Practical

Project
Management
 Practical
Project
Management
The Secrets of Managing
Any Project on Time
and on Budget

Michael Dobson

SkillPath Publications
Mission, KS
1996 by SkillPath Publications, a division of The Graceland College
Center for Professional Development and Lifelong Learning, Inc., 6900
Squibb Road, Mission, Kansas 66202. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior
permission of SkillPath Publications.

Editor: Kelly Scanlon

Page Layout: Rod Hankins

Cover Design: Jason Sprenger

ISBN: 1-57294-015-8

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-67864

10 9 8 7 6 04 05 06

Printed in the United States of America

For my beloved wife and partner

Deborah Singer Dobson

Contents
1 What Is a Project? ......................................................... 1

2 Focus on the Objective ................................................ 21

3 Starting to Plan .......................................................... 41

4 Laying Out the Project ................................................ 61

5 Analyzing Your Tasks ................................................. 81

6 Managing Time and Cost ......................................... 103

7 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart ........................ 123

8 Using PERT and CPM Charts .................................... 159

9 Budgeting for Projects ............................................... 187

10 Managing the Project ................................................ 205

11 Monitor and Adjust .................................................. 227

12 Special Techniques for Managing Multiple Projects .. 257

13 How to Wrap Up a Project ........................................ 271

Glossary .................................................................... 277

Bibliography and Suggested Resources ..................... 281

Index ........................................................................ 285

vii
What Is a
Project?

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2 Practical Project Management

What Is Project Management?

The most important thing to know about project management is
that first and foremost its a way of thinking about projects.
Project management is not simply drawing charts, or using project
management software, or leading teams, or any of the rest of the
technical material presented in this book. The charts, the
software, the teams, and everything else are means to an end:
helping you control your projects to achieve your goalson time,
on budget, and according to performance standards.
There is no virtue in preparing a chart for its own sake. The tools
of project management arent project management. Project
management is a way of thinking; the tools help you carry out
that thinking.
Project managers have been defined as people responsible for
doing something that has never been done before, for people
who dont know what they want, who must first predict the
unknown, make a plan to cope with the unforeseen, and execute
the plan with too-limited resources that they do not control, and
who are held completely responsible for the results, even if
miracles are required. This book is designed to help make that
possible.
 What Is a Project? 3

Q uiz
Answer the following questions T for True or F for False.
T F
My boss always gives me all the money I need to
get my projects done the right way.
My boss always gives me all the time I need to get
my projects done the right way.
My boss always gives me all the people and
resources I need to get my projects done the right
way.
My boss always gives me enough authority to get
my projects done the right way.
My bosses and customers always know what they
want the project to accomplish, and they state it
clearly.
If you answered false to nearly all these questions, youre a
normal project manager.
4 Practical Project Management

How Projects Differ From Normal Work

A project is something thats distinct from the normal
circumstances of everyday work. A project has the following
characteristics:
1. A project is goal oriented.
A project has a beginning, a middle, and most of all, an end.
The goal behind any project is to achieve some defined result.
A project is never simply an end in itself; rather it is a means
to an end.
Project: Build a new warehouse
Not a Project: Get the accounting reports done each month
Project: Publish the June issue of the employee newsletter
Not a Project: Decide which work assignments have priority
2. A project consists of tasks that can be put into a
connected and interrelated sequence.
A key element of projects is that they can be broken down
into tasks, which are the specific work packages that have to
be accomplished in order to achieve the goal. In an important
sense, there is really no such thing as project management;
rather, there is task management. From a technical
perspective, when you manage a project, you break the
project down into tasks, organize the tasks into a logical order
(a plan), and manage the performance of the tasks, one by
one. If youve broken down the tasks properly and you
manage each one successfully, your projects outcome should
be fairly certain.
So, the concept of tasks makes project management
possible.
 What Is a Project? 5

