Explain how Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is used in project management, support your answer with suitable diagram

Program (Project) Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a project management tool used to schedule, organize, and coordinate tasks within a project. It is basically a method to analyze the tasks involved in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and to identify the minimum time needed to complete the total project. PERT planning involves the following steps:

·         Identify the specific activities and milestones.

·         Determine the proper sequence of the activities.

·         Construct a network diagram.

Enumerate the differences between an Estimate and budget. Also describe the likely pitfalls which can impede the pricing function

Estimating Costs and Determining Budgets

In general we understand how to create the project human resource plan. To get resources you need to spend money (Cost) and you can’t spend an infinite amount. Every project has certain limits on the amount of money you can spend (Budget). Here I am going to explain about estimating the costs and determining the budget involved in a project.

Difference between Cost & Budget:

Many people confuse the terms cost & budget and even use them interchangeably. Unfortunately they are both not the same. So, the first thing we need, understand clearly the difference between cost and budget.

Cost is the value of the inputs that have been (or will be) used up to perform a task or to produce an item: product, service, or result. This value is usually measured in units of money. For example, you paid two programmers Rs. 5000/- each for developing a software program, and you paid Rs.1000/- to a tester to test the program. So, the cost for the task of developing and testing the software program is Rs. 11,000/-. You can add the costs of components of a system, and the sum will represent the cost of the system, but it’s still a cost and not a budget.

How Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is used in project management?

‘PERT’ stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique. It is also called "critical path method". 

It is an event-oriented planning aid, usually computerised used to estimate project duration when there is uncertainty in estimates of duration times for individual activities. It helps the project team to order the activities that must be completed to implement a decision.

Complex projects require a series of activities, some of which must be Performed sequentially and others that can be performed in parallel with other activities. This collection of series and parallel tasks can be modelled as a network. In 1957 the Critical Path Method (CPM) was developed as a network model for project management. CPM is a deterministic method that uses a fixed time estimate for each activity. While CPM is easy to understand and use, it does not consider the time variations that can have a great impact on the completion time of a complex project. 

Once the project is decided, it has three main goals, describes these in each phase.

Project goals keep the focus on what is most important. However, on some teams these primary goals are lost in their meeting's activities. Make sure each meeting is structured so as to move the project forward. Even if the progress is only inches rather than by huge leaps, the team must be pushing the project forward as quickly, safely, and reasonably as possible.

Three Goals of Every Project

Schedule (Finish the project within the scheduled timetable):

Your goal should be to finish the project within the timeframe agreed upon. This means you must do everything possible to drive the project to the end and stay on time. Remember to avoid guessing and incompetence in the planning of the scope so as to have a reasonable time schedule with which to work.

‘S’ Curve

The S Curve is a well known project management tool and it consists in "a display of cumulative costs, labour hours or other quantities plotted against time". The name derives from the S-like shape of the curve, flatter at the beginning and end and steeper in the middle, because this is the way most of the projects look like.

The S curve can be considered as an indicator and it's used for many applications related to project management such as: target, baseline, cost, time etc. That's why there is a variety of S Curves such as:

There are various S Curves.

1.  Cost versus Time S Curve - appropriate for projects that contain labor and non-labor tasks.

2.  Target S Curve - This S Curve reflects the ideal progress of the project if all tasks are completed as currently scheduled.

Define a project and bring out its main characteristics. In your opinion why a project is required?

Project is the A unique venture with a beginning and an end, undertaken by people to meet established goals within defined constraints of time, resources, and quality. A complex assignment involving more than one type of activity and production. Projects can take a variety of forms; some examples are a mural construction, a shared service project, or other collaborative or individual effort. Project is a job that is done one time.

For example Cooking meal is project. Heart surgery is a project. Project can vary both in their subject and in their size the most obvious characteristics of project are that it has to achieve a particular purpose and this is normally indicated in the project name.

o   A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. Temporary means that the project has an end date. Unique means that the project's end result is different than the results of other functions of the organization.

Explain ten golden rules which you as a manager must follow for managing a project successfully.

Project Management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and mutual interaction and tasks of various parties in such a way that reduces the risk of overall failure, maximizes benefits, and restricts costs. 

10 Rules of Highly Successful Project Management

The Project Management Institute defines project management as "the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements". To sum up, project management is all about making the project happen. It is a discipline of initiating, planning, executing, and managing resources with the goal of completing specific deliverables within budget and time.

A successful project manager is one who can envision the entire project from start to finish, and have the prowess to realise this vision. To keep pace with business and project managers need to make their management practices more flexible.

What do you understand by implementation? Explain various actions carried out in a project in this stage.

Implementation

The Implementation phase is typically the longest phase of the project (in terms of duration). It is the phase within which the deliverables are physically constructed and presented to the customer for acceptance. To ensure that the customer's requirements are met, the Project Manager monitors and controls the activities, resources and expenditure required to build each deliverable throughout the implementation phase.“Implementation is the carrying out, execution, or practice of a plan, a method, or any design for doing something. As such, implementation is the action that must follow any preliminary thinking in order for something to actually happen.”

Monitoring implementation asks the fourth key question "What happens when we do?"

Implementation is the stage where all the planned activities are put into action. Before the implementation of a project, the implementers should identify their strength and weaknesses (internal forces), opportunities and threats (external forces).

What is the “Project Management”? Enumerate the activity levels during various phases of a project in an organisation.

What is a Project?

A project is a temporary and one-time exercise which varies in duration. It is undertaken to address a specific need in an organisation, which may be to create a product or service or to change a business process. This is in direct contrast to how an organisation generally works on a permanent basis to produce their goods or services. For example the work of an organisation may be to manufacture trucks on a continual basis, therefore the work is considered functional as the organisation creates the same products or services over-and-over again and people hold their roles on a semi permanent basis.....

What is Project Management?

Project Management is the acquired knowledge and skills applied using a formal set of tools and techniques to initiate, plan, execute, monitor, control and close projects.

Gantt Chart

Definition: A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart developed as a production control tool in 1917 by Henry L. Gantt, an American engineer and social scientist. Frequently used in project management, a Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a project

Gantt charts may be simple versions created on graph paper or more complex automated versions created using project management applications such as Microsoft Project or Excel.

Risk Management & Risk Management Plan

Risk management ensures that an organization identifies and understands the risks to which it is exposed Risk management also guarantees that the organization creates and implements an effective plan to prevent losses or reduce the impact if a loss occurs.

A risk is something that may happen and if it does, will have a positive or negative impact on the project. A few points here. "That may happen" implies a probability of less then 100%. If it has a probability of 100% - in other words it will happen - it is an issue. An issue is managed differently to a risk and we will handle issue management in a later white paper. A risk must also have a probability something above 0%. It must be a chance to happen or it is not a risk.

Define the planning in a project? Describe various steps in planning.

The Project Plan

Writing the project plan provides a structured framework for thinking about how the project will be conducted, and for considering the project risks. Ultimately you cannot write a plan until you have a plan. Having a comprehensive plan may require the involvement of a range of functional experts, and it often requires the involvement of decision-makers.

A significant value of writing a project plan is the process rather than the outcome. It forces the players to think through their approach and make decisions about how to proceed. A project plan may require making commitments, and so it can be both a difficult and important part of establishing the project.

The project plan provides a vehicle to facilitate executive and customer review. It should make major assumptions explicit and provide a forum for communicating the planned approach and for obtaining appropriate approvals.