UNIT III

ACTIVITY PLANNING
Introduction
• Activity planning enables to
• Include a detailed plan of schedule indicating the start and the completion time
of each activity
• Ensure that the appropriate resources will be available precisely when required
• Avoid different activities competing for the same resources at the same time
• Produce a detailed schedule showing which staff carry out each activity
• Produce a detailed plan against which actual achievement may be measured
• Produce a timed cash flow forecast
• Replan the project during its life to correct drift from the target
Objectives of activity planning
• Main objective
• To provide project and resource schedules
• Other objective
• Feasibility assessment
• Resource allocation
• Detailed costing
• Motivation
• Coordination
Objectives of Activity planning
• Feasibility assessment
• To assess whether it is possible to complete the project within the timescale and resource
constraints
• Resource allocation
• To know the most effective ways of allocating resources to the project
• To investigate the relationship between the time scales and resource availability
• Detailed costing
• To know what is the cost of the project and when will the expenditure likely to take place
• Motivation
• Providing the targets and monitoring the achievements against the targets by the staff
• Coordination
• To know the time in which the staff needs to be available and when to be transferred
between the projects
Activity planning and scheduling techniques place an emphasis on
completing the project in a minimum time at an acceptable cost
When to plan?
• Planning is an ongoing process of refinement
• Plan during feasibility study
• To estimate the time scales and the risk of not achieving the target
completing date
• Plan beyond feasibility study
• To emphasis upon the production of activity plans – resource availability and
cash flow control
• Monitoring and replanning must continue until the final deliverable
has reached the customer in order to prevent meeting or cost targets
 Project schedules
• Project schedule is a plan developed
• To show the starting and finishing dates and
• To know when and how much resource will be required
• Project comprises of four stages
• First Step:
• To Construct an ideal activity plan to decide
• when each activity would ideally be under­taken where resources not a constraint
• what activities need to be carried out and in what order
• This activity plan is generated by Steps 4 and 5 of Step Wise
• Second step
• Activity risk analysis
• Identifying the potential problems
• alterations to the ideal activity plan is suggested
• May have implications for resource allocation
• Third step
• Resource allocation
• Ideal activity plan needs to adapted in order to meet out the constraints in the expected
availability of resources
• Fourth step
• Schedule production
• Project schedule is published indicating the planned state and the completion dates
Projects and Activities
• Defining activities
• Assumptions that are relevant when we start to produce an activity plan
• 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
• An activity must have a clearly defined start and end-point
• An activity requires a resource then that resource requirement must be forecastable and
is assumed to be required at a constant level throughout the duration of the activity.
• The duration of an activity must be forecastable
• Some activities might require that others are completed before they can begin (these are
known as precedence requirements).
Identifying activities

Three approaches to identify the activities

• Activity-based approach
• Product-based approach
• Hybrid approach.
 The activity-based approach
• Consists of creating a list of all the activities that the project is
thought to involve
• This might involve a brainstorming session involving the whole
project team or it might stem from an analysis of similar past projects
• For a large project, it might be helpful to sub­divide the project into
the main life-style stages and consider each of these separately.
• A task list is generated using 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 Lower-level tasks
• 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.

Advantages
• Resembles like a task catalogue
• Complete and composed of non- overlapping activities.
• Project's activities are 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.
• Appropriate for Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method
(SSADM) or Unified Software Development Process (USDP)
 Hybrid approach

• WBS may be product based, cost-

centre based, task based or
function based but that product
based WBS are preferred.

A Work Breakdown Structure based on deliverables

 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 shows the nature of the
development process and the resources
that are available
• Two things are represented in the chart
• sequence and their schedule
• The scheduling has to consider the
availability of staff and the ways in which
the activities have been allocated to
them.
 Network planning models
• Project scheduling techniques model the project's activities and their relationships as a network.
• In the network, time flows from left to right
• Two best known techniques are
• CPM (Critical Path Method) and
• PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique)
• Approaches used in both these techniques
• Activity-on-arrow approach
• to visualizing the project as a network
• activities are drawn as arrows joining circles, or nodes
• to represent the possible start and/or completion of an activity or set of activities.
• Recent technique - PRECEDENCE NETWORK
• Approach used
• Activity-on-node
• Activities are represented as nodes
• Links between nodes represents precedence ( sequencing )
 Formulating a network model
• The first stage in a network model is to
create a graph Do B
• Graph represents the activities and
interrelationships Do A Do D
Do C
• In activity-on-node
• activities are represented as nodes (boxes)
• lines (--)represents the dependencies
 Constructing precedence networks - Rules
• A project network should have only one start
Code Test Release
node program program program
• A project network should have only one end
node
• A node has duration
Code Test Release
• Links normally have no duration program program program
• Precedents are the immediate preceding
activities
Correct Diagnose
• Time moves front left to right errors errors
• A network may not contain loops Code Test Release
• A network should not contain dangles program program program

