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THE OBJECTIVES OF ACTIVITY PLANNING

• Feasibility assessment
 Is the project possible within required timescales and resource constraints? It is not until we
have constructed a detailed plan that we can forecast a completion date with any reasonable
knowledge of its achievability.
• Resource allocation
 What are the most effective ways of allocating resources to the project. When should the
resources be available? The project plan allows us to investigate the relationship between
timescales and resource availability
• Detailed costing
 How much will the project cost and when is that expenditure likely to take place? After
producing an activity plan and allocating specific resources, we can obtain more detailed
estimates of costs and their timing.
• Motivation
 Providing targets and being seen to monitor achievement against targets is an effective way
of motivating staff, particularly where they have been involved in setting those targets in the
first place.
• Co-ordination
 When does the staff in different departments need to be available to work on a particular
project and when does staff need to be transferred between projects? The project plan,
particularly with large projects involving more than a single project team, provides an
effective vehicle for communication and coordination among teams.

Activity planning and scheduling techniques place an emphasis on completing the project in a minimum time at
an acceptable cost or, alternatively, meeting a set target date at minimum cost one effective way of shortening
project durations is to carry out activities in parallel.
PROJECT SCHEDULE
• A stage of a larger project, the project plan must be developed to the level of showing dates when each
activity should start and finish and when and how much of each resource will be required.
• Once the plan has been refined to this level of detail we call it a project schedule
• Creating a project schedule comprises four main stages.
First step
• step in producing the plan is to decide what activities need to be carried out and in what order they are to
be done_ From this we can construct an ideal activity plan — that is, a plan of when each activity would
ideally be undertaken were resources not a constraint
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• This activity plan is generated by Steps 4 and 5 of Step Wise

Second step
• The ideal activity plan will then be the subject of an activity risk analysis, aimed at identifying potential
problems.
• This might suggest alterations to the ideal activity plan and will almost certainly have implications for
resource allocation.
Third step
• Is resource allocation.
• The expected availability of resources might place constraints on when certain activities can be carried
out

Projects and Activities

Defining activities
Some assumptions that will be relevant when we start to produce an activity plan.
• Activities must be defined so that they meet these criteria.
• Any activity that does not meet these criteria must be redefined.

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• A project is composed of a number of interrelated activities. A project may start when at least one of its
activities is ready to start.
• A project will be completed when all of the activities it encompasses have been completed.
• If an activity must have a clearly defined start and a clearly defined end-point, normally marked by the
production of a tangible deliverable.
• An activity requires a resource (as most do) then that resource requirement must be forecast able and is
assumed to be required at a constant level throughout the duration of the activity.
• The duration of an activity must be forecast able — assuming normal circumstances, and the reasonable
availability of resources.
• Some activities might require that others are completed before they can begin these are known as
precedence requirements).

Identifying activities
Essentially there are three approaches to identifying the activities or tasks that make up a project
 the activity-based approach,
 the product-based approach
 the hybrid approach.
The activity-based approach
o The activity-based approach consists of creating a list of all the activities that the
project is thought to involve.
o This might involve a brainstorming session involving the whole project team or it
might stern from an analysis of similar past projects.
o When listing activities, particularly for a large project, it might be helpful to sub-
divide the project into the main life-style stages and consider each of these separately.
o Generating a task list is to create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). This involves
identifying the main (or high- level) tasks required to complete a project and then
breaking each of these down into a set of Jower-Jevel tasks.
o Activities are added to a branch in the structure if they directly contribute to the
task immediately above — if they do not contribute to the parent task, then they
should not be added to that branch.
o The tasks at each level in any branch should include everything that is required to
complete the task at the higher level — if they are not a comprehensive definition of
the parent task, then something is missing. When preparing a WBS, consideration
must be given to the final level of detail

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Advantages
• The WBS approach include the belief that it is much more likely to result in a task catalogue
• That is complete and is composed of non- overlapping activities.
• Project’s activities need to be sequenced in the sense of deciding which activities need to be completed
before others can start.
The product based approach
• It consists of producing a Product Breakdown Structure and a Product Flow Diagram.
• The PFD indicates, for each product, which other products are required as inputs.
• The PFD can therefore be easily transformed into an ordered list of activities by identifying the
transformations that turn products into others.
• This approach is particularly appropriate if using a methodology such as Structured Systems Analysis
and Design Method (SSADM), which clearly specifies, for each step or task, each of the products
required and the activities required to produce it.

