27 Sep Time Management

Time Management

Most managers and supervisors are acquainted with managing time and priorities. It is part of the everyday work they do. Project time management is the knowledge area encompassing the development of a project’s schedule.

According to PMBOK® Guide (PMI, 2008), to develop a useful and accurate project schedule, a project manager must:

• Define activities.

• Sequence the activities.

• Estimate the activity resources.

• Estimate the duration of each activity.

• Develop a schedule.

• Control the schedule.

Define Activities

In this step, a project manager and his or her project team develop the WBS and identify project activities associated with a work package. Once the activities have been defined, an accurate estimate of the project time (and cost) can be developed (PMI, 2006).

Sequence the Activities

Identifying the sequence in which activities must be performed and documenting it is the next step in preparing a project schedule. Determining relationships among tasks is important in helping to sequence the activities logically. The two most common types of relationships are:

• Finish-to-start: It is the most common relationship among project tasks. For example, before you paint a room (task 1), you need to first place a drop cloth on the floor (task

• Start-to-start: This type of relationship is used when work needs to be done in parallel. Using start-to-start relationships can greatly shorten the length of the entire project. For example, you have already placed a drop cloth on the floor. But before you paint the room, you also need to remove the electrical outlet covers. If the room is large and you only have one worker, you can remove the outlet covers in the area you intend to paint first, and while that painted area is drying, you can remove the next section of outlet covers.

Many new project managers attempt to build a WBS in a sequential manner. This is not recommended. A WBS should be developed around deliverables and work required to produce the deliverables. After a WBS is complete, the activities in each work package and the work packages themselves should be sequenced using the relationships discussed. Once the activities are sequenced, a project manager should construct a network diagram. A network diagram chains the activities together in a logical sequence on the basis of logical relationships. This type of network diagram is called an activity-on-node (AON) diagram.

Click here  to view a sample AON network diagram.

A network diagram can be used to identify areas where slack exists in a project. Slack, or float, can often be managed to complete a project early or to take up parts of a project that may take longer than expected. A network diagram also helps identify the critical path for a project. The critical path should not be mistaken as the only work that must be done in a project. The term “critical path” refers to the longest path through the project network diagram. The critical path dictates the total time a project will take.

Earlier this week, Ashley and Mat had worked with Raj and his key team members, Anna Garcia and Herb Pascal, to detail out the work breakdown structure (WBS). The human resources list and the initial risk plan are also ready.

Ashley now needs to work with Mat to put the schedule and budget together for the CRM project. She calls Mat to set up a meeting with him and requests him to come to conference room 210. Mat agrees to be there in a couple of minutes. Before leaving for the meeting, Ashley takes the WBS, the HR list, and the initial risk plan from her file. She knows all these documents would serve as key inputs when deciding the project’s schedule and budget. She also realizes that these project documents will likely be modified by the outcome of the schedule and budget development.

In her conversation with Mat and Raj, Ashley’s focus was on sequencing project activities, estimating the duration, creating a schedule, estimating the cost, and preparing a budget. Analyzing closely, you will realize that Ashley has covered two knowledge areas—project time management and project cost management.

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Resource Estimation

Resource estimation is a primary input to the cost estimating process. For resource estimation, a project manager has to identify the people, equipment, and material needed to complete a project while determining the quantity of each of these resources. According to Dr. Kathy Schwalbe (2000), the following factors apply when selecting resources for a project:

• Difficulty of the work

• Uniqueness of the project scope

• Organizational history of doing the same type of projects

• Resource availability

• Outsourcing requirements

• Organizational policies

It is especially important that you develop an estimate of the required resources for each activity in the sequence of its occurrence in the project. The output from aligning the required skill levels with the work activities is a resource requirement listing, or resource breakdown structure.

Developing an estimate of the duration of an activity can be challenging, especially if you have never done it before, because all estimates are guesses. Some guesses are better than others.

