Chapter 16 Project Planning and Control

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Chapter 16 Project Planning and
Control

• a project is a set of activities which
• has a defined start point
• has a defined end state
• pursues a defined goal
• uses a defined set of resources

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16 Project Planning and Control

• the requirements for a successful project
  include
• clearly defined goals
• competent project manager
• top management support
• competent project team members
• sufficient resource allocation
• adequate communications channels
• control mechanisms
• feedback capabilities
• responsiveness to clients
• troubleshooting mechanisms
• project staff continuity

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16 Project Planning and Control

• a project manager is responsible for managing
  all resources and requires
• background and experience
• leadership and strategic expertise
• technical expertise
• interpersonal competence
• proven managerial ability
• the project planning and control process
  requires
• understanding the project environment
• all factors which may affect the project during
  its life

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16 Project Planning and Control

• project definition
• objective overall direction, clear, measurable
• scope work contents, products, time period,
  resources
• strategy how to achieve objectives, set
  milestones
• project planning
• identify activities
• divide into smaller tasks until manageable
• called work package
• estimate times and resources

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16 Project Planning and Control

• identify relationships and dependencies
• some activities will need to be executed in
  particular order (dependent or series)
• others are independent or parallel
• some activities have spare time float
• when there is no spare time, it is the critical
  path
• identify schedule constraints
• compare project requirements with available
  resources
• fix the schedule
• project control

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16 Project Planning and Control
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16 Project Planning and Control

• network planning can be done to obtain a
  better idea of the project
• network analysis
• Gantt chart
• critical path method (using network diagrams)
• program evaluation and review technique (PERT)
• uses probability analysis for each activity, to
  give idea of risk
• crashing networks is the process of reducing
  time spans on the critical path activities, so
  that the project is completed in less time
• incurs cost
• overtime
• additional resources
• sub-contracting

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Chapter 17 Quality Planning and
Control

• quality can be defined in several ways
• making products that are free from errors and
  conform to specification
• product is fit for its purpose
• a precise and measurable set of characteristics
  that satisfies customers
• consistent conformance to customers
  expectations
• note there can be a gap between customer
  expectation and perceived quality level

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17 Quality Planning and Control

• quality planning and control has 6 steps
• define the quality characteristics
• these are the consequences of design
  specification
• eg. functionality, appearance, reliability,
  recovery (ease of repair), durability, contact
• decide how to measure each characteristic
• defining characteristics in such a way that they
  are measurable
• variable measures (ie. length, diameter)
• attributes measures (ie. works or doesnt work,
  good or bad)

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17 Quality Planning and Control

• set quality standards
• level of quality which defines the boundary
  between acceptable and unacceptable
• control quality against those standards
• decisions must be made
• where in the operation should it be checked
• how many products
• how to perform the checks

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17 Quality Planning and Control

• checks can be made at 3 places
• start of the process
• during the process (especially after or before
  critical operations)
• after the process
• use of SPC (statistical process control)
• find and correct causes of poor quality
• continue to make improvements

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17 Quality Planning and Control

• control charts are used as a form of SPC
• monitors the result of many samples over a
  period of time
• determines if the process is getting out of
  control

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17 Quality Planning and Control

• analyses assignable causes of variation
• those created by there being something wrong in
  the process, from a preventable root cause
• analyses common causes
• those inherent to the process and can never be
  eliminated
• control limits indicate extent of common cause
  variation

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17 Quality Planning and Control

• SPC is seen as an activity that leads to the
  acquisition of a competitive advantage
• enhances process knowledge
• builds difficult to imitate process capability
• acceptance sampling is performed to decide
  whether, on the basis of a sample, to accept or
  reject the whole batch
• usually carried out on attributes rather than
  variables

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