3. A project has a limited duration.

Because projects have specific goals and a plan for achieving
them, projects are always and necessarily time-limited. If the
project seems never to approach an actual conclusion, one of
two things is true:
1. It wasnt really a project in the first place, but rather a
program.
2. Its a project, but one thats in serious trouble. The goal of
project management is ultimately to end the project,
preferably successfully.
4. A project is unique and nonroutine.
If you do it all the time, and its the primary activity or at least
one of the primary activities of your job, its not really a
project.
With a project, you are trying to achieve a specific goal. Once the
project is complete, you shouldnt have to do that specific project
again.
Each project has unique problems and situations. Some projects
are unique in every respect. Others are similar in topic, but
unique in their details. For example, a book publisher publishes
many books. Each book is a project because it has a goal, it can
be broken into tasks, and the process of publishing the book is
limited. When the book is published, that specific project is
completed, and the published book is the project outcome. That
book doesnt need to be published again. Marketing the book is
more appropriately considered a program, because its ongoing
(see Projects Versus Programs Versus Priorities). While a book
may go out of print at some point, that point is not
predetermined, and the publisher (not to mention the author)
normally wants to delay that event as long as possible.
6 Practical Project Management

Even though all book publishing projects are similar, each

individual book project has its unique qualities. Books differ in
topic, page count, format, illustrations, target audience, and many
other features. As you can see, some parts of managing book
projects are the same, but each individual book differs in at least
some respects.
In other words, there are no cookie cutter projects. If you are
managing similar projects, take advantage of the similarities to
streamline the planning and management process, but be sure to
plan for the differences and issues that make each project unique.

Projects Versus Programs

Versus Priorities
The first question in project management is always, Do you have
a project to manage? Many normal management functions, even
quite complex and important ones, arent projects. They simply
dont fit the technical definition.
If its not a project, it may be a program. A program has no
conclusion; its ongoing and indefinite. Perhaps one day well
stop preparing monthly reports, but the aim of the program is to
prepare them. There is no end. A program managers primary
duty is to achieve better quality performance (faster, better,
cheaper) from the ongoing program. Continuous Improvement
(from TQM) processes, which have no definite end, are good
examples of programs.
Sometimes, the concern is priorities management, or how to
separate the merely urgent from the truly important. To manage
your priorities, you need to have an overall goal (to lower costs,
to grow market share, to make a better automobile) that doesnt
have a predetermined end point. You can lower costs forever, at
least in theory. You can always make your car better, or at least
different. You can always grow market share.
 What Is a Project? 7

Program management and priorities management, however

important to the organization, are not the same thing as project
management, which involves nonroutine, goal-oriented projects
with limited duration. You can apply many of the tools and ideas
of project management to other aspects of your work, but not
necessarily all of them.

Why You Dont Get the Money, Time,

or People You Need
The very characteristics of a project help explain why it
sometimes seems that senior management sits up late at night
thinking of new ways to stick it to your projects. They do, you
see, because thats their jobreally!
Remember that in every organization, there are far more projects
that are desirable and potentially profitable than there are
resources to manage them. In other words, work is infinite but
resources are finite.
Every time senior management gives you a dollar for your project,
every time they give you a person for your project, every time
they give you a week for your project, that is a dollar, a person,
or a week they cant give to someone else running a different
project that also has value.
Why dont you get the authority you need? Again, because
projects are time-limited and unique. Every project manager
would like to control purchasing, for example, or data processing.
Yet if there are multiple projects going on in a company, not
every project manager can control these common areas.
Sometimes you need resources or people for part of your project,
and others need the same resources or people for part of their
projects. Getting all the authority you need would either deprive
other project managers or require redoing the entire table of
organization for each projector both. Its not practical.
8 Practical Project Management

You must always plan on managing your projects in an

environment of scarcity and authority limits because senior
management cant give you everything you might wantand
simultaneously achieve their other goals.