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• The SSADM Reference Manual also supplies generic activity networks and, using the project-specific
PBS and derived PFD, these may be used as a basis for developing a project-specific activity network.
• Figure 6.4 illustrates an activity network for the activities required to create the products in Figure 6.3.
• Notice how the development of a PFD leads directly to an activity network that indicates the sequencing
of activities — in Figure 6.4, activity 340 (Enhance required data model) requires products from activity
330 and activity 360 needs products from both activities 330 and 340.

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The hybrid approach

• The WBS illustrated in Figure 6.2 is based entirely on a structuring of activities.
• WBS may be based upon the project's products as illustrated in Figure 6.5. Which is in turn based on a
simple list of final deliverables and, for each deliverable, a set of activities required to produce that
product.
• Figure 6.5 illustrates a flat WBS and it is likely that, in a project of any size, it would be beneficial to
introduce additional levels — structuring both products and activities.
• The degree to which the structuring is product-based or activity-based might be influenced by the nature
of the project and the particular development method adopted.
• As with a purely activity-based WBS, having identified the activities we are then left with the task of
sequencing them.

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• A framework dictating the number of levels and the nature of each level in the structure may be imposed
on a NVBS. For example, in their Master Intern Training Plan (MITP) methodology, IBM recommend
that the following five levels should be used in a WBS:
• Level I: Project.
• Level 2: Deliverables such as software, manuals and training courses.
• Level 3: Components which are the key work items needed to produce deliverables, such as the modules
and tests required to produce the system software.
• Level 4: Work-packages which are major work items, or collections of related tasks, required to produce
a component.
• Level 5: Tasks which are tasks that will normally be the responsibility of a single person.
A structuring of activities for the SSADM Requirements Specification stage (from Goodiand and Slater)

SEQUENCING AND SCHEDULING ACTIVITIES

• Throughout a project, we will require a schedule that clearly indicates when each of the project's
activities is planned to occur and what resources it will need.
• The chart shown has been drawn up taking account of the nature of the development process that is.
Certain tasks must be completed before others may start) and the resources that are available (for
example, activity C follows activity B because Andy cannot work on both tasks at the same time).

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• In drawing up the chart, we have therefore done two things — we have sequenced the tasks (that is,
identified the dependencies among activities dictated by the development process) and scheduled them
(that is, specified when they should take place).
• The scheduling has had to take account of the availability of staff and the ways in which the activities
have been allocated to them.
• The schedule might look quite different were there a different number of staff or were we to allocate the
activities differently.
• In the case of small projects. this combined sequencing—scheduling approach might be quite suitable,
particularly where we wish to allocate individuals to particular tasks at an early planning stage.
• However, on larger projects it is better to separate out these two activities: to sequence the tasks
according to their logical relationships and then to schedule them taking into account resources and
other factors.
• Approaches to scheduling that achieve this separation between the logical an the physical use networks
to model the project and it is these approaches that will consider in subsequent sections of this chapter.

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NETWORK PLANNING MODELS

• These project scheduling techniques model the project's activities and their relationships as a network. In
the network, time flows from left to right.

• The two best known being CPM (Critical Path Method) and PERT (Program Evaluation Review
Technique).

• Both of these techniques used an activity-on-arrow approach to visualizing the project as a network
where activities are drawn as arrows joining circles, or nodes which represent the possible start and/or
completion of an activity or set of activities

• More recently a variation on these techniques, called precedence network, has become popular. This
method uses activity-on-node networks where activities are represented as nodes and the links between
nodes represent precedence (or sequencing) requirements.

• This latter approach avoids some of the problems inherent in the activity-on-arrow representation and
provides more scope for easily representing certain situations. It is this method that is adopted in the
majority of computer applications currently available. These three methods are very similar and it must
be admitted that many people use the same name (particularly CPM) indiscriminately to refer to any or
all of the methods.

• In the following sections of this chapter, we will look at the critical path method applied to precedence
(activity-on-node) networks followed by a brief introduction to activity-on-arrow networks

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Formulating a network model

• The first stage in creating a network model is to represent the activities and their interrelationships as a
graph. In activity-on-node we do this by representing activities as links (arrowed lines) in the graph —
the nodes (circles) representing the events of activities starting and finishing.

