Good morning, everyone! These are the insights we’ve acquired in module 3.

MODULE 3 INSIGHTS:
PROJECT DESIGN MATRIX

Project design is considered as one of the earliest stages in the life of the
project. Project design plays an important role inside the organization because it
provides the organization the needed information and helps the project to have a
systematic flow of developing and executing the proposed project of the organization.
This type of design is not time consuming and the goals and objectives of the project
is clearly visible making it realistically achievable. However, project design matrix is
only applicable in some organization. In order for the project to be created, an outline
is being laid out for the project design and this includes the organization(s)
responsible for completing it, a description of the project Goals, outcomes, and
objectives, and when they will be completed, Major deliverables, products, and/or
features Success criteria, and/or monitoring and evaluation guidelines and Budget
estimates.
There are seven steps to have an effective project design; the first step is to
define project goal where in you have to discuss the goal of your project to the
different kinds of stakeholders. This is the stage that will determine if the project will
be born or not. That is why in this stage of project designing, you have to get the
attention of the stakeholders to be able to carry out and implement the project that
the team has created. Your team cannot proceed to the next step without passing the
first step.
Second, determine outcomes, objectives and or deliverables. In this step, it will
be helpful if the team will apply the SMART acronym and we already have an idea
what this acronym stands for. The team must be specific, measurable, achievable,
relevant and time bound because this will help you and the organization to have a
positive outcome of the project. In this step, the team must be able to successfully
break down the outcomes, objectives and or deliverables to be able to achieve the
goals from the first step of the project designing stage.
Next, identify risks, constraints and assumptions. In developing a project, we
cannot hide the fact that risks always comes along to hinder the success of the
project. In this step, the team needs to identify all the risks and constraints that they
can think of that they think will stop them from achieving their goals. They need to
make an assumptions of the possible problems that may arise along the way.
Identifying the possible risks and providing a solution to the problems will help the
team address the problems and they can prevent such events to happen. This step is
also very important because the early you identify all the risks and constraints of the
project, the early the team can make an adjustments to the work schedules and
budgets especially when the operation of the project begins.
The fourth step is prepare a visual aid. In every organization, visual aid is very
important because this will help the team and the stakeholders to have a better
understanding of the project. Moreover, providing visual aids is more effective than
providing a written document because presenting a visual aid of the project, all the
people working inside the organization can successfully picture out what your project
is all about.
 The fifth step is ballpark your budget. It is very important especially when
developing a project to provide an estimated budget plan for the whole operation of
the project. This will prevent the team to experience unexpected cost overruns during
the project designing phase.
Next, Determine approval and monitoring processes. Now that team successfully
completed all the important phase of the project design, the project needs to get an
approval first from the stakeholders and monitor the implementation of the project.
This step of the project design will determine if the project will be successful or not. If
ever the project is not successful, the project team can save money and time. If the
project is successful during the trial process, this can assure the clients, the
stakeholders and the funding sources that they made a good decision to invest in the
said project.
The last step is use proper project design documents. This is also one of the
important part of the project designing phase because this will help the team to gain
more support especially in carrying out the needed actions of the project that the
team deliberately laid out from the stakeholders.

There are five expert tips for effective project design. The first tip is design projects
with the ultimate goal in mind. Just like what we have discussed a while ago, the
team must have a clear project goal so that a project can be developed. However,
the team needs to have a clear understanding of what the intended outcomes are for
the them to be creative and innovative in designing a project. You need to break
down all the outcomes, objectives and deliverables that will help in contributing to the
teams ultimate goal and be able to identify the risks that may hinder the team in
achieving the goals of the project.
Second, meet with all stakeholders. It is very important to let the stakeholders be
part of your project because their role is to question your project and give
recommendations and suggestions for the betterment of the project. Attending
meeting with the stakeholders will definitely improved the outcome of the project
since they have to revise the whole project plan depending on the suggestions and
recommendations from the stakeholders before the execution of the said project.
The third tip is, consult industry and or professional association resources. This
tip is useful for the team to ask for the professionals in developing a project and gain
more knowledge from them that will greatly help for the completion of the project.
Sometimes, you need to seek for a professional advice to further improve your skills,
understanding and broaden your knowledge. Not all the time you are knowledgeable
enough like other people do who already have past experiences in that field.
Next is, consult internal resources. It is also very important to take into
consideration the opinion and suggestions of the people working inside the industry
that you are working for. When gaining a new knowledge and information, you also
need to seek for their advice not just from the professional people because their
thoughts and opinions for the project also matter the most for the improvement of the
project. You need to be open for their suggestions too because that will also
strengthen your relationship to each other and work together to achieve the goal.
The last tip is review and revise as you go. The recommendations and
suggestions that you gain from different people will now be put into a final output of
your project. It doesn’t matter if it will take time to revise the project plan because it is
still rewarding at the end to finish the project and have a rewarding and successful
execution of the project.
Plan of Operations (PoO)
It shows the company’s strategy for carrying out a project. This kind of plan is
used on large public works projects. Important sections in this plan include purpose
and description, organization and management, health and safety plan, and
environmental impact.
Project Plan Network
Project Plan Network is one way to represent a project schedule aside from
bar charts, milestone chart, and project calendars. Project Network Diagrams are
drawn to depict project dependencies between two activities and/or milestones. A
Project Network Diagram can be drawn in many ways. These include:
• Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
• Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)
• Conditional Diagramming Methods
In these three (3), Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
is said to be the most popular as it used commonly by modern software scheduling
tools. It includes 4 types of logical relationships between two dependent
activities/milestones. These are:
 FS Relationship – Start Event of a Successor is dependent Finish
 SS Relationship – Start Event of a Successor is dependent Start
 FF Relationship – Finish Event of a Successor is dependent Finish
 SF Relationship – Finish Event of a Successor is dependent Start
And 2 Types of Modifiers that supports two Modifiers – Leads and Lags. Activity
events are present and scheduled time allotted.

Arrow Network Technique

Arrow Network Technique also called arrow diagram, network diagram, activity
chart, node diagram, or critical path method (CPM). It is a process diagramming tool
used to identify optical sequence of events and their interconnectivity. This method
shows the order of tasks in a specific project. It is often used for scheduling and at
the same time identifying the critical path through nodes. When to used:
• When scheduling and monitoring task
• When you fully understand the whole process and system of a project
• When the project schedule is critical, Critical Path Method (CPM) is a sequence of
dependent tasks that form the longest duration and allows to determine the most
efficient timeline possible to complete a specific project.

Activity on Node Network

Activity-on-node is a project management term that refers to a precedence
diagramming method which uses boxes to denote schedule activities. This kind of
diagram can be used to provide a visual representation of the entire project schedule.
It is designed to show which activities must be completed in order for the next
activities to begin. In other words, one activity must be finished first in order for the
next activity to commence.

Time Calculation
 One competency a project manager should have is being able to accurately
estimate time since it is a skill essential for a good project management. It also plays
a critical role in business especially in the sense of deadlines. If you underestimate
the length of time needed in a particular project, without doing accurate time
estimation, not only you will miss deadlines but may also lose a lot of money and
credibility.
With accurate time estimation, your project will be protected against delays
that may lead to cost overruns and negative feedbacks that may threaten your ability
to complete a project in a long run. One way to be able to estimate how long each
project will take is to have a detailed list of all the tasks that you must achieve to
complete that particular project. It is also essential to allow time for all the
unexpected and expected delays that will inevitably affect the work.