Chapter 3: Project Planning

(80% test nằm trong chapter này)

💡 Planning:
–“what” is going to be done, “how”, “where”, by “whom”, and “when”
– for effective monitoring and control of complex projects

Project Plan (PP) is the document that describes how the project will be executed, monitored, and controlled. It
integrates and consolidates all of the subsidiary plans and baselines from the planning processes

Project Planning Process

(In the demo project + big project must present all the process)

Step 1: Develop Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

(Include: tasks, subtask, work packages)

WBS: A primary purpose of the WBS is to ensure that no task is overlooked → for 1 project will divide to the main
outcome

Every task, no matter how small, should be listed

Along with material and human resources

This is a non-trivial task

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 Methods to buid

based on the deliverables/ outcomes

based on the production process

based on the timeline,..

💡 divide each phase in 3 levels → use the file teacher sent

Exercise: a beverage company plans to launch a new bottled tea product targeting young consumers (aged
18-25). They intend to carry out 3 month marketing campaign, covering both offline + online channels, with
a max of VND 300m. Your team is assigned to develop a WBS to ensure the campaign executed on time +
efficiently

(1) Team formation for the project

(1.1) divide tasks

💡 (1.2)

(1.1.1)
(2)

(2.1)

(2.1.1)
(3)
(3.1)
(3.1.1)

Step 2: Sequence of activities

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 (include: list of sequence acts, network diagram)

WBS only shows all the tasks in order to finish the project does not show the sequence of activities → k thực hiện
thứ tự của hoạt động. Nên chia WBS để nhìn công việc to như thế nào, còn xem thứ tự công việc (gantt chart) phải
nhìn vào sequence of activity

Project Scheduling:

A schedule is the conversion of a project action plan into an operating timetable

transform the figure into the list as following

1. List of sequence activities

⇒ Làm thêm cột predecessors

2. Network diagram

Step 3: Estimate resources and durations (50%)

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 1. Estimate resources

2. Estimate durations

3. Action plan

……..
The language of PERT/CPM

Pert (program evaluation and review technique) and cpm developed independently in 19050

1. Activity

A task or set of tasks

Uses resources and time

2. Event

The result of completing one or more activities. An identifiable end state that occurs at a particular time.

Consumes no resources or time

Predecessor activities must be completed

3. Milestones

Identifiable and noteworthy events that mark significant progress

4. Network: A diagram of nodes (acts or events) and arrows (directional arcs) that illustrate the technological
relationships of acts

5. Path: a series of connected acts btw 2 events

6. Critical path: the set of acts on a path that, if delayed, will delay they completion date of the project

7. Critical time: the time required to complete all acts on the critical path

⇒ BUILDING THE NETWORK: there are 2 ways of displaying a project network

(1) AON: Activity on node (the activity is represented in each node)

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 each task is shown as a node and the technological relationship is shown by the arrows

(2) AOA: Activity on arrow (the activity is put on arrow)

the activities are shown as arrows and events as nodes → usually associated with PERT

→ The course will follow the AON Method

RULES: !!!! → REMEMBER

💡 (1) all the project is temporary: start with start, end with an end

(2) all activities must be written in the note like the “rectangle note” → remember to make the border out of
the rectangle
(3) connections btw the activities must be in arrow line to show the sequence

Draw the network diagram - exercise (chiếm 5

💡
điểm trong bài ktra - vẽ theo AON method)

The activity B can be done chill chill. can be chiil

chill for 2 days

B has 2 days of floats/ floats → do not need to be

done seriously

A + C do no have minor delay as one delay can lead

to the delay of the whole project → The path that
connect “zero slack/ float” activity is called the
critical path

Critical path
A critical path for a project is the series of activities that determines the earliest time by which the project can be
completed.