Activity-on-node networks - precedence networks

Constructing precedence networks
• A project network should have only one start node
• A project network should have only one end node
• A node has duration
• A node represents an activity and, in general, activities take time to execute.
• Links normally have no duration
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• precedents are the immediate preceding activities In Figure 6.9, the activity 'Program test' cannot start
until both 'Code' and 'Data take-on' have been completed and activity 'Install' cannot start until 'Program
test' has finished. 'Code' and Data take-on' can therefore be said to be precedents of 'Program test', and
'Program test' is a precedent of 'Install'. Note that we do not speak of 'Code' and 'Data take-on' as
precedents of 'Install' - that relationship is implicit in the previous statement.
• Time moves front left to right

• A network may not contain loops Figure 6,10 demonstrates a loop in a network. A loop is an error in
that it represents a situation that cannot occur in practice. While loops, in the sense of iteration, may
occur in practice, they cannot be directly represented in a project network.
• A network should not contain dangles. A dangling activity such as 'Write user manual' in Figure 6.11
should not exist as it is likely to lead to errors in subsequent analysis.
• Redraw the network with a final completion activity — which, at least in this case, is probably a more
accurate

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Representing lagged activities

• We might come across situations where we wished to undertake two activities in parallel so long as
there is a lag between the two. We might wish to document amendments to a program as it was being
tested - particularly if evaluating a prototype.
• Where activities can occur in parallel with a time lag between them we represent the lag with a duration
on the linking arrow as shown in Figure 6.13. This indicates that documenting amendments can start one
day after the start of prototype testing and will be completed two days after prototype testing is
completed.

Labelling conventions
• There are a number of differing conventions that have been adopted for entering information on an
activity-on-node network. One of the more common conventions for labelling nodes, and the one
adopted here, is shown on the left.
• The activity label is usually a code developed to uniquely identify the activity and may incorporate a
project code
• The activity description will normally be a brief activity name such as 'Test take-on module'.

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Adding the time dimension

• Having created the logical network model indicating what needs to be done and the interrelationships
between those activities, we are now ready to start thinking about when each activity should be
undertaken.
• The critical path approach is concerned with two primary objectives: planning the project in such a way
that it is completed as quickly as possible: and identifying those activities where a delay in their
execution is likely to affect the overall end date of the project or later activities' start dates.
• The method requires that for each activity we have an estimate of its duration. The network is then
analyzed by carrying out a forward pass, to calculate the earliest dates at which activities may
commence and the project be completed, and a backward pass, to calculate the latest start dates for
activities and the critical path.

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THE FORWARD PASS

• The forward pass is carried out to calculate the earliest dates on which each activity may be started and
completed.
• Where an actual start date is known, the calculations may be carried out using actual dates. Alternatively
we can use day or week numbers and that is the approach we shall adopt here. By convention, dates
indicate the end of a period and the project is therefore shown as starting at the end of week zero (or the
beginning of week 1).
• The forward pass and the calculation of earliest start dates is calculated according to the following
reasoning.
• Activities A, B and F may start immediately, so the earliest date for their start is zero.
• Activity A will take 6 weeks, so the earliest it can finish is week 6.
• Activity B will take 4 weeks, so the earliest it can finish is week 4.
• Activity F will take 10 weeks, so the earliest it can finish is week 10.
• Activity C can start as soon as A has finished so its earliest start date is week 6. It will take 3 weeks so
the earliest it can finish is week 9.
• Activities D and E can start as soon as B is complete so the earliest they can each start is week 4.
Activity D, which will take 4 weeks, can therefore finish by week 8 and activity E, which will take 3
weeks, can therefore finish by week 7.
• Activity G cannot start until both E and F have been completed. It cannot therefore start until week 10
— the later of weeks 7 (for activity E) and 10 (for activity F). It takes 3 weeks and finishes in week 13.
• Similarly, Activity H cannot start until week 9 — the later of the two earliest finished dates for the
preceding activities C and a
• The project will be complete when both activities H and G have been completed. Thus the earliest
project completion date will be the later of weeks 11 and 13— that is, week 13.
• The results of the forward pass are shown in Figure 6.15.

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THE BACKWARD PASS

• The second stage in the analysis of a critical path network is to carry out a backward pass to calculate
the latest date at which each activity may be started and finished without delaying the end date of the
project. In calculating the latest dates, we assume that the latest finish date for the project is the same as
the earliest finish date — that is, we wish to complete the project as early as possible.
• Figure 6.16 illustrates our network alter carrying out the backward pass.
• The latest activity dates are calculated as follows.
• The latest completion date for activities G and 1-1 is assumed to be week 13.
• Activity H must therefore start at week 11 at the latest (13-2) and the latest
• Start date for activity G is week 10 (13-3).
• The latest completion date for activities C and D is the latest date at which
• Activity H must start — that is. Week 11. They therefore have latest start dates of week 8 (11-3) and
week 7 (11-4) respectively.
• Activities E and F must be completed by week 10 so their earliest start dates are weeks 7 (10-3) and 0
(10-10 respectively.
• Activity B must be completed by week 7 the latest start date for both activities D and El so its latest start
is week 3 (7-4).
• Activity A must be completed by week 8 (the latest start date for activity C) so its latest start is week 2
(8-6).

