Project Planning Dr. Jane Dong Electrical and Computer Engineering

Overview Why do we need design plan? Fundamental components in engineering planning Understand changes

Why do we need a plan? The project plan defines the work that will be done on the project and who will do it Without a plan, engineers could –Wasting time finding what to do next –Performing wrong tasks at wrong time –Produce late, low-quality and out-of budget product A good plan will –Give good estimation of workload and budget –Give reasonable work schedule –Accommodate changes

A linear version of design process User requirement analysis User requirement analysis Problem definition Conceptual Design Preliminary Design Detailed definition Validation Implementation Topic selection Broad objectives identified Engineering Planning is needed

Fundamental Components of Engineering plan Project definition –Goals and scope –Project rationale –How to define success –Statement of work & personnel A resource list –a list of all resources that will be needed for the product and their availability A work breakdown structure and a set of estimates A project schedule A risk plan –identifies any risks that might be encountered and indicates how those risks would be handled should they occur

Project definition (1) Goal and scope of the project –Has been discussed in previous lecture Project rationale –Background and motivation of the project –Should be considered before planning –Usually included in the project plan to justify the workload/budget How to define success –Should be considered before planning –Provide metric for evaluation (Performance, cost, timeline)

Project definition (2) Statement of work (SOW) –Give out specific features of the design –List all work to be done to complete the all features in the project Personnel –Who will conduct the work? (Team members and task assignment)

Resource List The project plan should contain a list of all resources that will be used on the project. –A resource could be a person, hardware, space or anything else that is necessary for the project but limited in its availability –The resource list should give each resource a name, a brief one-line description, and list the availability and cost (if applicable) of the resource

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) What is WBS? –A tree structure to describe all work to be done in the project

Why breakdown the work? For a complicate project, it is hard to estimate the work load, timeline, and budget. It is much easier to track and manage the progress ATTENTION: the total work includes everything: design, implementation, testing, management, purchasing, etc.

How to breakdown the work? Two ways: Top-down and Bottom-up Top-down approach –Convert broad objective  deliverables –Break the deliverables to activities –Break each activities to smaller, manageable components Bottom-up approach –A list of fundamental tasks available –Team divided into groups to discuss how to complete each task –Each group come up with a list of activities needed to complete the task –Analyze the activities to see how they are related to each other –Build up relationship among tasks, add missing link and remove redundant activities

WSB and Cost analysis

Estimation Based on WBS, estimation of timeline/workload can be made A sound estimation includes –Effort estimate for each task –A list of assumptions for the estimation –A buffer to accommodate changes in personnel, resource, etc.

Estimation –Wideband Delphi Wideband Delphi is a repetitive process to do estimation How to do estimation using Wideband Delphi? –First, teammate have a kick-off meeting to write down assumptions and agree on an unit of estimation –Individual estimation of each task –Have estimation session to discuss the difference –Repeat the above two steps several times until the difference falls within certain range

Software tools for WSB & Estimation Available tools: MS project, MS excel

Project Scheduling Project scheduling is an important part of project plan –Must have WSB and estimation beforehand Some concepts related to scheduling –Slack –Overhead

How to build a schedule? Step 1: Resource allocation –Personnel: task assignment –Time allocation for each task (overhead should be considered) Step 2: Identify dependency & priority –Some task may rely on the completion of others –Different tasks may require the same resources

How to build a schedule? Step 4: Create the schedule –Most project schedules are represented using a Gantt chart –The Gantt chart shows tasks, dependencies and milestones using different shapes