PROJECT

PLANNING
Moh. Wahyudin, STP., M.Sc.
Department of Agro-industrial
Technology, Faculty of Agricultural
Technology - UGM
PLAN:
Specifying The Project
PLAN:
Specifying The Project
1. IDENTIFY PROJECT ACTIVITIES
• Divide the project into its major objectives such that the project is fully defined by the objectives.
• Partition each objective into the activities that must be done in order to accomplish the objective.
• For each activity having one or more missing characteristics divide that activity into the sub-activities
comprising it.
• Repeat step 3 until all sub-activities have the characteristics desired.
• The lowest-level sub-activities in the hierarchy will be the basis of the work packages that must be
done in order to complete the project.

2. ESTIMATE TIME AND COST

3. SEQUENCE PROJECT ACTIVITIES

4. IDENTIFY CRITICAL ACTIVITIES

5. WRITE PROJECT PROPOSAL

Work breakdown structure
After designing the objectives of the project, the next step is to break the project down into
manageable pieces in a work breakdown structure

Let us see an example of work breakdown structure – Noah’s Ark

The work breakdown structure is the basis for time estimation, resource allocation, and cost estimating and
collection. If the work breakdown structure is faulty, all further planning will also be faulty
Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)
 Responsibility Matrix
• Responsibility Matrix

• The given responsibility matrix

chart cross references the WBS
created for the project.

• Each of the work packages created

in the WBS is allocated to each of
the team members with primary
and secondary responsibilities
assigned accordingly.

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RACI MATRIX

Project Name: Tristar Project

Date (Created): 07/07/2010
Date (Updated): N/A
PIC / Team Project Software Software Software Project
Activities Manager Developer Administrator Tester Coordinator
Project Planning R A I
Software
Development
A R C C I
Software Review I C R A I
Usability Testing I A C R
Installation of
Tracking Software
I A R
Ongoing Review of
Client
A R
Feedback Follow-up
from Client
I R

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 What does the ‘RACI’ Acronym stand for?
The acronym ‘RACI’ stands for the following:
Responsible

Informed
Consulted
Let us look at each in detail.
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RACI Matrix for Project Management

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RACI Matrix for Project Management

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PLAN:
Specifying The Project
1. IDENTIFY PROJECT ACTIVITIES

2. ESTIMATE TIME AND COST

• Estimate Time Completion: Optimistic (O), Most likely (M),
Pessimistic (P)
• Estimate Cost: Direct, Indirect, Variable, & Fixed Costs

3. SEQUENCE PROJECT ACTIVITIES

4. IDENTIFY CRITICAL ACTIVITIES

5. WRITE PROJECT PROPOSAL

Estimating activities
The work packages identify the specific activities that must be performed to
complete the project. This explains how to estimate time and cost needed to
complete each of the activities

Technical specifications of the end

products, such as performance,
quality, reliability, survivability,
operability and maintainability
Compliance with standards
(governamental, institutional,
international, and organizational)

Project assumptions, constraints,

and excursions (a description of what
is not included in the work package)
Estimating Activity Time
For Conference Planning
Activity estimation sheet
Activity number: ______________ Title ______________
Team Responsible:______________
Team Leader:______________
Statement of Work:_______________
Describe completion condition:_____________________
Describe assumptions, exclusions, constraints:_______________

Time: No. of working days needed_____________

• Personnel
________ person hours of _____________________________ skill group
________ person hours of _____________________________ skill group
________ person hours of _____________________________ skill group

• Direct Costs
Item________________ cost$________________ needed at _____ ______ to pay
Item________________ cost$________________ needed at _____ ______ to pay
Item________________ cost$________________ needed at _____ ______ to pay
• Predecessor steps
This activity cannot begin until Define if less than 100%
__________________________________
_____ % of activity#________ is complete
_____ % of activity#________ is complete
• Successor steps
This activity cannot begin until Define if less than 100%
__________________________________
_____ % of activity#________ is complete
_____ % of activity#________ is complete

Signature: ______________ Date: ______________

Underestimating activities
Managers often underestimate activities, and projects run over budget
and overschedule. The following are some common reasons