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• The latest start date for the project start is the earliest of the latest start dates for activities A. B and F.
This is week zero. This is, of course, not very surprising since it tells vi that if the project does not start
on time it won't finish on time.

ACTIVITY FLOAT
• Although the total float is shown for each activity, it really 'belongs' to a path through the network.
Activities A and C in Figure 6.16 each have 2 weeks' total float. If, however, activity A uses up its float
(that is, it is not completed until week 8) then activity B will have zero float (it will have become
critical). In such circumstances it may be misleading and detrimental to the project's success to publicize
total float!
• There are a number of other measures of activity float, including the following:
• Free float: the time by which an activity may be delayed without affecting any subsequent activity. It is
calculated as the difference between the earliest completion date for the activity and the earliest start
date of the succeeding activity. This might be considered a more satisfactory measure of float for
publicizing to the staff involved in undertaking the activities.
• Interfering float: the difference between total float and free float. This is quite commonly used,
particularly in association with the free float. Once the free float has been used (or if it is zero), the
interfering float tells us by how much the activity may be delayed without delaying the project end date
- even though it will delay the start of subsequent activities.

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SHORTENING THE PROJECT DURATION

• If we wish to shorten the overall duration of a project we would normally consider attempting to reduce
activity durations. In many cases this can be done by applying more resources to the task - working
overtime or procuring additional staff, for example. The critical path indicates where we must look to
save time - if we are trying to bring forward the end date of the project, there is clearly no point in
attempting to shorten non-critical activities.
• What would the end date for the project be if activity F were shortened to 7 weeks? Why?
• As we reduce activity times along the critical path we must continually check for any new critical path
emerging and redirect our attention where necessary.
• There will come a point when we can no longer safely, or cost-effectively, reduce critical activity
durations in an attempt to bring forward the project end date. Further savings, if needed, must be sought
in a consideration of our work methods and by questioning the logical sequencing of activities.

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ACTIVITY ON ARROW NETWORK - CPM NETWORKS

Activity-on-arrow network rules and conventions
• A project network may have only one start node
• A project network may have only one end node
• A link has duration
• Nodes have no duration

• Time moves from left to right

• Nodes are numbered sequentially
• A network may not contain loops

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Activity labeling

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Forward Pass

Backward Pass

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Critical Path

RISK MANAGEMENT
– Risk identification – what are the risks to a project?
– Risk analysis – which ones are really serious?
– Risk planning – what shall we do?
– Risk monitoring – has the planning worked?
• We will also look at PERT risk and critical chains
Some definitions of risk
‘the chance of exposure to the adverse consequences of future events’ PRINCE2
• Project plans have to be based on assumptions
• Risk is the possibility that an assumption is wrong
• When the risk happens it becomes a problem or an issue
Categories of risk

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This is based on Lyytinen’s sociotechnical model of risk

• Actors relate to all those involved in the project including both developers, users and managers e.g. a
risk could be that high staff turnover leads to information of importance to the project being lost
• Technology – both that used to implement the project and that embedded in the project deliverables –
risk could be that the technologies selected are not in fact appropriate.
• Structure – this includes management procedures, risk here is that a group who need to carry out a
particular project task are not informed of this need because they are not part of the project
communication network
• Tasks – the work to be carried out. A typical risk is that the amount of effort needed to carry out the task
is underestimated.
A risk could be well belong to more than one of the four areas – for example, estimates being wrong could be
influenced by problems with actors (e.g. lack of experience with a technical domain) or the structure (over
optimism of managers keen to win work).

ISPL situational factors: the target domain

CLASS DESCRIPTION
information system the characteristics of the information system -
these are independent of the technologies that
might be used
computer system the characteristics of the part of the
information system that have been
computerized

ISPL situational factors: project domain

Project the types of task to be undertaken
Structure the communication systems, management
structures, work flows etc
Actors the people involved in the project
Technology the methods, techniques and tools to be used

A framework for dealing with risk

The planning for risk includes these steps:
• Risk identification – what risks might there be?
• Risk analysis and prioritization – which are the most serious risks?
• Risk planning – what are we going to do about them?

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• Risk monitoring – what is the current state of the risk?