How to Train an Elephant

(Orange Ropes)
To train an elephant, always start with a baby elephant. Get
a length of strong rope, and paint it bright orange. Tie the
orange rope around the leg of the baby elephant. The baby
elephant will not like this, and will try to escape. The orange
rope is too strong for the elephant, who eventually gives up.
If you use the orange rope technique long enough, the baby
elephant grows to adulthood. Now, take any rope, no matter
how rotten or flimsy, and paint it bright orange, just as
before. Tie the orange rope around the leg of the giant, full-
grown elephant, and the elephant cannot escape. The
elephant looks at the orange rope and thinks: Hmm
orange rope. I know from experience that you cant break
an orange rope.
Moral: You have real barriers and real problems in
managing your projects, but some are simply orange ropes.
Theres only one way to break an orange ropeto recognize
it for what it truly is and overcome the restraint.
 What Is a Project? 9

The Project Life CycleA Process Map

for Your Success
Baseball great Yogi Berra warned, If you dont know where
youre going, you just might end up somewhere else.
Part of thinking like a project manager involves knowing where
youre goingunderstanding the life cycle of a project (see fig.
1.1). The key lesson of the project life cycle is this: each step
depends on its predecessor. To manage your project successfully,
do the work in this order:
Define. Before you can ever do a competent job managing a
project, you must first define what youre doing and why. Success
expert Brian Tracy calls goal setting the threshold skill
underlying all achievement. Nowhere is this more true than in
the area of projects. While a good goal will not guarantee a
successful project, the lack of a good goal guarantees failure.
The new Denver International Airport was run by highly
experienced and intelligent project managers, and nevertheless
ended up behind schedule, over budget, and unable to achieve
its performance objectives. Why? One key reason may be that the
project originators and management did not fully define what
they wanted to achieve before they went to work. Project goals
continued to evolve during the actual work, forcing expensive re-
dos, abrupt changes in direction and, ultimately, public
embarrassment.
The failure to define properly is the single biggest cause of
project failure.
10 Practical Project Management

Define

Plan

Execute

Adjust The Loop Monitor

Complete

Evaluate

Celebrate

Fig. 1.1. The project life cycle.

 What Is a Project? 11

Plan. Planning is the technical heart of the discipline known as

project management. From Gantt charts to PERT and CPM, from
Work Breakdown Structures to budgets, good project managers
plan thoroughly. Planning has two major virtues:
1. A good plan teaches you about your project.
2. Any plan, whether good or not, helps you monitor where
your project is, compared to where it should be.
The Loop. Once you have your plan in place, youre ready to
begin the actual management of your project. This process is
called the Loop because it contains the three steps you repeat in
sequence throughout the management phase until your project is
complete. The three elements of the Loop are:
1. Execute. This is the process of assigning tasks to team
members and ensuring that they carry out the work.
2. Monitor. Compare the tasks being completed to the plan.
Is the work being completed on time, on budget, and
according to performance specifications?
3. Adjust. Whenever monitoring reveals a discrepancy
between plan and reality, its time to make adjustments.
The earlier you find a problem, the easier it is to solve.
12 Practical Project Management

The Godzilla Principle

In Japanese monster movies, theres frequently a scene
where the monster du jour (Godzilla, Mothra, Gamora, etc.)
is a cute little baby monster. People say, Oh, what a cute
little monster! Obviously, theres no urgency. They ignore
the monster.
They wait until the monster is full grown and busily
stomping downtown Tokyo, and then they shout, What are
we going to do?
The answer is, of course, nothing. When Godzilla is
rampaging through downtown Tokyo, theres very little you
can do about it. The best option has passed.
On your projects, spend time in baby monster patrol.
Every time you find a little problem with the power to grow
into a big one later, stomp on it at once.
For example, imagine that youre in charge of your
companys summer picnic. Consider:
Could it rain on your picnic?
Can you predict whether it will?
Can you control whether it will?
Will your boss let you off the hook if it does rain?
Do you think its fair to be held responsible for something
you can neither predict nor control?
 What Is a Project? 13

Well it is fair, because you arent helpless. There are at least

three quick solutions:
1. A rain date
2. A rented tent
3. A location with an indoor pavilion
Notice that if you use any of these solutions, whether it rains
is no longer an issue. If, however, it never occurs to you that
it might rain on your picnic, you obviously wont plan for
the possibility and on the morning of the picnic when its
raining cats and dogs, youll be looking out the window and
frantically thinking, Now what?
Godzilla has entered Tokyo.