Write
manual
 Constructing precedence networks - Rules
• Hammock activity
• Have zero duration
• Assumed to start at the same time of the first activity and end at the same
time of the last activity
• Labelling conventions
• information on an activity-on-node network
• The activity label is usually a code Earliest start Duration Earliest finish
developed to uniquely identify the
Activity label, activity description
activity
Latest start Float Latest finish
• The activity description will normally
be a brief activity name
 Adding the time dimension

• After creating the Logical network model, time dimension is added to know
• when each activity should be undertaken.
• The critical path approach has two primary objectives:
• Planning the project to be completed on time
• Identifying those activities which delay the project
• Then the network is analyzed by carrying out
• Forward pass
• to calculate the earliest dates of start and finish
• Backward pass
• to calculate the latest dates of start and finish and the critical path.
Problem – Activity on Node
 The forward pass

• The forward pass is carried out to calculate the

earliest dates on which each activity may be
started and completed.
• 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 • Activities D and E can start as soon as B is complete so the earliest they
finish is week 6. 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
• Activity B will take 4 weeks, so the earliest it can therefore finish by week 7.
finish is week 4.
• Activity G cannot start until both E and F have been completed. It
• Activity F will take 10 weeks, so the earliest it cannot therefore start until week 10 — the later of weeks 7 (for activity
can finish is week 10. E) and 10 (for activity F). It takes 3 weeks and finishes in week 13.
• Activity C can start as soon as A has finished so • Similarly, Activity H cannot start until week 9 — the later of the two
its earliest start date is week 6. It will take 3 earliest fin­ished dates for the preceding activities C and a
weeks so the earliest it can finish is week 9.
• 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 forward pass
After forward pass
 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.
• The latest activity dates are calculated as follows.
• The latest completion date for activities G and H 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 E. 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).
• 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.
• It is clear that if the project does not start on time it won’t finish
on time
 Identifying the Critical Path
• At least one path through the network which defines the duration of the
project – Critical path (longest path)
• Any delay to any activity on this critical path will delay the completion of the
project
• Difference between an activity’s earliest start date and its latest start date (or
earliest and latest finish dates) known as activity’s float
• Any activity with a float of zero is critical
• Any delay in carrying out the activity will delay the project.
• Significance
• While managing the project
• Particular attention has to be given to monitor the activities on the critical path
• While planning the project
• In order to reduce the duration of the project, the activities on the critical path need to be shortened
The critical path
 Activity float
• Although the total float is shown for each activity, it really 'belongs' to a path
through the network.
• Measures of Activity Float
• Free float
• Difference between the earliest completion date for the activity and the earliest start date of the
succeeding activity.
• The time by which an activity may be delayed without affecting any subsequent activity.
• Interfering float
• Difference between total float and free float.
• It is associated 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

• Exercise: Calculate the free float and interfering float for each of the activity for the given
activity network
 Start and finish times
Latest
Earliest start finish
activity

Latest start Earliest finish

• Activity ‘write report software’
• Earliest start (ES)
• Earliest finish (EF) = ES + duration
• Latest finish (LF) = latest task can be completed
without affecting project end
• Latest start = LF - duration

SPM-Unit 3 29
Earliest Duration Earliest
start finish

Activity label, activity description

Latest Latest
Float
start finish

SPM-Unit 3 30
 Forward pass
• Start at beginning (Day 0) and work forward following chains.
• Earliest start date for the current activity = earliest finish date for the previous
• When there is more than one previous activity, take the latest earliest finish

EF = day 7

ES = day10

EF = day10

SPM-Unit 3 31
 Complete the table
Activity ES duration EF
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
SPM-Unit 3 32
 Backward pass
• Start from the last activity
• Latest finish (LF) for last activity = earliest finish (EF)
• work backwards
• Latest finish for current activity = Latest start for the
following
• More than one following activity - take the earliest LS
• Latest start (LS) = LF for activity - duration

SPM-Unit 3 33
Example: LS for all activities?