For example, if you have never prepared a meal for ten people and you are asked to estimate the length of time it will take to cook the food, you might have to do some research. Suppose you decide to prepare a 7 lb. beef roast. Roasting is one activity of the cooking work package that is part of the meal preparation WBS. To estimate this task, you can adopt any of the following approaches:

• Expert estimate: You can ask a skilled chef how long it takes to prepare a 7 lb. beef roast. If you give the chef enough information—the weight of the meat and the desired doneness—the chef can give you an on-the-spot estimate.

• Parametric estimate: If there are no expert chefs that you can ask, you can refer to a cookbook. Many cookbooks provide tables of data showing information such as the number of pounds of meat, the oven temperature, and the desired doneness. You can use the guests’ requirements (how they like their beef roast) to enter the specifications in the table and calculate the cooking time. This is a parametric estimate since you have parameters to work with.

• Statistical estimates: Sometimes, you will find that several possibilities exist in estimating an activity’s duration. There might be dozens of ideas about how long a particular activity might take. It can be helpful to statistically sample the potential times and arrive at an average.

• Historical estimates: This is the type of estimate people use most often. “The last time I made a beef roast, it took me two hours.” This type of estimate requires assumptions that every similar project is the same (for example, all beef roasts will be the same weight and all ovens produce the same temperature). Not surprisingly, historical estimates are often incorrect.

• Rule of thumb: This method is sometimes called a heuristic. Usually, rule-of-thumb estimates are based on a rough guess, and the estimates are adjusted as the work gets done. Since you adjust as you go, rule-of-thumb estimates can create difficulties in accurately assessing the true time a task will take.

Whichever estimation method you adopt, remember to always document the assumptions you make about the work that has to be done.

A network diagram, which shows project activities in a logical sequence, is used to develop a schedule for a project. Each network node has duration. By applying dates to the duration, a project schedule can be created. According to the PMI (2008), a schedule is “the planned dates for performing activities and the planned dates for meeting milestones” (p. 436). Schedules consist of milestones. Milestones are significant events during the course of a project and often coincide with the completion of a deliverable or a phase (PMI, 2008). A project’s schedule is usually represented by a Gantt chart. Many project management software programs, such as Microsoft Project, use Gantt charts as their primary project views.

Cost Management

Managing project costs is one of the four core project management knowledge areas. The other three are scope management, quality management, and time management. Project cost management consists of the processes necessary to ensure that a project is accomplished within the approved budget (PMI, 2000). According to the Standish Group (1995), many information technology projects incur cost overruns up to nearly 200 percent. That is almost three times the planned cost! So cost management is very important.

Cost Estimation

The following are the three methods of estimating costs:

• Analogous or top-down estimation, which uses actual costs of similar projects. This estimation method results in a less costly but also a less accurate cost estimate.

• Bottom-up estimation, which is based on adding the costs of individual work packages to arrive at a cost estimate. This method is time consuming but provides an accurate cost estimate. This approach is used by most cost estimation software programs.

• Parametric estimation, which uses known rates and quantities. This method also results in accurate cost estimation.

Remember how, in Week 1, Ashley was worried that Mac may have already determined the schedule and cost estimate using top-down estimation and that it might be hard to convince him if the project cost that she develops using bottom-up estimation comes out to be more? Top-down estimation consists of an executive decision regarding a desired budget figure. Needless to say, top-down estimation is highly undesirable. Coupling top-down estimation with required completion dates, which are also dictated by the executive decision, often leads to an unexecutable project. Remember the triangular relationship between scope, time, cost, and quality discussed earlier? It always applies. The best method of estimating the project cost is bottom-up estimation, using parametric data, when available.

Accurately estimating costs requires much of the same work as identifying resources when developing a schedule. The first step is to use the estimates developed for activity duration and apply the known cost per time period to the activities. The human resources department always carries a cost-per-hour rate that can be multiplied by the number of hours estimated to complete the activities. The next step is to add fixed costs—such as the cost of a server for a new computer system or the cost of concrete for a new patio—to determine the complete project budget.

