Project Planning
Class 7
SDLC
Project Identification
& Selection
Project Initiation
& Planning
***
Analysis
Logical Design
Physical Design
Implementation
Maintenance
Class today
Project Planning in more depth
Define the problem
Define the objectives
Project Feasibility
Produce the Project Schedule
Defining the Problem
Concentrate on current system
Provide enough information to make it
specific to your application.
Define Objectives
Should match to most, if not all,
problems
Why might objectives not cover all
problems?
Can be both quantitative and qualitative
Assessing Project Feasibility
Economic
Organizational and Cultural (or Political)
Technical
Schedule
Resource
Operational
Legal/contractual
Economic feasibility
Identifying the financial benefits and
costs associated with the project (CBA)
At this point, probably do not know
enough to complete in detail.
What can be done: list tangible and
intangible costs and benefits.
Tangible benefits
Can be measured in dollars and with
certainty.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Tangible Benefit Example
Time spent finding invoices, receipts,
and orders…
Assume person spends 10% of time doing
this
Assume your new system will reduce the
time to 1%
This represents a 9% reduction in time
If person’s salary is $25,000/yr, then
savings is $2,250 ($25000 * .09)
Intangible benefits
Difficult to assign dollar amount
Customer-related, societal
1.
2.
3.
Costs
Tangible
One-time costs
Recurring costs
Intangible
Other Feasibility Analyses
Organizational & Cultural (Political)
Technical
Other feasibility analyses
Schedule
Resource
Other feasibility analyses
Operational
Legal / Contractual
Staff the Project
Covered in earlier class
Representing and Scheduling
Project Plans
Gantt Chart: graphical representation of a
project that shows each task activity as a
horizontal bar.
Pert chart: A diagram that depicts project
activities and their inter-relationships.
Critical path scheduling: a scheduling
technique where the order and duration of
the sequence of activities directly affect the
completion date of a project.
Steps in Project Scheduling
Identify phases/activities/tasks in
project (use SDLC as guide)
Estimate the size of the task
Determine sequence for identified tasks
Schedule tasks
Class Activity
A project has been defined to contain
the following list of activities and tasks
along with their required times for
completion:
ACTIVITY/task Time (weeks) Predecessors
ANALYSIS:
1 – collect requirements 2 -
2 – analyze processes 3 1
3 – analyze data 3 2
DESIGN:
4 – design processes 7 2
5 – design data 6 2
6 – design screens 1 3,4
7 – design reports 5 4,5
IMPLEMENTATION:
8 – program 4 6,7
9 – test and document 8 7
10 – install 2 8,9
Lab
Using Microsoft PM to create a project
schedule (Gantt and PERT)