Linking theory and practice activities
The information presented in this book has been written in line with PMBOK (2013), personal experience and my reflections drawn from both clients and students.
While each chapter has covered content, reflection and questions (to reinforce and assess your level of understanding of the key points), reading alone will not always, nor automatically, translate into best-practice application where it counts the most—in your workplace and on your real-life projects.
To facilitate this transfer, the following exercises have been constructed to give you the opportunity of applying the knowledge and skills learned with reference to a workplace project. Each exercise contains a number of questions which follow the project life-cycle approach as they address one or more of the topics covered.
The exercises relate to:
■ business case
■ project proposal
■ work breakdown structure (WBS)
■ network diagram
■ critical path calculation
■ Gantt chart
■ lead and lag time
■ resource levelling
■ finalising the budget
■ capturing the baseline
■ measuring actual performance
■ performance reporting
■ project completion
■ project evaluation.
Business case
1 What business need (or opportunity) has been identified?
2 What is the background to the need?
3 What alternatives have been identified to address the need?
4 What objective criteria will be used to assess each alternative?
5 What benefits have been identified (qualitatively or quantitatively)?
6 Have costs and funding arrangements been considered?
7 What risks and suggested treatments have been identified?
8 Has an indicative timeframe been nominated?
9 Has the option of doing nothing been considered?
10 Have you justified the preferred alternative?
11 Have you recorded this information in a comprehensive, logical and well-presented document?
12 Has written approval been received authorising the project?
Project proposal
1 With reference to a ‘real-life’ project, think about why the project was created (rationale, justification, strategic alignment, objectives, benefits…).
2 Who are the stakeholders involved in the project (including the sponsor)?
3 Who will be the project manager and have they the prerequisite authority, visibility and accountability required?
4 What are the project deliverables (process and output)?
5 Identify all relevant (indicative) information relating to time, budget, performance and people.
6 Document all the inclusions (what will be done) and exclusions (what will not be done).
7 Identify all possible risks, constraints, assumptions and dependencies.
8 Reflect on all the information captured. Is there a consensus on what the project is, how it will be managed and what it will deliver?
9 Add any additional information required to support and/or interrogate the project (level of commitment, acceptance criteria, existing priorities, quality definitions, procurement strategies…).
10 Gain written signoff from the sponsor.
Work breakdown structure (WBS)
1 Design the appropriate format and layout for a WBS.
2 Review the scope inclusions and exclusions.
3 Brainstorm with the team members and subject-matter experts (SMEs) on what work has to be performed.
4 Break the project down into appropriate key phases (stages or ‘chunks’) and individual tasks.
5 Identify each task with a unique identifier (number).
6 Calculate the elapsed time (duration) that each task will take.
7 Record tasks sequentially (as much as possible and ignoring opportunities to do work concurrently).
8 Identify all milestones.
9 Determine the predecessor relationships between all tasks and/or milestones.
10 Using the resource matrix, assign resources (human and physical) to the tasks, concentrating on the task needs, resource availability, skill sets, charge-out costs and other criteria.
11 Calculate the required resource effort (work hours) to complete each task.
Network diagram
1 Draw a network diagram of your project, reflecting the detail captured in the WBS. If you find flaws or errors in your logic as you draw the network, please ignore them and continue. They will be corrected shortly.
2 Remember, time flows from left to right. The size of the network circles or boxes is irrelevant, as is the length of the lines drawn. Try to keep your relationship lines from crossing over if possible (it helps to follow the network’s logic).
3 Ensure that each task is identified and that task duration/effort is also shown.
4 Examine the network and review the logic it displays.
5 Does the schedule contain any errors? Are tasks linked unnecessarily? Have you accidentally omitted important tasks from the network? Do the task relationships make sense? Are there any tasks which ‘dangle’ in the network? Do any tasks ‘loop’ in the network?
6 Having (possibly) identified a number of flaws in your project’s logic, redraw the network correctly, fixing any scheduling errors identified earlier. Feel free to improve the schedule as well by altering relationships, by changing the scheduling of tasks, or by doing tasks in parallel.