Complete. It may seem like an exercise in the blindingly obvious

to point this step out, but a project isnt finished until its
complete. Nevertheless, in many organizations numerous projects
litter the halls, 90 percent complete, and have been for some
time, yet no one can seem to get them finished. You may be
wondering why make a fuss about some unfinished projectsif
theyre not being worked on, theres no current expenditure,
right? Wrong. These projects consume opportunity costs and
morale dollars merely by existing. Finish them or shoot them
theres no happy medium.
The final two stages of a project have more to do with the next
project than the current one, but theyre still vital.
14 Practical Project Management

Evaluate. The savvy project manager always evaluates each

project, not to fault-find, but rather to gain wisdom for the
future.
What went wrong? How could we have anticipated it better?
How could we have handled it better? What surprises did we
encounter? Could they have been predicted? What went right that
we might have taken better advantage of?
Write this information down and use it to improve the success of
future projects. Youll be a better project manager for it.
Celebrate. The One-Minute Manager author Ken Blanchard says,
The number one job of management is appreciation. People
work for appreciation; they care about being part of a winning
team. Always take the time to spread the praise around, to
provide appropriate rewards or mementos, to write
commendation memos, and above all, to say a simple but honest
thank you. People make your projects successful; you owe
them for that. When you pay this debt of honor, people will be
far more willing to work for you in the future. Thats a project
management asset that will benefit you forever.
 What Is a Project? 15

How to Create a Miracle on Demand

Experienced project managers sometimes look like miracle
workers. They bring in a project that seems impossible, and solve
problems that others cant. They have learned to think like project
managersand to use the tools of project management
effectively. As you read and practice the tools provided in this
book, youll learn some of the secrets for looking like a miracle
worker yourself.
Here are four of them:
1. Your projects are full of hidden resources and
opportunities.
Every project has hidden resources that can solve many of
your problems. Proper planning will help you uncover those
resources and use them properly. These resources go by
strange namesresource slack, weak constraint flexibility,
control point identification. Youll learn how to uncover and
use them as you read this book.
Resources are scarceso dont waste the ones you have.
Remember: You waste a resource if you dont know its there
in the first place.
2. When you need one great idea, start with several ideas.
The tools of brainstorming are an important resource for
project managers. Dont go it alone; get input and fresh ideas
from other sources. When youre overstressed and over-
anxious, racing your brain for insights and solutions, you
dont think at top capacity. Allow your project team to carry
some of the creative load; it helps youand it improves their
morale at the same time.
16 Practical Project Management

3. Take the time to plan and to set goals.

Thousands of projects fail each year because their managers
didnt do the preliminary steps in the right order, especially
defining and planning. Make sure you know what the goal of
the project is; make sure you understand the work; make sure
you have a plan. Then start the work. You wouldnt go to
target practice and shout, Ready! Fire! Aim! Dont take that
attitude with your projects.
4. Use the Godzilla principle.
Brainstorm to find potential problemsand act on them now.
Use the Monitor stage to scout continually for embryonic
disasters. Design early warning systems and event triggers to
help you plan. To solve any problem more easily, catch it
early.
 What Is a Project? 17

Exercise #1:
Looking Back
To prepare for your next project, write an evaluation of the last
project you worked onwhether you completed it or not.
Answer the following questions as you write. If you respond no
to any question, explain why and jot down what you can do to
avoid this pitfall on your next project.
1. Did you have a clear idea of what the project was supposed
to accomplish?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
2. Did you identify the customers and originators of the project
and determine what exactly they wanted, needed, and
expected?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
18 Practical Project Management

