1 Dave Inman Project Planning

2 Planning Plan at the start! The plan  Objectives  Milestones - work breakdown  Estimate times  Sequencing Rolling Wave Activity network Gantt chart How will you plan your project?

3 Objectives  What is your project about?  What will you produce? Code? Research synthesis?  What questions are you answering? Answer these questions for your project

4 Tasks What must you do to complete the project? What are the most important tasks? How long will they take? When must you do them by? What order must you do them in? How do you represent the tasks, and their relationships?

5 An example task Task ID: G Title: Test prototype 1 Minimum Duration:1 day Likely Duration:1 week Maximum Duration:2 weeks Depends on:F (Build prototype 1) Write down a few example tasks for your project

6 An example diagram - Rolling Wave plan Top Level BIT project

7 Example diagram - more detail BIT project

8 Network Analysis Duration Events Earliest start

9 Critical Path Method  A procedure for using network analysis to identify those tasks which are on the critical path  Any delay in the completion of these tasks will lengthen the project timescale  For all tasks off the critical path, a degree of tolerance is possible (eg late start, late completion, early start, etc.).  Software is available which requires the user only to enter the tasks, duration of each task and dependencies upon other tasks

10 Gantt charts  Gantt charts like rolling wave charts but dependencies shown as well  Dependent tasks shown under each other with a link  Easier to see simultaneous activities than activity chart  Harder to see dependencies

11 Major activities : CS  Plan  Research  Design  Build  Test  Refine  Report What are the major activities of a CS project?

12 Major activities : BIT  Plan  Research  Synthesis  Data collection  Analyse data  Summary and evaluation  Report What are the major activities of a BIT project?

13 Refining your plan  Any plan is an estimate  As you work on your project you can refine these estimates  This may cause you to re-think how you will finish your project  Refine your plan at the start of each term  Don’t spend all your time planning!

14 Some tips  Software does not make you a project manager Don’t get carried away with appearance and refining a chart at the expense of fundamentals.  Be conscious of your own bias Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? Do you allow for problems?  Be very wary when dealing with innovation If you project has lots of innovation try to allow escape routes if all does not work out as planned

15 Conclusions  You must include a plan in your report  Decide your objectives and tasks to achieve them  Break tasks down into manageable units  Decide on durations and sequence  Draw the tasks in a way to show dependencies and durations  Planning is an iterative process

16 References Some sections taken from: Guidelines for Multimedia Courseware Developers in Higher Education by Peter Davies, Tim Brailsford, University of Nottingham and Richard McCracken, Rights Manager, The Open University Stephen Rickard Multimedia Development, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Europe