1. A Brief intro to Project Management What can it do for you
Avondale Professional Development 2017
Avondale Professional Development 2017
PM & U
PM & U
A Brief intro to Project Management
What can it do for you
Jack Seddon –

2. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Session activities
For this session and the one on Thursday at 3pm (also LT1)
Some small activities
Can work either as a group or individual
Would be good to come along to both sessions
Laptop could be useful
Files for this session can be downloaded at:
Jack Seddon –

3. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
What is PM?
A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to accomplish a unique purpose
Project Management (PM) is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project
Jack Seddon –

4. Attributes of a Project
Purpose
Time frame
Ownership/stakeholders
Resources
Roles
Interdependent tasks
Non-dependant tasks
Risks and assumptions
etc

5. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
The Three Forces
All project have competing constraints of time, cost, and quality
When you will deliver
TIME
BUDGET
QUALITY
Goals
&
Expectations
What you will deliver
How much it will cost
Which of these three is the primary force for your project?
Jack Seddon –

6. What does a PM do? Plans the project
Ensure the project is completed on schedule, on budget and to quality
Manage administrative details
Manage development aspects
Oversee quality assurance
Manage resources (staff, hardware, software...)
Monitor progress against the plan
Document, document, document and document..
Consider including up to 20% of budget for doing PM
Add contingency in time and budget
Project Managers should allow 20% of their time for R&D

7. A model for your project
This is a generic model, but you could choose/make your own adding other phases or items.
Progress Reports
Jack Seddon –

8. Apple Computer - Multimedia Production Model

9. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Defining a project
Consider client brief or proposal templates
Outline the project’s objectives & outcomes (what is required)
Agree on the success criteria and major constraints of the project, in writing with the client (usually ends in a proposal)
List the tasks and consider key milestones (Activity based)
Estimate time and costs for each task (as accurately as possible)
This will give you a good idea of the project’s scope and allow you to work out the critical path of the project
Note other items: travel & conferences, research & staff costs software and training, evaluation etc.
Identify any obstacles or risks that might thwart the project
Jack Seddon –

10. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Tasks list activity
Work as a group or individual
Write a task list for a simple project
For example:
Writing a paper with multiple authors
Birthday party
Building a deck
Organising bus trip etc.
As you consider the component tasks try to think about them as a progression.
Jack Seddon –

11. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
A WBS is a way of showing what your project consists of at various levels
You start with the top level as the project’s goal
Break this down into its constituent tasks
You will need to consider granularity (how much to break down the a task into sub-tasks.
Depending on project complexity, individual tasks may need breaking down further to make practical sense to those responsible (but not necessarily always on main Gantt)
Needed if complex project.
In this case we will skip the WBS and go straight to the network diagram

12. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Network diagram -
A network diagram is planning for making a Gantt chart Try not jump straight into a Gantt chart.
Network diagrams can be used for:
Showing logical sequence of activities (team communication)
Finding the critical path and estimating the project duration
Identifying areas for slack and possible problem areas
Often the available time will be dictated if the project is running to a definite end date, like writing a conference paper.
If your planning shows that you will finish later, then you will need to replan and reduce the time spent on tasks or you may even need to go to stakeholders and tell them you can’t do it (a Gantt chart is a useful tool to show your argument).
Jack Seddon –

13. Network diagram - Activity
How do we start:
Armed with your task list
 Arrange the tasks in terms of dependencies – e.g. you must do a particular task, before you can carry out another
Construct a network diagram showing the how the tasks fit into the project time-wise (which tasks are dependant on others
Assign a time for doing each task
One way to do this in a group is using post-it notes on a whiteboard etc.

14. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Network diagram
Xxxx
Jack Seddon –

15. Critical Path (project length)
With your network diagram you can figure out the critical path
The critical path is the longest path where tasks are dependant on previous tasks being completed.
The critical path also shows you the shortest time the project can be completed in.
Assess task dependencies and draw critical path (longest path time wise) though your diagram
Add up the times and that will be the shortest time to complete
Jack Seddon –

16. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
THANK YOU
Questions
Next Session we build a Gantt - Thursday 3:00pm (same place)
Bring your laptop if you want to follow along
while I demonstrate a example Gantt in Excel
Files for this and the next session can be downloaded at:
Jack Seddon –

17. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Next session
Thursday 3:00pm (same place)
Bring your laptop if you want to follow along
while creating a example Gantt in Excel
Jack Seddon –

18. Scheduling & Gantt charts
Can use Excel or other Gantt softwares (MS Project, FastTrack)
Three reasons for doing a Gantt chart
Planning
Communicating the big picture
Monitoring Progress

19. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Doing the Gantt
Now we will look at constructing a basic Gantt Chart in Excel
The steps used today are explained in this YouTube video:
Files for this and the next session can be downloaded at:
Jack Seddon –

20. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
THANK YOU
Questions
Files for this and the next session can be downloaded at:
Jack Seddon –

21. Jack Seddon – john.seddon@avondale.edu.au
Title
Xxxx
Jack Seddon –