3. Did you have clear knowledge of the resources available to

you and what their limits were?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
4. Was your project segmented into tasks that were the right size
for people to manage and execute?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
5. Did you have a written plan?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
 What Is a Project? 19

6. Did you get input and involvement from project team

members in the planning stages?
Yes No

_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
7. Were your team members committed to the project goals?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
8. Were you able to build consensus and effective agreement
among your team members?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
20 Practical Project Management

9. Were the members of your team cooperative in following

your requests?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
10. Were you able to motivate your team to be creative and
effective?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
11. Did you get the job done?
Yes No
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Focus on the
Objective

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22 Practical Project Management

The military genius Karl von Clausewitz reminds us, This above
all: the principle of the objective. To manage any project
successfully, you must be absolutely clear about the objective.
More projects fail because they lack fully and correctly defined
objectives than for any other reason.
Take the simple quiz that follows to see if you have an
objectives definition problem.

Q uiz
1. Can you define your project objective right
now in twenty-five words or less? Yes No
2. Can you list all the potential customers of
this project? Yes No
3. Do your projects avoid frequent
last-minute change orders? Yes No
4. Do you know what the project is designed to
improve for your customers? Yes No
If you have any no answers, you may have an objectives
problem. Read on to find out how to define your project
objectives and solve problems early.
 Focus on the Objective 23

The Importance of Defining Project

Goals and Objectives
A goal is a change that one or more customers desire. Goals can
involve cost savings, revenue improvements, work process
improvements, saving time, and so on.
An objective is a written statement of a project, designed to
achieve one or more goals.
Often, the process of defining goals and objectives is complex
and political. Too many project managers, especially those who
come from the technical ranks where facts count more than
feelings and competency is respected above all, find themselves
short-circuiting the defining process and going right to work. This
is a critical mistake. If you achieve the wrong goal, no matter how
brilliantly you do so, your project is a failure.
Lets go through the goal-setting process the right way, using a
real project from history.
The year: 1961
The place: Washington, D.C.
Your job: Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
As a Washington big-shot in 1961, you have a nice office
overlooking the Mall. You even have your own office television
set. Your secretary comes in to announce, The Presidents on
TV. You turn on the television, because you know the speech
involves NASA. During President John Kennedys speech, you
hear, We commit this nation to put a man on the moon and
return him safely to this earth by the end of this decade, and to
do the other things, not because they are easy but because they
are hard.
24 Practical Project Management

The applause rings out. You, however, feel a mixture of

anticipation and dread. Youve just received a project assignment.
What now?
Always begin the process of setting a project objective by
defining the Triple Constraints.
Triple Constraints are the key elements in any project definition.
You must fully define and understand the Triple Constraints
before you begin to manage any project. The three constraints
are:
Time constraint: How long do you have?
Budget constraint: How much can you spend?
Performance criteria: What results must your project
achieve to meet its purpose?

Nine Steps for Using the Triple

Constraints to Define Your Project
and Solve Problems Early
Understanding how to use the Triple Constraints is essential to
becoming an effective project manager. On the surface, this
seems like an exercise in the blindingly obvious. Of course, you
need to know time, budget, and performance standards. Yet as
you delve into the Moon Project, youll discover just how much
rich and insightful information examining the Triple Constraints
can yield. The rest of this chapter discusses the nine steps
involved in using the Triple Constraints to define your project.
 Focus on the Objective 25

Nine Steps to Defining Your Project

Step 1: Identify the key project participants.
Step 2: Define the rough draft constraints.
Step 3: Analyze missing constraints.
Step 4: Identify preliminary management issues.
Step 5: Examine the Triple Constraints to set priorities.
Step 6: Use the project goal to make the constraints more
exact.
Step 7: Identify secondary and tertiary project goalsand
who wants them.
Step 8: Refine your project goals and test them with the
affected parties.
Step 9: Use the Triple Constraints regularly throughout
the project to help you solve problems and meet
challenges.