Risk identification
Approaches to identifying risks include:
• Use of checklists – usually based on the experience of past projects
• Brainstorming – getting knowledgeable stakeholders together to pool concerns
• Causal mapping – identifying possible chains of cause and effect
Boehm’s top 10 development risks

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Causal mapping

Causal mapping – interventions

Risk Analysis - Assessment

Risk exposure (RE)= (potential damage) x (probability of occurrence)
Ideally
Potential damage: a money value e.g. a flood would cause £0.5 millions of damage
Probability 0.00 (absolutely no chance) to 1.00 (absolutely certain) e.g. 0.01 (one in hundred chance)
RE = £0.5m x 0.01 = £5,000
Crudely analogous to the amount needed for an insurance premium

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Risk probability: qualitative descriptors

Probability level Range

High Greater than 50% chance of happening

Significant 30-50% chance of happening

Moderate 10-29% chance of happening

Low Less than 10% chance of happening

Qualitative descriptors of impact on cost and associated range values

Impact level Range

High Greater than 30% above budgeted

expenditure

Significant 20 to 29% above budgeted expenditure

Moderate 10 to 19% above budgeted expenditure

Low Within 10% of budgeted expenditure.

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Probability impact matrix

Risk reduction leverage

Risk reduction leverage = (REbefore- REafter)/ (cost of risk reduction)
REbefore is risk exposure before risk reduction e.g. 1% chance of a fire causing £200k damage
REafter is risk exposure after risk reduction e.g. fire alarm costing £500 reduces probability of fire damage to
0.5%
RRL = (1% of £200k)-(0.5% of £200k)/£500 = 2
RRL > 1.00 therefore worth doing

Risk planning
Risks can be dealt with by:
• Risk acceptance
• Risk avoidance
• Risk reduction
• Risk transfer
• Risk mitigation/contingency measures

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Risk Reduction

PERT TECHNIQUES

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Monte Carlo Simulation

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Resourse Allocation

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Creating critical patterns

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Cost Schedule

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PERT –PROBLEM WITH SOLUTION

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2 MARKS QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

1. Define risk exposure.(apr/may 2019)

Risk Exposure is comprised of Risk Impact and Probability that the risk will materialize.
The risk impact is the cost to the project if the risk materializes. The probability is the likelihood that it
will materialize. Risk Exposure = Risk Impact X Probability

2. State the objectives of activity planning?( Nov/Dec 2019)

Activity planning and scheduling techniques place an emphasis on completing the project in a minimum time at
an acceptable cost or, alternatively, meeting a set target date at minimum cost. One effective way of shortening
project durations is to carry out activities in parallel.
Objectives:
1. Feasibility assessment
2. Resource allocation
3. Detailed costing
4. Motivation
5. Co-ordination

3. Name three time estimates of PERT(Nov/Dec 2019)

There are three estimation times involved in PERT; Optimistic Time Estimate (TOPT), Most Likely Time
Estimate (TLIKELY), and Pessimistic Time Estimate (TPESS). In PERT, these three estimate times are
derived for each activity.

What is Monte Carlo Simulation (April/may 2018)

Define Monitoring. (April/may 2018)

Risk monitoring is the process which tracks and evaluates the levels of risk in an organisation. As well
as monitoring the risk itself, the discipline tracks and evaluates the effectiveness of risk management
strategies.

Define feasibility management? (NOV-17)

Feasibility management will depend upon the availability of staff and the degree to which activities may be
undertaken in parallel.

What are stages made by project schedule? .(NOV -2010) (May 2016)
 Ideal activity plan.

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 Activity risk analysis

 Resource allocation.
Schedule production

Appraise the need for modelling precedence networks ? (NOV/Dec 2017)

This diagramming method is utilized to draw the project schedule network diagrams—for example the critical
path network diagram and the critical chain network diagram.

Name the three estimates in PERT. (NOV/Dec 2017)

In PERT, these three estimate times are derived for each activity. This way, a range of time is given for each
activity with the most probable value, TLIKELY.
Following are further details on each estimate:
1. TOPT
This is the fastest time an activity can be completed. For this, the assumption is made that all the necessary
resources are available and all predecessor activities are completed as planned.
2. TLIKELY
Most of the times, project managers are asked only to submit one estimate. In that case, this is the estimate that
goes to the upper management.
3. TPESS
This is the maximum time required to complete an activity. In this case, it is assumed that many things go
wrong related to the activity. A lot of rework and resource unavailability are assumed when this estimation is
derived.