SPM-Unit 3 34
 Complete the table
Activity ES Dur EF LS LF
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
SPM-Unit 3 35
Float

Float = Latest finish -

Earliest start -
Duration

FLOAT
ES LF
activity

Latest start Earliest finish

SPM-Unit 3 36
 Complete the table
Act- ES Dur EF LS LF Float
ivity
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
SPM-Unit 3 37
Example
• earliest start = day 5 • earliest finish = ?
• latest finish = day 30 • latest start = ?
• duration = 10 days

Float = LF - ES - duration
What is it in this case?

SPM-Unit 3 38
Example
• earliest start = day 5 • earliest finish = 5+10= 15 days
• latest finish = day 30 • latest start = 30-10= 20 days
• duration = 10 days

Float = LF –EF= 30-15= 15 days

=LS-ES = 20-5 =15 days

SPM-Unit 3 39
Shortening the project duration
• By reducing the activity duration, overall duration of the project can be
shortened
• In many cases, this can be done by
• applying more resources to the task
• working overtime or
• procuring additional staff
• The critical path indicates where we must look to save time
• As we reduce activity times along the critical path, we must continually
check for any new critical path
Identifying Critical Activities

• Sometimes activities that are not on the critical path may also
become critical (near critical activities)
• Importance of Identifying critical activities and near critical activities
• Cause of delays in completing the project
• Risk analysis
• Resource allocation
• Project monitoring
 Activity-on-Arrow Networks
• Activities are represented by links(or arrows)
• Nodes represent events of activities (or groups of activities)
 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 front left to right
• Nodes are numbered sequentially
• A network may not contain loops
• A network may not contain dangles
 Using Dummy activities
Two paths with a common node

• When two paths within a network have a common 1

Specify Place
4
hardware order
event although they are , in other
3
respects ,independent ,a logical error might occur.
• We can resolve this problem by separating the two Design
Code
5
2 software
(more or less) independent paths and introducing a Data structure

dummy activity
• Dummy activities are represented as dotted lines on
the network diagram, have a zero duration and use
no resources
Activity Labelling
• There are number of different conventions for entering the
information on an activity-on-arrow network
• One of more common convention is to divide
• The node circle into Quadrants
• Quadrants to show
• The event number
• The latest and earliest dates by which event should occur
• The event slack.
Network Analysis
• Analysis proceeds in the same way as with activity-on-node networks
with emphasis on events
• The forward pass
• The forward pass is carried out to calculate the earliest date on which each
event may be achieved and earliest dates on which each activity may be
started and completed .
• The earliest date for an event is the earliest date by which all activities upon
which it depends can be completed
Forward Pass
The forward pass

Activity Duration Earliest Latest Earliest Latest Total float

start date start date finish finish
date date
A 6 0 6
B 4 0 4
C 3 6 9
D 4 4 8
E 3 4 7
F 10 0 10
G 3 10 13
H 2 9 11

ACTIVITY TABLE AFTER THE FORWARD PASS

BACKWARD PASS
 ACTIVITY TABLE AFTER THE BACKWARD PASS

Activity Duration Earliest Latest Ealiest Latest Total float

start date start date finish date finish date

A 6 0 2 6 8
B 4 0 3 4 7
C 3 6 8 9 11
D 4 4 7 8 11
E 3 4 7 7 10
F 10 0 0 10 10
G 3 10 10 13 13
H 2 9 11 11 13
Identifying the critical path
• Critical path is identified similar to activity-on-node networks.
• We use a different concept, SLACK, in identifying the critical path
• Slack is the difference between the earliest date and the latest date for an
event
• Measure of how late an event may be without affecting the end date of the
project
• The critical path is a path joining all the node with a zero slack.
Critical Path
Risk management
Risk identification

53
SPM-Unit 3
Risk management
This lecture will touch upon:
• Definition of ‘risk’ and ‘risk management’
• Some ways of categorizing risk
• Risk management
• Risk identification
• Risk analysis
• Risk planning
• Risk monitoring

SPM-Unit 3 54
Some definitions of risk
‘the chance of exposure to the adverse consequences of future events’ PRINCE2
‘an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a
project’s objectives’ PM-BOK
• Risks relate to possible future problems, not current ones
• They involve a possible cause and its effect(s)

SPM-Unit 3 55
Categories of risk

SPM-Unit 3 56
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?
• Risk monitoring – what is the current state of the risk?