Step 1: Identify the key project participants. Your first insight

is that there are, so far, two participants on this project: (1) you,
the project manager, and (2) President Kennedy, the project
originator. In rare cases, the project manager may originate his or
her own project, but usually the role of the project manager is
that of a hired hand. You are hired to do what the project
originator wants. The originator may be your boss, your bosss
boss, or an outside customer. Often, there are multiple project
originators, each with their own pet agendas. (Youll learn how to
deal with that situation later.)
26 Practical Project Management

Step 2: Define the rough draft constraints. From Kennedys

speech, you know some things about the Triple Constraints
already:
Project: Put a man on the moon
Time constraint: By the end of the decade
Performance criteria: Safe return to Earth
Notice that the project would have been much faster and cheaper
had it involved a one-way trip, but it wouldnt have achieved the
right objective. Saving money and saving time are important, but
not the only criteria.
Budget constraint: Unknown and unspecified
Step 3: Analyze missing constraints. Even though the Budget
constraint is unspecified, theres always a Budget constraint. First,
lets explore why the Budget constraint hasnt been specified yet.
The first possible reason is that Kennedy himself didnt have
much of an idea what it would cost to go to the moon. This is
likely true, and it isnt a criticism of Kennedy. After all, youre the
head of NASA, the technical expert. Project originators often must
hire project managers who have the knowledge they themselves
lack. You must make up the budget proposal.
Heres a key to your success: Before you can do a good job as a
project manager, you have an earlier job, that of project
consultant. You must advise the project originators on the best
way for them to achieve their goals. Only when you reach
consensus can you sensibly move on.
Step 4: Identify preliminary management issues. Two factors
drive your initial budget projection. The first is the technical
challenge. No one has been to the moon yet. Although you are
the unquestioned technical expert, you cant know it all. You can
only guess at some of the technical challenges you face.
Therefore, your budget projection will necessarily contain a large
 Focus on the Objective 27

estimating error. NASA professionals call this process a WAG,

short for Wildly Aimed Guess. As you refine your WAG, it
becomes a SWAG (Scientific Wildly Aimed Guess). Theres
nothing wrong with WAGs or SWAGs. Sometimes, theyre
necessary.
The second factor driving the budget projection is political. You
can only spend as much as Congress will appropriate for the
project. Should you consider political realities yourself, or
delegate that part upward to President Kennedy? The project
management answer is clear:
Never forget to consider political and organizational issues in
formulating your objective. Failure to do so will inevitably result in
change orders later in your project.
So far, the Triple Constraints read as follows:
Project: Put a man on the moon
Time constraint: By the end of the decade
Performance criteria: Safe return to Earth
Budget constraint: What is technically necessary, but no more
than Congress is likely to approve
Step 5: Examine the Triple Constraints to set priorities. In
the real world, the Triple Constraints are never absolutely
identical in priority. There are trade-offs. The old joke goes like
this: You can have it fast, you can have it cheap, or you can
have it good. Pick any two.
Although as quality-conscious professionals, project managers
want to achieve the best possible goal, they must sometimes
make compromises. You must determine which compromises are
least damaging to the project.
The first constraint you will identify is the weak constraint. (On a
different project, you might find a different constraint easier to
28 Practical Project Management

