Lecture 2

MANAGING
SUCCESSFUL
COMPUTING
PROJECT
Initiation of the project and project
planning phase
 The Initiation phase of the project is the
most important phase. The success of
the entire project depends on how
clearly and completely the Terms of
References are established.
 is at this point where the opportunity or
reason for the project is identified and a
project is developed to take advantage
of that opportunity.
 The Project Initiation Phase is the 1st phase in
the Project Management Life Cycle, as it
involves starting up a new project.
 start a new project by defining its objectives,
scope, purpose and deliverables to be produced.
 hire your project team, setup the Project Office
and review the project, to gain approval to begin
the next phase.
 Overall, there are six key steps that you need to
take to properly initiate a new project.
 most crucial phase in the Project Life Cycle, as it's the
phase in which you define your scope and hire your team.
 The initial stage in the life cycle of a project is initiation, or
where the project is comes into form. Designated goals
and other processes that will facilitate a project’s success
are defined at this stage. The project scope along with
strategies to achieve deliverables is established. A project
manager is also chosen. He or she is responsible for
choosing the project team members. The processes and
tools selected at this stage are: Project Charter, Business
Plan, Project Framework, Business Case Justification and
Milestone Reviews.
Business Case
  used to explain the reason for starting a
project.
 shows how the use of financial and other
resources are in support of a business need.
 adaptable, fitting the size and risk of the
proposal, but it will structurally be the same
from project to project. It deals not in
technical issues, but the business concerns
of the project, and it needs to be
comprehensive.
The structure of a business case should follow as such:
 Preface
 Table of contents
 Executive briefing, which includes what the project is,
what the results of that project will be and why it should
be undertaken
 Introduction explaining the business drivers, scope of
the project and financials
 Analysis with assumptions, what the costs and benefits
will be, including risk
 Conclusion noting what the next steps will be
 Appendix
Feasibility Study
 an assessment of the practicality of a
proposed plan or method
project charter
 Or project initiation document (PID).
 outlines the purpose and requirements of
the project.
 it includes details, like business needs,
key participants and stakeholders,
scope, objectives, and overall goals. The
project charter provides a foundation for
defining project decisions and ensuring
they are in line with company goals.
Project charter should include
 Title
 Brief Description
 Background
 Goals/Deliverables
 Scope
 Impact on Other Business Systems and Units
 Stakeholders
 Roles and Responsibilities
 Milestones
 Budget
 Constraints, Assumptions, Dependencies, and Risks
 Success Measurements/ROI
 Project Approval
Phase Review