⇒ Finding the critical path

(1) develop a good project network diagram

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 (2) add the durations for all activities on each path through the project network diagram
(3) critical path is the path that have all zero-slack (zero float) activities

EXCERCISES

dau recording 6

💡 chọn những công việc có slack → sẽ có thể rút được

những activity là 0 slack → critical path → k rút

Step 4: Develop Schedule

(4/09)

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 Managerial implications

💡 the primary attention of the project manager must be to activities on the critical path

if anything delays one of these acts → the projects will be late

projects are easier to manage when there is project slack

1. Network diagrams

2. Detailed plan for work package

3. Gantt diagram

Henry Gantt developed around 1917

Displays project activities as bars measured against a horizontal time scale

Most popular way of exhibiting sets of related acts in the form of schedules

Gantt charts are easy to draw

• Problems arise when several tasks begin at the same time and have the same duration
– Can make it hard to find critical path
– Only a problem on hand-drawn charts
• Software shows critical path using some visual method
• Even with software, technical dependencies are
harder to see on a Gantt chart

Gantt chart showing critical path, path connections, other data

Crashing a project

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 want to end a project earlier

when you shorten the duration of a project by reducing the time of one or more tasks

Why

reduce the costs

opportunity costs

time to market pressures

unforeseen delays

incentives of early completion

pressures to move resources elsewhere

CRITICAL PATH METHOD

normal duration estimates

normal costs

crash duration estimates

crash costs

crash cost per day

Possible ways

add more overtime (push employees work overtime)

employ more people to work

applying some technology to make the progress faster

Not on crashing

Important to make sure the resources required to crash the project are available

Technology may be used to crash an activity rather than adding more workers

Some tasks cannot be crashed

May have to expedite tasks not on critical path to make sure resources available to other projects

How to crash

start with the normal schedule

select acts to crash, one at a time

focus on the critical path

select least expensive activity to crash

calculate slope information on acts to crash:

slope = crashcost − normalcost/crashtime − normaltime

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 (A): 4w = 8000, nhưng muốn đấy nhanh tiến độ giảm
còn 3w thì cost = 9000 → 1w = 9000-8000/4-3 = 1000
(crash cost/week) → tương tự

💡 Mỗi một câu trình bày riêng 1 diagram cho rõ

câu 1: 19 ngày → tính theo cột thời gian dự tính (tgian dự kiến)

câu 2: Thời gian hoàn thành ngắn nhất có thể là bao nhiêu → nếu trong TH rút ngắn các công việc có thể rút ngắn lại
theo cột thời gian tối thiểu → thì dự án có thể hoàn thành trong bao nhiêu ngày

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 (câu 3 - record 10p + 20p → 37p recording 7)

⇒ Câu 3 dựa vào câu 2 để tính (tuỳ trường hợp bài sẽ có câu 1 hoặc câu 2)
CÁCH LÀM

nếu crash tất cả act theo bảng câu 2 để được 14 ngày thì sẽ tốn tối thiểu là bao nhiêu tiền

có cost per task, có thời gian rút gọn ⇒ tính thui

A: rút 1 A

B: k rút

💡 C: 1

Crashing principles: muốn giảm tgian dự án → giảm thời gian zero slacks → cviệc k nằm trên critical path k
mất chi phí crash nó → tăng thời gian thực hiện nó lên = thời gian bth (k tốn chi phí cắt giảm nó)

(có những công việc k cần crash nó thì thời gian thực hiện dự án vẫn = 14 ngày): B,C,E,G,H

Step 5: Resource sloping

Exercise 5.1 (resource sloping table - nguồn lực thực hiện dự án đối với mỗi công việc)

bảng có 2 axis: thời gian

(horizontal) + số lượng lao động
no. of employees
activity pre. durations (days) (vertical)
needed (person)
step (1): vẽ network of diagram:
a 10 2

b 6 1

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 c 5 1

d a 4 2

e c 3 1

Fast tracking a project

An expediting technique in which one phase of the project is started before preceding phases are completed

Used in the construction industry when the building phase is started before the design and planning phases are
complete

This technique is particularly appropriate when large proportion of work is routine

Resource loading
Refers to the amounts of specific resources that are scheduled for using on specific activities or projects at
specific time

It is usually presented in the form of a list or table

Issues

Most project management software assumes that any resource assigned to an activity will work on that activity
100 percent of the time available: Can be resolved by allocating a specific percentage of time to project

It is easy to over utilize human resources: Overtime is expensive

Resource leveling
To perform resource leveling, software will move activities so that resources do not exceed their capacity
– Using available slack first
– Extending project duration where using slack does not
work

Project manager may not try to level all resources

A working schedule may require more resources

A more-or-less steady state demand for human resources is highly desirable

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