define first.) The weak constraint is the Triple Constraint that is

(a) most flexible and/or (b) least important to achieving your
project goal.
First, look for flexibility. Which of the Triple Constraints is most
flexible for the Moon Project?
Time: While there is some flexibility on the front-end (you
can reach the moon earlier than the end of the decade), there
is no flexibility for lateness.
Performance: Its hard to be flexible with return safely. The
astronauts either do or they dont.
Budget: You already know that the technical budget proposal
is a SWAG at best; plus there is flexibility in the Congressional
budget process.
Budget, therefore, is the weak constraint.
The second way to look for the weak constraint is to look for the
least important constraint.
Time: Kennedy was emphatic about the project deadline, and
some political issues seem to be at stake.
Performance: Having the astronauts survive the trip is clearly
important.
Budget: Does a billion dollars more or less really matter on a
program of this scope?
Again, Budget is the weak constraint.
The second constraint you will identify is the driver. The driver is
the Triple Constraint that drives the project. If you fail to
accomplish the driver, the project is a failure, regardless of how
well you accomplish the other constraints.
Imagine for a moment that General Schwartzkopf came marching
back from the Persian Gulf and went to see President Bush. Mr.
President, he says, Im really sorry I lost that war for you. But in
my defense, I did it ahead of schedule and way under budget.
 Focus on the Objective 29

You can picture the response. In this project, the driver was
clearly Performance.
In the Moon Project, the answer may not be so obvious. Try the
following quiz to see if you can identify the driver.

Q uiz
Of the three constraints, which will you select as the driver?
Check the correct answer.
A. Time constraint
B. Performance criteria
C. Budget constraint
Obviously, C is wrong because its already been defined as the
weak constraint. Most people choose B, Performance. After all,
getting the astronauts safely back to Earth seems very important.
Whats the right answer? Actually, its D, none of the above. This
is a trick question, but it leads to the next insight you must have
to be an effective project manager:
The project manager doesnt determine the ranking of the
constraints. The project originator and the project goal do.
In other words, you must be careful about jumping to conclusions
here. You must determine what the project originator thinks as
well as what the ultimate project goal requires.
How will you find out what President Kennedy thinks?
The first way to discover the driver is to askbut be careful how
you ask. Dont say: Hey, boss! On that new project, did you
want it fast, cheap, or good? The answer will almost always be
All three! Now, get back to work!
30 Practical Project Management

Be more subtle. One technique that may help you is the forced-
choice question. To do this, offer a hypothetical situation that
forces a choice among two of the objectives and ask for the
originators preferred approach.
Mr. President, you might begin, as you know, its impossible to
eliminate all risk on something as complex as a moon shot. What
if we had these two choices? First, that we go ahead and make
the moon shot before the end of the decade with a 60 percent
chance of getting the astronauts back alive. Second, we could
delay the moon shot until, say, 1972 and by doing so get the
safety chance up to 90 percent? If this were the case, which
choice would you want us to make?
This is a perfectly fair question, although you may not always get
a straight answer. If you do get a straight answer, it will normally
tell you what the driver is. For example, the President might say,
Well, you cant make an omelet without breaking eggs. Lets get
there ASAP. Then the driver is Time. Or, the President might say:
We just cant take the political hit from casualties. Be careful out
there. Then the driver is Performance.
Once you know the driver, you can design your project around
that as your Number One priority.
If you dont get a straight answer, look to the overall project goal.
Lets put the space program in its historical context. The primary
reason for making the space program the national priority it
became had to do with the Cold War. Imagine that Apollo 11 had
landed after the Soviets had reached the moon. You could make
it before the end of the decade but after the Soviet Unionbut
you know that wouldnt have been good enough. The United
States had to beat the Soviet Union; therefore, the driver had to
be Time. Performance criteria became the middle constraint.
The middle constraint is the Triple Constraint that is stronger than
the weak constraint and weaker than the driver. It comes in the
middle.
 Focus on the Objective 31

