us calculate the ES and EF of these 8 activities.
Network
A is the first activity of the network and its duration is 1 week. The earliest time when activity A can begin is at week 0 (zero).Generally 0 is taken as the default start time instead of 1. In effect A will start on day 1 of week 1. The earliest finish time (EF) = Early Start of the activity + Duration of the activity EF = 0+1 = 1
Network
Activity B
Activity A
Activity C Network
Activity E
Activity F Network
Activity D
Activity G Network
Activity H
Activity H
Activity G & D
NetworkBackward pass, let us calculate the LS and LF of these 8 activities.
Activity E Network
Final Network
• LIMITATIONS· Do not show relationships between
activities and hence do not illustrate
project network.· Do not assist data preparation and
analysis.· Do not show effects of changes or
delays.
Bar Charts• ADVANTAGES
· Easy to prepare· Eye catching· Good for early planning· Good for small scale projects
Network
• Activities pertaining to a network are inter-related with sequence, whereas bar-chart fails to indicate clearly the interdependencies among the various activities.
• Network can highlight the critical activities along the critical path, whereas bar-chart cannot do the same.
• Better & detailed planning is possible with the help of network.
• Float ( Slack time ) in each activity can be achieved from network analysis, which in turn helps in judging the criticality of the activities. This type of control measure is not possible in a bar-chart.
Comparison between Bar-charts &
Network
Network
Program Evaluation and Review Technique
The consultants, Booz-Allen & Hamilton developed the concept of PERT while supporting the Polaris program.
They came out with the concept of using a 3 time weighted estimate to determine the duration of an activity instead of the single time estimates that was in use.
This concept was especially useful for those activities where uncertainties were of a high degree.
The 3 time estimates used in Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) system considers the following three aspects:
Optimistic (O) duration estimate for completing an activity
Most Likely (ML) duration estimate for completing an activity
Pessimistic (P) duration estimate to complete an activity.
.
PERT
Estimated Duration Time Estimate for an activity is:
[1 x Optimistic duration estimate + 4 x Most Likely duration estimate + 1 x Pessimistic duration estimate] / by 6
Estimated Duration of an activity = [Optimistic + 4 x Most Likely + Pessimistic] / 6
My Optimistic time for commuting is 30 minutes; Most Likely time for commuting is 40 minutes; Pessimistically speaking, it may take upto 70 minutes in the worst scenario of traffic jams etc.
Using the 3 time estimates of PERT method, the Estimated time for this activity is:
[30 minutes + (4 x 40 minutes) + 70 minutes] / 6 which come to 43.3 minutes.
PERT
Critical path• The critical path is the longest path in the network and
shows the earliest date by which the project can be
completed. There can be more than 1 critical path in the
project .
• An activity is critical if the total float is equal to zero.
• Any delay in start or completion of the critical path
activities delays the overall project completion.
To arrive at the project's critical path we must have a list of:
• All the activities required to complete the project
• The time duration of each activity
• The dependencies between these activities
CPM
Critical path CPM
Let us look at the example we have covered earlier of a project network comprising of 8 activities from A to H. The critical Path in this example had 4 activities A, E, G and H.
The total project duration as per our network calculations came to 20 weeks
S-Curve
A Sample Monthly Progress Report
Progress reporting is done through different formats and curves.
31
S-Curve
S- Curve is the graphic display of cumulative progress plotted against time.
Ideal S - Curve is a sinusoidal curve based on the following formulae:
Y = [1 - sin(x/xn*180 + 90 ) *50]
Y – Percent progressx – Period at which s-curve value
requiredxn – Total period
The name is derived from the 'S' like nature of
the curve.
What is “S Curve”S-Curve
“S Curve” or Project Life Cycle S-Curve
Time
Progress
Cumulative progress CurvePlotted in a different scale
It is an ideal distribution curve. Depending upon the variousguiding factors it may vary.
Progress distribution curve
Starting Period Finishing Period
Peak Period
S-Curve
Previous distribution is an ideal one. Depending on nature and location of job this distribution may vary. The experience of concerned project manager will play a vital role in deciding the projected distribution of progress of any activity during its span of implementation.
Note :
S-Curve
Scheduling usingMicrosoft Project Software
• MSP is a Project Management (PM)tool .
• Gantt Chart is famous Toolbar in MSP.• Left side of Gantt Chart window shows the
Activities with relations• Right side of Gantt Chart shows the timescale &
Bars with relationships.
Let us consider an example :
Construction of House using MSP Software