SPM-Unit 3 57
Risk identification
Approaches to identifying risks include:
• Use of checklists –based on the experience of past projects
• Brainstorming – getting knowledgeable stakeholders together
• Causal mapping – identifying possible chains of cause and effect

SPM-Unit 3 58
Boehm’s top 10 development risks
Risk Risk reduction techniques

Personnel shortfalls Staffing with top talent; job matching;

teambuilding; training and career
development; early scheduling of key
personnel

Unrealistic time and Multiple estimation techniques; design to

cost estimates cost; incremental development; recording
and analysis of past projects;
standardization of methods

Developing the wrong Improved software evaluation; formal

software functions specification methods; user surveys;
prototyping; early user manuals

Developing the wrong Prototyping; task analysis; user involvement

user interface

SPM-Unit 3 59
Boehm’s top ten risk - continued
Gold plating Requirements scrubbing, prototyping,
design to cost

Late changes to Change control, incremental development

requirements

Shortfalls in externally Benchmarking, inspections, formal specifications,

supplied components contractual agreements, quality controls

Shortfalls in externally Quality assurance procedures, competitive design etc

performed tasks

Real time performance Simulation, prototyping, tuning

problems

Development technically too Technical analysis, cost-benefit analysis, prototyping ,

difficult training

SPM-Unit 3 60
Risk management-Analysis
Assessment – Monitoring

61
SPM-Unit 3
Risk prioritization
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

SPM-Unit 3 62
Risk probability: qualitative descriptors
Probability Range
level
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

SPM-Unit 3 63
Probability impact matrix

SPM-Unit 3 64
Risk planning
Risks can be dealt with by:
• Risk acceptance
• Risk avoidance
• Risk reduction
• Risk transfer
• Risk mitigation/contingency measures

SPM-Unit 3 65
Risk reduction leverage
Risk reduction leverage =
(REbefore- REafter)/ (cost of risk reduction)
REbeforeis 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

SPM-Unit 3 66
Probability chart

SPM-Unit 3 67
Risk management
PERT technique, Monte Carlo simulation

68
SPM-Unit 3
Using PERT to evaluate the effects of uncertainty

Three estimates are produced for each activity

• Most likely time (m)
• Optimistic time (a)
• Pessimistic (b)
• ‘expected time’ te = (a + 4m +b) / 6
• ‘activity standard deviation’ S = (b-a)/6

SPM-Unit 3 69
A chain of activities

Task A Task B Task C

Task a m b te s

A 10 12 16 ? ?

B 8 10 14 ? ?

C 20 24 38 ? ?

SPM-Unit 3 70
A chain of activities
• What would be the expected duration of the chain A +
B + C?
• Answer: 12.66 + 10.33 + 25.66 i.e. 48.65
• What would be the standard deviation for A + B+ C?
• Answer: square root of (12 + 12 + 32) i.e.
3.32

SPM-Unit 3 71
Assessing the likelihood of meeting a target

• Say the target for completing A+B+C was 52 days (T)

• Calculate the z value thus
z = (T – te)/s
• In this example z = (52-48.33)/3.32 i.e. 1.01
• Look up in table of z values – see next overhead

SPM-Unit 3 72
Graph of z values

SPM-Unit 3 73
Monte Carlo Simulation
• An alternative to PERT.
• A class of general analysis techniques:
• Valuable to solve any problem that is complex, nonlinear, or involves more
than just a couple of uncertain parameters.
• Monte Carlo simulations involve repeated random sampling to
compute the results.
• Gives more realistic results as compared to manual approaches.

SPM-Unit 3 74
Critical chain Traditional
conceptplanning approach

SPM-Unit 3 75
Critical chain approach
One problem with estimates of task duration:
• Estimators add a safety zone to estimate to take account of possible
difficulties
• Developers work to the estimate + safety zone, so time is lost
• No advantage is taken of opportunities where tasks can finish early –
and provide a buffer for later activities

SPM-Unit 3 76
Critical chain approach
One answer to this:
1. Ask the estimators for two estimates
• Most likely duration: 50% chance of meeting this
• Comfort zone: additional time needed to have 95% chance
2. Schedule all activities suing most likely values and starting all
activities on latest start dates

SPM-Unit 3 77
Most likely and comfort zone estimates

SPM-Unit 3 78
Critical chain - continued
3. Identify the critical chain – same a critical path but resource
constraints also taken into account
4. Put a project buffer at the end of the critical chain with duration
50% of sum of comfort zones of the activities on the critical chain.