1. What are called “Free Floats” and “Interfering Floats”? How are they calculated? [MAY/JUN
2012, APR/MAY 2015]
Free Float is the time by which an activity may be delayed without affecting any subsequent
activity. It is calculated as the difference between the earliest completion date for the activity and the
earliest start date of the success ding activity.

2. What do you understand by risk transfer? [APR/MAY 2015]

The risk is transferred to another person or organization. With software projects, an example of this
would be where a software development task is outsourced to an outside agency for a fixed fee. You
might expect the supplier to quote a higher figure to cover the risk that the project takes longer than the
average expected time. Risk transfer is what effectively happens when you buy insurance.

3. What is a “Dangle” in an Activity Network? Show an example. [MAY/JUN 2012]

A network should not contain dangles. A dangling activity such as 'Write user manual' in Figure
(A) should not exist as it is likely to lead to errors in subsequent analysis.

4. Define the objectives of Activity Planning.[NOV/DEC 2012, MAY/JUNE 2013, NOV/DEC 2013]
 Feasibility assessment.
 Resource allocation
 Detailed costing
 Motivation
 Co-ordination
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5. What do you mean by brainstorming? [NOV/DEC 2014]

Ideally representatives of main stakeholder’s shold be brought together once some kind of
preliminary plan has been drafted. They then identify using their individual knowledge of different parts
of project, the problems that might occur. This collaborative approach may generate a sense of
ownership in the project. Brainstorming refers to the process of a group of colleagues meeting and
working collaboratively to generate creative solutions and new ideas.
6. List the factors used to identify the risk.[NOV/DEC 2012]
Approaches to identifying risks include:
• Use of checklists – usually based on the experience of past projects
• Brainstorming – getting knowledgeable stakeholders together to pool concerns
• Causal mapping – identifying possible chains of cause and effect

7. What are the categories of process mapping ? [NOV/DEC 2011]

(i) High level
(ii) Low level
(iii) Cross functional / Swim Lanes maps

8. Define Hammock Activities. [NOV/DEC 2013]

– Artificial activities created for the representation of the overhead cost with the aim of cost control.
– Embrace activities belong to the same cost centre
– Zero duration time (not taking part in the time analysis)
– Overhead cost rate is assumed to be constant over the life of the hammock.

9. What are the risks to business impact? [NOV/DEC 2013]

a. Risk Identification- Organizations and project teams
b. Risk Analysis- Includes a download demo and other decision analysis tools
c. Risk Planning- assessment is an important part
d. Risk Monitoring- identify Development Environment Risks.

10. Give an example of activity–on –arrow networks. [MAY/JUNE 2013]

In constructing activity on arrow network we:
1)draw a node for each activity
2)add an arrow from (activity) node i to (activity) node j if activity i must be finished before activity j can
start (activity i precedes activity j). Note here that all arcs have arrows attached to them (indicating the
direction the project is flowing in).

11. What is Activity-on-Arrow (AOA)? [MAY/JUNE 2014]

One representation of network diagram put the activity information on the arrows between the
nodes are called an activity-on-arrow representation (AOA).

12. What is a hazard? List out the generic risks? How to identify hazards in SPM? [APRIL 2014]
A Hazard is an event that might occur and will, if it does occur, create a problem for the
successful completion of the project.
Some hazards are generic risks, they are relevant to all software projects and standard. Checklists
can be used and augmented from an analysis of past projects to identify them.
1. Staff inexperience
2. Lack of top management commitment
3. New technology
4. Users uncertain of their requirements.

13. List Any Risk Planning And Control Methods. [APRIL 2014]
1. Program evaluation and review technique

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2. Monte Carlo Simulation

14. Write the advantages of COCOMO.[ NOV 2010]

1. It is repeatable process.
2. It is easy to use.
3. It is thoroughly documented.

15. What is estimation? [NOV/DEC 2011]

It consists of assessing the likelihood and impact of each hazard. A successful project is one delivered (i)
on time (ii) within budget (iii) required quality. Targets are set which the project manager tries to meet
and it is reasonable. Stages of estimation are
(i) Strategic planning
(ii) Feasibility study
(iii) System specification
(iv) Evaluation of suppliers’ proposals
(v) Project planning

16. What is risk management?

Risk management is the procedure that explains the process of managing risk through analysis.
This procedure does not provide solution to perceived risks.

17. Short notes on Finish-to-Start (FS) Dependency Relationship?

One activity can start only when the proceeding activity finishes.