 This Form is completed at the end of the

Initiation project phase to tell the
sponsor whether the project has
achieved its objectives to date.
Project Planning Phase
 The Project Planning Phase is the second
phase in the project life cycle. It involves
creating of a set of plans to help guide your
team through the execution and closure
phases of the project.
 The plans created during this phase will help
you to manage time, cost, quality, change, risk
and issues. They will also help you manage
staff and external suppliers, to ensure that you
deliver the project on time and within budget.
Scoping a project
 Project scope is the identification of the
project’s goals, deliverables, budget,
and schedule. While scope can change
over time, it’s essential that you define
scope early on to set expectations with
all stakeholders.
 Because a successful project is measured by its
ability to complete the stated requirements on time
and on budget, it’s important for the requirements
to be clearly defined at the onset. Completing this
step early on not only sets expectations but also
provides a framework for you to fill in the details in
order to deliver your project on time.
 Defining project scope means you identify the
project’s purpose and deliverables along with the
resources you’ll need to execute your plan. Some
of the items you should determine are:
 Project Objectives
 Deliverables
 Constraints
 Assumptions
 Exclusions
 Schedule
 Budget
 Additionally, the Project Management Institute (PMI) outlines the
following six phases of defining scope:
 Plan Scope: Decide how scope will be defined, monitored, and
controlled.
 Control Scope: An ongoing phase where you manage stakeholder
expectations.
 Collect Requirements: In this phase, you define project
requirements needed to carry out your project.
 Define Scope: Once you have requirements you can finally define
scope including what is out of scope.
 Create Work Breakdown Structures (WBS): This common project
management tool breaks the broad project scope into a hierarchy of
tasks.
 Validate Scope: In this phase, internal and external stakeholders
formally sign off on the proposed project scope and deliverables.
Identify Project Objectives
 Like the scope, having set goals and objectives for your
project can help you avoid risks and steer a course to project
success. Having clear objectives will help your team stay on
track because they know precisely what they’re working
towards.
 An objective is specific and measurable and must meet time,
budget, and quality constraints. A project may have one
objective, many parallel objectives, or several objectives that
must be achieved sequentially.
 Although it can be difficult to write clear objectives, consider
the targeted key performance indicators (KPIs) that are
specific to the business case you are trying to solve. One way
to create clear, concise objectives is using the S.M.A.R.T.
method:
 Specific: Define objectives clearly and in detail,
leaving no room for interpretation.
 Measurable: Identify the key performance
indicators you’ll use to determine if you met your
objectives.
 Attainable: Pick objectives that are reasonable
for the team to successfully complete.
 Realistic: Set objectives that the project team
believes can be achieved.
 Time-Bound: Set a date or specific period that
you plan to accomplish the objectives.
Invite the Right Stakeholders
 Successful project managers ensure that they have the right
stakeholders involved early on. Many project managers often
overlook less obvious - yet critical - stakeholders, so it’s
important to consider everyone that may be impacted by or
have interest in the project plan, deliverables, and outcome.
 The other thing to remember is that stakeholders can be
internal and external. To maintain transparency throughout the
project, guarantee that you have the right tools and processes
in place to communicate effectively with all stakeholders.
 To determine the level of involvement and communication that
each stakeholder may need, consider the following five
important factors:
 Who are the stakeholders who have the most influence on
your project?
 Which stakeholders will be most affected by your project?
 How should you handle important people who aren’t
considered stakeholders?
 Who controls the resources?
 What are the top motivations and interests of your
stakeholders?
 You may even consider mapping the various stakeholders
on a Stakeholder Map, based on level of influence and
level interest, to determine who needs what and when.
Set Expectations
 Setting clear expectations of project objectives and goals, deliverables,
timelines, resources required, and budgets, is key to the success of your
project. Of course, it’s virtually impossible to anticipate every issue that may
occur and throw project timelines for a loop.
 But putting the effort in up front to consider and communicate all of the
potential issues, and then being transparent as things change, will make a
world of difference in keeping all parties on the same page.
 Here are some key factors to consider when setting expectations:
 Ensure the project charter is complete and well thought-out.
 Plan for risks and potential hiccups.
 Estimate realistic timelines and budgets, but allow for some padding.
 Share project plans with all internal and external stakeholders.
 Set milestones throughout the project timeline to show incremental
progress.
 Provide regular updates and real-time status reports.
 Be honest if things go wrong.
Create a Project Task List Organized by Phases
Create timeline
 A timeline is helpful to provide a visual
representation of the all the tasks within your
project and how they are connected or
dependent on each other
 there are many ways to create a project
timeline, one that successful project managers
often use is a Gantt chart. Gantt charts are
visual timelines that display tasks as bars and
enable you to track progress, map your critical
path, show dependencies, and make updates
by changing task duration..
Consider Available Resources
 esource management is designed to
allocate human and tangible assets —
finances, materials, and equipment —
efficiently and effectively. Yet it is one of
the most difficult processes to control,
maintain, and achieve success
Estimate Project Costs
 No matter what type of project you are managing, successful
projects require accurate cost estimates. Cost estimations
forecast both the budget and the resources needed to execute
your project. In turn, project objectives are achieved within the
approved timeline and budget.
 A cost estimate is the sum of all costs required to successfully
complete a project through its duration. Although there are
many ways to categorize the types of cost items, the most
simple way is in two categories: direct costs and indirect costs.
 Direct Costs: Expenses billed to a single project, like project
team wages and costs to produce physical products.
 Indirect Costs: Expenses that are not associated with a single
project, but rather, are used by multiple projects simultaneously.
 Beyond direct and indirect costs, project expenses
can also fall into the following categories:
 Labor
 Materials
 Equipment
 Services
 Software
 Hardware
 Facilities
 Contingency Costs
Assess Potential Risks
 A risk assessment matrix is a chart that
shows the severity of an event occurring
on one axis against the probability of it
occurring on the other. Here is an
example of a risk matrix:
Work Breakdown Structure
 Dividing complex projects to simpler and
manageable tasks
 project managers use this method for
simplifying the project execution
  much larger tasks are broken down to
manageable chunks of work which can
be can be easily supervised and
estimated.
Why WBS
 Accurate and readable project organization.
 Accurate assignment of responsibilities to
the project team.
 Indicates the project milestones and control
points.
 Helps to estimate the cost, time and risk.
 Illustrate the project scope, so the
stakeholders can have a better
understanding of the same.
Construction of a WBS
 identifying the main deliverables of a
project is the starting point for deriving a
work breakdown structure.
 "two weeks" rule, nothing is broken down
smaller than two weeks worth of work.
 8/80 is another rule used when creating a
WBS. This rule implies that no task should
be smaller than 8 hours of work and
should not be larger than 80 hours of work.
Goals of WBS
 Giving visibility to important work efforts.
 Giving visibility to risky work efforts.
 Illustrate the correlation between the
activities and deliverables.
 Show clear ownership by task leaders.
WBS Diagram
 he project scope is graphically expressed.
Usually the diagram starts with a graphic
object or a box at the top, which represents
the entire project. Then, there are sub-
components under the box.
 These boxes represent the deliverables of the
project. Under each deliverable, there are
sub-elements listed. These sub-elements are
the activities that should be performed in
order to achieve the deliverables.
  WBS is the input for Gantt charts
Example WBS
Chair
Example 2
New Toy
Class Assignment!!
 Construct WBS .
Gantt Chart
 traditional technique, also known as a
bar chart -developed by Henry Gantt
■ A visual display of project schedule
showing activity start and finish times
and where extra time is available.