Team members are usually optimistic and desire to please. They might say what they
think the Project Manager wants to hear

People might underestimate the amount of non-productive time in a day (such as

personal distractions, fatigue, interruptions, meetings, administratibve tasks, sick,
leave, vacations, training, crisis management, and so on)

Workers might be overly optimistic about the number of calendar days it takes to
complete the number of work hours estimated

People tend to have incomplete recall of previous experience. They remember

successes better than failures and tend to forget pain

Team members might not be familiar with the complete scope of the project when
they make their estimates

Workers might have no experience with this activity to draw upon

Estimating Familiar work vs. New work
Familiar Work
• Need accurate performance data
Familiar Technology
• Draw on performance history and
measure performance improvement
• Easiest type of project work to plan
• Performance history needs to be
New Technology
adjusted for the complexity of
technology
• Important issue is the similarity of
activities
• New activities required by the
technology are difficult to estimate
New Work
• Difficult to predict since activitiesmay
be different
• No performance history available or not
useful
• High profitability of estimates being
understated
• Needs frequent project review and
estimate revisions
• Use a group of experts to produce the
estimate
• Very short planning horizons
• No performance history available or not
useful
• Needs close monitoring and frequent
replanning
 Costs in Project Management

The Costs in Project Management are the various costs associated with the
projects. The following are the costs associated with the projects:

• Direct Costs

• Indirect Costs

• Variable Costs

• Fixed Costs

Let us look at each in detail.

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 Direct Costs
• Direct Costs

• Direct Costs:

o ‘Direct Costs’ are any costs

that are directly attributable
to the work on the project.

o These can include the

salaries paid to the
resources, the billing rate of
the resources and costs of
the software and hardware
that are used for building
the website
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 Indirect Costs
• Indirect Costs

• Indirect Costs:

o ‘Indirect Costs’ are the costs

that are spread out against
many projects and cannot be
linked to one project alone.

o These costs include those

incurred in shared services like
cost of office space, taxes paid
by the organization and other
services like secretarial and
janitorial staff

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 Variable Costs
• Variable Costs

• Variable Costs:

o ‘Variable Costs’ are costs that

change in proportion to the
amount of time and materials
that are spent on produced in
the project.

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 Fixed Costs
• Fixed Costs

• Fixed Costs:

o ‘Fixed Costs’ are costs that do

not change with the timeline or
progress of the project.

o A cost be either Fixed or

Variable; Direct or Indirect.

o The overhead costs for this

project are the office setup and
shared services.

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 Fixed Costs
• Fixed Costs

• Fixed Costs:

o ‘Fixed Costs’ are costs that do

not change with the timeline or
progress of the project.

o A cost be either Fixed or

Variable; Direct or Indirect.

o The overhead costs for this

project are the office setup and
shared services.

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Time Phased Budget

• A time phased budget would

include the costs incurred at
each interval or milestone of
the project. The milestones for
this project would be
requirements, design, coding,
testing and implementation.
The budget for the same would
be the costs at each stage of
the project.

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Time Phased Budget

• The budget at completion or

BAC should have all the
components of the costs
included like direct and indirect
costs, fixed and variable costs
etc. along with the cost at each
phase or milestone of the
project.

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Time Phased Budget

• The cost variance should be

measured using Earned Value
technique and this tool allows
the manager to assess the
completion of the project at
each milestone according to
the cost incurred and the
value accrued till then.
Variance between these two
measures gives an accurate
estimate of the health of the
project.

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 Cumulative Costs

• The cumulative costs of the

project are the ones that are
incurred up to a specific phase
or milestone of the project.
• It can be measured by using a
Cost Performance Index or CPI
which measures the ratio of
the Earned value with regards
to the Actual cost incurred on
the project.
• As seen earlier, all the costs
that accumulate up to a
particular phase can be called
the cumulative costs of the
project.

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 Cost Control

• The cost management plan

should include the plan for
controlling the costs of the
project. There should be a
measurement of the costs
involved and their variances
tracked, if any.
• Any variance to the budget
must be controlled by the
controlling the impact of the
cost changes. Further, cost
control can be done in the
area of overhead costs and
general and administrative
expenses.
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