Project Management Lecture 16

1. Project Management Lecture 16 • Project management involves estimating the length of time to complete a project • Once a project has been undertaken then a project manager is responsible for carrying out the project on the assigned time table • How do the managers establish a time schedule • Generally based on average length of time for each component • Average length of time based on past experience • Length of time to complete each step is a random variable

2. Materials for Lecture 16 • Readings Chapter 14 • Lecture 16 Short Project Management.XLSX • Lecture 16 Project Management.XLSX • Lecture 16 Event Management.XLSX • Lecture 16 Have Some Fun.XLSX

3. Project Management • Who does project management? • Engineers, managers, accountants • They calculate number of days to completion • Generallydo not incorporate risk • Benefits of incorporating risk into project management analysis • Assign a probability to number of days until project completion • Assign a probability to getting a project done in a fixed timeframe

4. Project Management • KOV for a project management problem is: How long will it take? • There is no final answer until project is completed • Answer is an unknown PDF of days, weeks, or months to completion • Simulation provides a methodology for estimating unknown PDFs • Formulate the problem as a Monte Carlo simulation problem

5. Project Management • Model formulation • KOV is “Number of Days” to completion • Identify each task (step) for project • Specify order of each task for the project • Identify bottlenecks where tasks will wait on precious stages • Determine the PDFs for number of days (or weeks, months, etc.) to complete each task • Rely on experience from past jobs • Depend on experts for time to complete each task • PDF may be dependent on resources available

6. Project Management • Critical to identify the order of the tasks and their linkages (dependencies), for example: • Task 10 starts after Tasks 5 and 8 are completed • Task 11 starts after Task 10 is completed • Thus, Task 5 or 8 could hold up the whole project • If analysis shows 5 is the bottleneck is it worth investing more resources in Task 5 to get the project completed earlier?

7. Project Management • Create a simple Project Network Diagram to summarize the order of tasks • Drawn it in Excel with simple arrows and boxes • Network diagram shows potential bottlenecks

8. Project Management • Tasks 1-6, 2 and 3 wait on 1, 4 waits on 2, 5 waits on 3 and 4, last task (6) waits on 5 • Assumes next task starts day after it predecessor ends • Days in column C are GRKS() stochastic

9. Project Management • Finite limit to complete the project is 45 days • P(Days>45)=?

10. Spreadsheet of a Project Management Analysis

11. Project Management Expanded • I like to add a second KOV – Cost • We know cost of a project is stochastic • So project management model can simulate PDFs for days and cost • In the example $/day costs for each task are multiplied by stochastic days

12. Event Planner • Event planner KOVs • Number of days ahead to start planning an event • Cost of the event • Research application KOVs • Time to complete a research project • Cost of project • Wedding planner • Probability of being ready on time • Cost of the event • Banquet planner

13. Event Planner