18. What is Activity-on-Node (AON)?

One representation of network diagram put the activity information on the nodes and is called an
activity-on-arrow representation (AON).

19. Name the three forms of presenting a project schedule?

 Table
 Gantt chart
 Network diagram

20. Write any three network diagram methods?

PERT – Program evaluating and review technique.
CPM – Critical path method.
ADM – Arrow Diagramming method.

21. What is a start-to-start relationship?

It means that one activity can start if and only if another activity starts.
22. What are the uses of nominal group techniques?
 Problem solving
 Creative decision making.
 Ideas generating situations.
23. What is critical path?
The path with zero flexibility is called the critical path, because it will have zero float between
all of its activities.

24. What is project schedule?

Once the plan has been refined to detail level, then it is called as project schedule.

25. What do you mean by an ideal activity plan?

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A plan of when each activity would ideally be undertaken where resources not a constraint is
termed as an ideal activity plan.

26. What do you mean by activity-based approach?

The activity based approach consists of creating a list of all the activists that the project is
thought to evolve.

27. What is Work Breakdown structure?

This identifies main tasks required to complete a project and then breaking each of these down
into a set lower-level tasks.

28. What is product flow diagram (PFD)?

The PFP indicates, for each product, which other products are required .

29. What is forward pass and backward pass?

The network analyzed by carrying forward pass is, to calculate the earliest dates as which
activities may commence and the project be completed.
The backward pass calculates the latest start dates for activities and the critical path.

30. What is risk identification and risk evaluation?

It consists of listing all of the risks that can adversely affect the successful execution of the
project. Risk evaluation consists of ranking the risks and determining risk aversion strategies.

31. What is risk control?

It concerns the main functions of the risk manager in minimizing and reacting to problem
throughout the project.

32. What are the three-step method of PERT?

a. Calculate the standard deviation of each project event.
b. Calculate the Z-value for each event that has a target date.
c. Convert Z value to a probabilities.

33. How to categorize cost schedules?

Staff cost -staff salaries, security fund, pension scheme, sickness benefits.
Over heads -space rental, interest charges, cost of service department
Usage charges – charged for resources