■ Suitable for projects with few activities

and precedence relationships.
 Visual scheduling tool
 Graphical representation of
information
 Show dependencies between tasks,
personnel, and other resources
allocations
 Track progress towards completion
Building Gantt chart
 List all tasks and milestones from the
project along the vertical axis
 List time frame along the horizontal axis
 Activities: Create box the length of each activity
time duration
 E.g., activity one is scheduled from day1-day3
 Dependencies: Show dependencies between
activities with arrows
 E.g., activity 2 cannot start until activity 1 is complete
Sequence of Activities of The Project -
House Building
Gantt Chart for House Building Project
 Establish a time-phased network
 Can be used as a tracking tool

Benefits of Gantt charts

1. Easy to create and comprehend
2. Identify the schedule baseline network
3. Allow for updating and control
4. Identify resource needs
Class assignment
create the chart
Use of Bar and Gantt Charts for effective
planning.
 It helps project managers and project teams to assess
how long a project should take, determine the resources
needed, understand the dependencies between tasks,
and plan the order in which each task will be completed
if the whole project is to deliver on time.
 This timeline is proven quite useful for planning and
scheduling projects. It helps project managers and
project teams to assess how long a project should take,
determine the resources needed, understand the
dependencies between tasks, and plan the order in
which each task will be completed if the whole project is
to deliver on time.
 allows you to picture your project
against the time frame it needs to be
done in. It brings timelines, tasks,
milestones and all the other crucial
project details in one place so that you
and keep your project moving.
 Now think of a Project !
 Form its work breakdown structure
 Construct the Gantt chart