After a project manager has developed a cost estimate, this estimate should be applied to a project schedule to arrive at a project cost baseline.

Throughout the life of a project, budget estimates change as more definitive information is received. According to Schwalbe (2000), the project budget becomes more accurate as time progresses and more detailed calculations are made.

The estimates made during the project selection stage have an accuracy of –25 percent to +75 percent. The accuracy improves to –10 percent to +25 percent during the planning stage of a project. Finally, during the later stages of a project, the accuracy rate goes up to –5 percent to +10 percent as the actual cost of resources and activities becomes clear.

Executing the Project

Ashley is finally ready with the project plan, a twelve-month schedule, and budget estimates. She presents these documents to Vincent, who approves them. With Vincent and Mat backing the project plan, Ashley gets the key stakeholders to give their acceptance. Kurtz immediately gave his blessing to the project. He was particularly pleased that Ashley managed to keep the plan within the schedule and within the $4 million he had approved. The CRM implementation project is now officially on!

Now that the project is in its execution phase, let’s consider Ashley’s tasks and responsibilities during this stage.

As a project manager, it is important for Ashley to monitor the project and control any deviation from the approved baseline. Equally important is to brief the project team that is going to handle the project during its execution phase. Team members are the key to meeting the schedule, reaching the milestone dates, and, therefore, avoiding any time-cost impact.

In simple words, Ashley will now have to manage risks that were identified during the planning phase of her project and ensure that the risk plan is being followed. She has to regularly measure (cost) the progress and performance (schedule) of her project. This will help her keep track of two project variables—actual cost and budgeted cost—and also help her calculate variances, if any, from the agreed cost and schedule plan. Ashley has to be sensitive toward any change. Any deviation from the plan needs to be managed as it may have an impact on the project’s schedule, budget, or scope.

As a project manager, it is Ashley’s responsibility to initiate and record any change request. The secret of excelling at the art of managing a project also lies in flexibility. The initial project plan should have room for accommodating any necessary change that comes up later during the execution phase. So after recording the change request, Ashley must assess if the change is inevitable. The change will be accepted or rejected on the basis of her and her team’s analysis and recommendation.

In addition to monitoring project tasks, a project manager has to manage people—the sponsor, stakeholders, customers, and the project team. A project manager must have the ability to manage priorities and issues. A project manager should be equipped with people-handling skills. It is important to be sensitive to conflicts—intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, or intergroup—that may come at an unexpected time. If you are able to manage and resolve conflicts, then the consequences will not be destructive. Recognizing the potential of a conflict helps a project manager decide a way to resolve it before it becomes a sore point.

To become a successful project manager, you must be able to manage conflicts and changes that arise during a project cycle.

In Week 2, we examined the first three processes involved in project integration management.

The following are the seven project integration management processes:

• Develop the project charter

• Develop the preliminary project scope statement

• Develop the project management plan

• Direct and manage project execution

• Monitor and control the project work

• Perform integrated change control

• Close the project or phase

In Week 2, we examined the first three processes involved in project integration management. This week, we will examine the two processes related to project execution.

Direct and Manage Project Execution

A project manager and his or her team execute a project plan after the project planning milestone is achieved and an approval to proceed is given. There are three major steps in executing a project plan:

• Set the schedule in motion.

• Review and reiterate organizational policies.

• Track key data.

Setting the schedule in motion requires a work authorization system, which has the following two functions:

• It commits resources (people and funds) to work.

• It starts the clock on the authorized portion of the schedule.

For large projects, the work authorization system is a formal, written system. Frequently, there is an official form to prepare. On small projects, the system is often verbal or e-mail based. Still, it is a formal system where the budget is open for the authorized portion of work only.

Monitor and Control the Project Work

Along with adequate project planning, tracking key data is the underpinning for project control. According to the PMI (2000), the following data should be tracked:

• Cost performance

• Schedule performance

• Quality

• Conformance to requirements and specifications (product quality)

• Quality of project reporting and tracking (project quality)

• Plan performance

• Resource utilization

• Team performance (group and individual)