7 Compare the revised schedule with the earlier version. Note any improvements and justify the ‘new’ logic to all stakeholders.
Critical path calculation
1 Trace through all the network diagram ‘paths’ and record the total (end-to-end) duration for each path.
2 Calculate the early start and early finish dates in the network by doing a forward pass through the network.
3 Calculate the late start and late finish dates in the network by doing a backward pass through the network.
4 Identify the critical path/s (the longest path/s) and mark with small parallel lines or with another colour.
5 Determine which tasks in the network are not critical and have float.
6 Assess the implications and/or challenges the critical paths and float present.
Gantt chart
1 Using an accurate timescale (perhaps graph paper), draw the project plan as a ‘to scale’ Gantt chart.
2 Include all stages, tasks and milestones, along with any deadlines.
3 Show all task dependencies clearly.
4 Try to limit specific start/finish dates (where possible) as it removes the flexibility needed by schedules.
5 Mark both the critical path/s and the tasks with float.
6 Reflect on both the elapsed task durations and the resource effort timelines.
7 Does the schedule present with a degree of complexity or ease?
8 Can some tasks be split to spread the time period (without increasing costs)?
9 Can the project be crashed to an earlier finish date and how would this affect costs?
Lead and lag time
1 Investigate opportunities to reschedule tasks with lead time (overlap and compress the project timeline).
2 Is there any risk in using lead time?
3 What other challenges and efficiencies does this present?
4 Investigate opportunities to reschedule tasks with lag time (delay and extend the project timeline).
5 Is there any risk in using lag time?
6 What other challenges and/or efficiencies does this present?
Resource levelling
1 Examine the schedule and locate the tasks where resources have been over-allocated.
2 Identify replacement resource allocations and/or other options.
3 Are there any quality issues regarding expected performance?
4 Assess the cost and time implications of these (internal or external) resourcing options.
5 Discuss these options with the sponsor for evaluation and approval.
Finalising the budget
1 Identify all the resource variable costs (rates of pay…) for each task.
2 Identify all the resource fixed costs (overheads…) for each task.
3 Consider whether any contractual conditions exist regarding costs and payments.
4 How confident are your estimates and have you communicated this?
5 Is any contingent funding available?
6 Determine the cash-flow requirements for the scheduled and costed work.
7 Determine the budget for the scheduled work.
8 Reflect the budget as a time-phased budget.
Capturing the baseline
1 Experiment with changing the resources, task duration, costs, sequence and so on to model different schedule scenarios.
2 Have you considered both internal and external dependencies?
3 Does the schedule reflect all travel, meeting and reporting time periods?
4 Confirm the ‘final’ project schedule.
5 Circulate to all stakeholders for approval.
6 Retain this version as the baseline for future comparisons.
Measuring actual performance
1 What change-control processes do you have in place?
2 Prepare a document that would accurately capture any scope changes.
3 What measure of performance will you use to track work completed?
4 Demonstrate the progress completed on the Gantt chart.
5 Would milestones be useful to track progress to date, and why?
6 How often should you monitor performance?
7 What role does risk play in tracking actual performance?
8 Update all associated documents, reflecting current status and forecast completion information.
Performance reporting
1 What information do the different stakeholders of a project require?
2 Develop a communications plan that reflects the stakeholders’ communication needs.
3 Why should progress, status and completion reports be documented?
4 What performance information will you produce under the progress, status and forecast reports?
5 What are the likely causes of scope creep and how might this be mitigated?
6 What corrective and/or remedial action might be required to bring the project back on budget and on schedule?
7 What reinforcement action might be required to keep the project performing on budget and on schedule?
Project completion
1 What acceptance criteria have you established with the client?
2 With the project completed, what responsibilities do you now have?
3 How do you ensure compliance and completion?
4 Prepare a project close-out report.
5 What lessons have been learned throughout this project?
6 How will these be communicated and acted on?
Project evaluation
1 What benefits (outcomes) were identified in the business case?
2 How were these benefits to be measured (quantitatively and/or qualitatively)?
3 Has the project delivered all of these benefits?
4 Is additional monitoring and reporting required for any outstanding benefits?
5 Prepare a benefits realisation report.