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SOFTWARE QUALITY
 Introduction
• While quality is generally agreed to be ‘ a
good thing’ , in practice what people really
mean by the ‘quality’ of a system can be vague
• We therefore need to define precisely what
qualities we require of a system
• However this is not enough- we need to judge
objectively whether a system meets our
quality requirements and this need
measurement
THE PLACE OF SOFTWARE QUALITY IN
PROJECT PLANNING
• Quality will be of concern at all stages of project
planning and execution, but will be particular
interest at Stepwise framework
• Step 1 : Identifying project scope and objectives
Some objective could relate to the quality of the
application to be delivered
• Step 2 : Identifying project infrastructure
Within this step activity identifies installation
standards and procedures. Some of these will
almost certainly be about quality requirements.
THE PLACE OF SOFTWARE QUALITY IN
PROJECT PLANNING CONT’D
• Step 3 : Analyze project characteristics
In this activity the application to be implemented
will be examined to see if it has any special
quality requirements.
• Step 4 : Identify the product and activities of the
project. It is at that point the entry, exit and
process requirement are identified for each
activity
• Step 8 : Review and publicize plan. At this stage
the overall quality aspects of the project plan are
reviewed
 THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFTWARE
QUALITY
• Increasing criticality of software: The final customer or
user is naturally anxious about the general quality of
software.
• The intangibility of software : This makes it difficult to
know that a particular task in a project has been
completed satisfactory.
• Accumulating errors during software development : As
computer system development is made up of a number
of steps where the output from one step is the input to
the next steps, the error in the earlier deliverable will
be added to those in the later step, leading to an
accumulating detrimental effect.
 DEFINING SOFTWARE QUALITY
For any software system there should be three
specification
• Functional specification describing what the
system is to do
• Quality specification concerned with how well
the function are to operate
• Resource specification concerned with how
much is to be spent on the system
 DEFINING SOFTWARE QUALITY
CONT’D
When there is concerned about the need for a
specific quality characteristics in a software
product then a quality specification with the
following minimum details should be drafted
• Definition/description : definition of the
quality characteristics
• Scale : the unit of measurement
 DEFINING SOFTWARE QUALITY
CONT’D
• Minimally acceptable : the worst value which
might be acceptable if other characteristics
compensated for it, and below which the
product would have to be rejected out of
hand
• Target range: the range of values within which
it is planned the quality measurement
• Now: the value that applies currently
 ISO 9126
• ISO 9126 standards was first introduced in
1991 to tackle the question of the definition
of software quality
• THE ORIGINAL 13 page document was
designed as a foundation upon which further
more detailed standard could be built.
• ISO9126 documents are now very lengthy
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
Motivation might be-
• Acquires who are obtaining software from
external suppliers
• Developers who are building a software
product
• Independent evaluator who are accessing the
quality of a software product, not for
themselves but for a community of user
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
• ISO 9126 also introduces another type of
elements – quality in use- for which following
element has been identified
• Effectiveness
• Productivity
• Safety
• Satisfaction
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
ISO 9126 identifies six major software quality
characteristics
• Functionality
• Reliability
• Usability
• Efficiency
• Maintainability
• portability
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
• Once the requirements for the software product
have been established, the following steps are
suggested
• Judge the importance of each quality
characteristic for the application
• Select the external quality measurements within
the ISO 9126 framework relevant to the qualities
prioritized
• Many measurement onto ratings that reflect user
satisfaction
 PRACTICAL SOFTWARE QUALITY
MEASURES
• Each project needs to devise its own measures to
meet its specific need
• The measures described relate to the final
software products of a project
 Reliability
 Availability
 Mean time between failures
 Failure on demands
 Support activity
 PRACTICAL SOFTWARE QUALITY
MEASURES CONT’D
Maintainability
• A key component of this is changeability which
relates to the ease with which software can be
modified
• Maintainability is changeability plus new quality,
analyzability
Extendibility
• it has two aspects one is ease with which existing
code can be changed while another could be the
ease with which new functionality can be added
PRODUCT VERSUS PROCESS QUALITY
MANAGEMENT
• The system development process is made up of a
number of activities that are linked together so that
the output from one activity is the input to the next.
• Thus program testing will depend on there being a
program to test which will be the deliverable from the
program coding stage.
• Error can enter the process at any stage.
• They can either be introduced because of a defect in
the way a process is carried out, as when the software
developers make mistakes in the logic of their
software.
PRODUCT VERSUS PROCESS QUALITY
MANAGEMENT CONT’D
• Error that creep in the early stages are more expensive
to correct at later stages for the following reasons
• The later the error is found , the more rework at more
stages of development will be needed
• The general tendency is for each successive stage of
development to be more detailed and less capable to
absorb change.
• Following process requirements should be specified
• Entry requirement
• Implementation requirement
• Exit requirement
 EXTERNAL STANDARDS
• BS EN ISO 9001:200
The standard is built on a foundation of the following principles
• Understanding by an organization of the need of their customer so that
they can meet or even exceed those requirements
• Leadership to provide the unity of purpose and direction needed to
achieve quality objective
• Involvement of staff at all level
• A focus on individual process which create intermediate or deliverable
product & service
• A focus on the system of interrelated processes that create delivered
product & services
• Continuous improvement of the process
• Decision making based on factual evidence
• Building mutually beneficial relationships with suppliers
 EXTERNAL STANDARDS CONT’D
ISO 15504
• ISO/IEC 15504 is a standard for process
assessment that shares many concepts with
CMMI
• The two standard should be compatible
• Like CMMI the standard is designed to provide
guidance on the assessment of software
development process
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY
• Three main themes emerge
Increasing visibility
Procedure structure
Checking intermediate stages
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
Inspections
• It is very effective way of removing superficial
errors.
• It motivates developers to produce better
structured and self explanatory software.
• It helps spread good programming practice as
the participants discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of specific piece of code.
• It enhance team spirit.
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
The general principles behind Fagan method
• Inspection are carried out on all major
deliverables.
• All types of defects are noted.
• Inspection can be carried out by colleagues at
all levels except the very top.
• Inspection can be carried using a predefined
set of steps.
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
Structured programming and clean room
software development
• With this type of development there are three
separate teams
A specification team
A development team
 a certification team
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
Formal methods
• Precondition
• Post condition
Software quality circle
• Staff are involved in the identification of sources
of errors through the formation of quality circle.
These can be set up in all departments of an
organizations including those producing software
where they are known as software quality
circle(SWQC)
Study of any software project management
software : viz Project 2000 or equivalent
• Microsoft Project is a project management software
program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is
designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan,
assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing
the budget, and analysing workloads.
• Microsoft Project was the company's third Microsoft
Windows-based application, and within a couple of years of
its introduction it became the dominant PC-based project
management software.
• . Microsoft Project's proprietary file format is .mpp.
• Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server are the
cornerstones of the Microsoft Office enterprise project
management (EPM) product.