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Project Management Workshop
Project Management Workshop

Nick Cook
 Citigroup Corporate and Investment Bank
 European Technology Business Office Manager

Edinburgh University

April 2002
Introduction

Who am I?

What are we here to do?
Goals of the workshop

understand the nature of projects

have a feel for the key activities involved in project
management

understand how effective management can help
provide an effective solution to the final year project

NOT TO TURN YOU ALL INTO EXPERT PROJECT
MANAGERS
Agenda

Overview

Project lifecycle

SLDC and project lifecycle

Project roles

Project planning

Project tracking and control

Reporting progress

Project risk
Overview

What is a project?

How do we manage projects and why is project
management important?

Why is project management important?

Much of project management is common sense - but
procedures and tools can help
Project Lifecycle
 start up
• establishes the need for the project and agrees the main
tasks
 plan
• agrees what is to be produced sets up the plans and
schedules that will be used to track project activities and
 execute
• main activities of the project against plans to make sure
the project meets its goals
 close down
• bring project to a close in a orderly fashion
IT Development SDLC

SDLC = Software Development Life Cycle

This cycle is different from the project lifecycle - most
of the SDLC activities will be completed during the
Project Execute phase

What are the typical IT development SLDC phases?
SDLC Phases

initiation

definition

technical design

construction

validation

implementation

review
Project Roles

Projects typically involve the interaction of a number of
people in different roles -
 eg project sponsor, project manager, team leader,
team member

Concentrating on the project manager - what are the
key responsibilities?
Project Manager - Responsibilities

manage the production of the required goods

plan and monitor

direct and motivate the team

manage project risk

initiate corrective action where needed

provide progress reports

agree and ensure quality is achieved

on occasion - terminate the project when necessary
Project planning

How do you plan the project
 determine and agree the project goals - what are you going to
produce
 Break the project down and identify the main project tasks and estimate the time it will take to perform each task
 Record the tasks in a logical order
 Develop target start and end dates/times for each task
 Use a GANNT chart to show how the tasks will run in logical
sequences
 Identify project risks and build additional time into task
duration to take account of these
Project planning (2)

Task breakdown - example
Work Breakdown Structure for Development of an Aeroplane
Whole aircraft
Management
Wings
Right Wing
Fuel Tanks
Fuselage
Flight System
Left Wing
Airbreaks
Engines
Fuel System
Fuel Pipes
Turbines
Fuel Tank
Fuel Pressure Gauge
Project planning (3)

Scheduling

Gantt chart examples using MS Project
Project planning (4)

Resource planning
 who will be doing what and when
 consider the skills you have available in the project
team - don’t ask the plumber to do the plastering!!!
 Pay particular attention to scarce resource - can only
1 person in the project team complete a particular
task?
Project planning (4)

Risk management - planning projects without
considering risk is a common mistake

generic risk
 eg resource risk - right people not available at the
right time. Use you project plan to find alternative
solutions

project-specific risk
 these will be peculiar to your project and you need to
identify them and have ideas/solutions in case the
problems occur
Project control

Murphy’s law - “if everything seems to be going well,
you obviously don’t know what’s going on …..”
Project tracking and controls

What should you monitor
 time
• you Gantt chart should have milestones - are you
meeting these?
 cost
• are you spending more than you planned - is each
task taking more effort then you estimated
 quality
• harder to measure, but is the quality of the product
you are developing in line with the original goals
Project monitoring - corrective action

if the project starts to go off track against the plan what can you do?
 Assess the situation
 analyse the problems
 implement solutions and monitor
 refine the project schedule in the light of changes
Project monitoring - corrective action (2)

5 choices of action

brainstorm an alternative approach - eg code
something in a different way

put in place contingency plans

or change the key project parameters - cost, time,
quality
 apply more resource - but will cost more
 move the end date - but will deliver late
 provide less functionality than planned - but will dilute
quality
Reporting progress

communication during the project is vital

consider the following types of communication
activities:
 project meetings
 project status reports
 informal reviews and discussions
Project risk

planning risk mitigation is key - see above

consider the following
 scale of the risk
 probability of the risk
 significance of the risk

try brainstorming to identify risks and solutions
Summary

Key aspects

Planning
 ‘those who fail to plan, plan to fail’

Monitoring and control
 ‘you can’t control what you can’t measure’