SPM-Unit 3 79
Critical chain -continued
5. Where subsidiary chains of activities feed into critical chain, add
feeding buffer
6. Duration of feeding buffer 50% of sum of comfort zones of
activities in the feeding chain
7. Where there are parallel chains, take the longest and sum those
activities

SPM-Unit 3 80
Plan employing critical chain concepts

SPM-Unit 3 81
Executing the critical chain-based plan

• No chain of tasks is started earlier than scheduled, but once it has

started is finished as soon as possible
• This means the activity following the current one starts as soon as the
current one is completed, even if this is early – the relay race principle

SPM-Unit 3 82
Executing the critical chain-based plan

Buffers are divided into three zones:

• Green: the first 33%. No action required

• Amber : the next 33%. Plan is formulated
• Red : last 33%. Plan is executed.

SPM-Unit 3 83
ACTIVITY PLANNING
AND RISK
MANAGEMENT
Resource Allocation

84
SPM-Unit 3
Schedules
• Activity schedule - indicating start and completion dates for each
activity
• Resource schedule - indicating dates when resources needed + level of
resources
• Cost schedule showing accumulative expenditure

SPM-Unit 3 85
 Resources
• These include
• labour
• equipment (e.g. workstations)
• materials
• space
• services
• Time: elapsed time can often be reduced by adding
more staff
• Money: used to buy the other resources

SPM-Unit 3 86
Resource allocation
• Identify the resources needed for each activity and create a resource
requirement list
• Identify resource types - individuals are interchangeable within the
group (e.g. ‘VB programmers’ as opposed to ‘software developers’)
• Allocate resource types to activities and examine the resource
histogram

SPM-Unit 3 87
Resource smoothing
• It is usually difficult to get specialist staff who will
work odd days to fill in gaps – need for staff to learn
about application etc
• Staff often have to be employed for a continuous
block of time
• Therefore desirable to employ a constant number of
staff on a project – who as far as possible are fully
employed
• Hence need for resource smoothing

SPM-Unit 3 88
Resource smoothing

5
STAFF REQD.

WEEK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
SPM-Unit 3 89
Resource clashes
• Where same resource needed in more than one
place at the same time
• can be resolved by:
• delaying one of the activities
• taking advantage of float to change start date
• delaying start of one activity until finish of the other activity that
resource is being used on - puts back project completion
• moving resource from a non-critical activity
• bringing in additional resource - increases costs

SPM-Unit 3 90
Prioritizing activities
There are two main ways of doing this:
• Total float priority – those with the smallest float have the highest
priority
• Ordered list priority – this takes account of the duration of the activity
as well as the float – see next overhead

SPM-Unit 3 91
Burman’s priority list
Give priority to:
• Shortest critical activities
• Other critical activities
• Shortest non-critical activities
• Non-critical activities with least float
• Non-critical activities

SPM-Unit 3 92
Resource usage
• need to maximise %usage of resources i.e. reduce idle periods
between tasks
• need to balance costs against early completion date
• need to allow for contingency

SPM-Unit 3 93
Critical path
• Scheduling resources can create new dependencies
between activities – recall critical chains
• It is best not to add dependencies to the activity
network to reflect resource constraints
• Makes network very messy
• A resource constraint may disappear during the project,
but link remains on network
• Amend dates on schedule to reflect resource
constraints

SPM-Unit 3 94
Allocating individuals to activities

The initial ‘resource types’ for a task have to be

replaced by actual individuals.
Factors to be considered:
• Availability
• Criticality
• Risk
• Training
• Team building – and motivation

SPM-Unit 3 95
Risk management
Creation of critical patterns

96
SPM-Unit 3
ACTIVITY PLANNING
AND RISK
MANAGEMENT
Cost schedules

97
SPM-Unit 3
Cost schedules
Cost schedules can now be produced:
Costs include:
• Staff costs
• Overheads
• Usage charges

SPM-Unit 3 98
Cost profile

SPM-Unit 3 99
Accumulative costs

SPM-Unit 3 100
Balancing concerns

SPM-Unit 3 101