Does this mean that the United States was prepared to risk
astronaut lives to get to the moon first? The historical answer was
an unqualified yes. Astronaut safety was important, but getting
there before the Soviets was even more important. How much the
project cost came third.
The revised Triple Constraints for the project now read like this:
Project: Put a man on the moon
Time constraint: By the end of the decade
Performance criteria: Safe return to Earth
Budget constraint: By spending what is technically necessary, but
no more than Congress is likely to approve
Driver: Time constraint
Middle constraint: Performance criteria
Weak constraint: Budget constraint
Can the Triple Constraints change during a project? Yes, but
rarely. If your Triple Constraints seem to change on a daily basis,
this normally means that you havent properly defined them in
the first place. Sometimes its hard to pin people down, but you
must. Get the Triple Constraints wrong, and everything else in
your project will suffer.
Major organizational changes often produce changes in the Triple
Constraints.
For example, after the success of the Apollo mission, NASAs
organizational culture continued to rank the Triple Constraints in
their traditional order of time/performance/budget, although the
rationale for this order had vanished with the success of the lunar
mission. NASA didnt fully integrate a change until the Challenger
disaster. Even then, Performance criteria didnt become the new
driver. Instead, the negative press coverage of NASA (as well as
the Hubble telescope debacle) resulted in elevating Budget from
32 Practical Project Management

weak constraint to driver, making Performance the middle

constraint and Time the new weak constraint. The lack of a
deadline for the space station, the new NASA project, is the
practical result.
Step 6: Use the project goal to make the constraints more
exact. If you take on faith that your project originators always tell
you exactly and completely what they wish from you, youre
likely running your project into trouble. One of the results of
examining the goal that underlies the Moon Project is gaining this
insight: When President Kennedy said that the goal was to put a
man on the moon by the end of this decade, he wasnt being
totally accurate. If the true goal was to beat the Soviet Union to
the moon, the Time constraint should read: By the end of the
decade or before the Soviet Union, whichever comes first.
If you find that management or your customers often pull the rug
out from under your projects by shoving change orders down
your throat, this may be your problem.
Remember, youre rated by what your project originators and/or
customers meant to say, not merely by what they actually said.
Never take any project assignment at face value. Dig deep to find
the real story.
It doesnt matter why the project originator may not state the goal
completely. Perhaps President Kennedy thought it was too
obvious to state. Perhaps he thought it would be poor diplomacy
to say it. No matter the reason, you are still responsible for it.
Knowing this will help you avoid numerous last-minute change
orders.
An estimated 50 percent of all last-minute project change orders
result from factors the project manager either knew or could have
known at the beginning of the project. You must control the
controllable to have any hope of dealing with the uncontrollable.
For example, on the Moon Project, the most likely single cause of
a change order would be a speed-up in the Soviet space program,
 Focus on the Objective 33

since the goal is to get there first. Imagine yourself standing in

front of the President and saying: But you told me I had until the
end of the decade! Its not fair to make me speed up at this late
date!
Once youve figured out the real objective, you know that its
possible that the project originator will change the deadline for
the project based on what the Soviets do. This is critical
information. Use it. For example, spend some of your budget on
spies. Youd better know more about whats going on in the
Soviet space program than the President does. After all, its your
job. There are no excuses.
When the President calls to say, The CIA just told me the Soviets
are going into high gear on their moon program, you need to be
able to reply, Mr. President, Ive known that for six months now
and Ive already initiated the schedule changes to get there first!
Congratulations! Youre now on the way to being a Project
Management Hero.
Step 7: Identify secondary and tertiary project goalsand
who wants them. The larger your project, the more likely it will
affect different people with different interests. This is the reason
all projects are political in nature. Different interests generally
conflict. In the Moon Project, while beat the Soviets was the
Number One goal, there were many others.
Many NASA installations were located in the South. Why? Because
many powerful members of Congress were from the South.
During the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb,
President Roosevelt called in a key Tennessee congressman
known for putting his district first. Because FDR needed his vote,
he spoke persuasively and at length about how the national
interest required the congressmans support. The congressman
nodded. Mr. President, he said, I agree that this is absolutely
34 Practical Project Management

vital and you have my utmost support. I only have one question.
Where exactly in Tennessee do you think we should place this
project?
Besides regional economic issues, there was (and is) a
constituency for pure science and space exploration. Although
this constituency was not large enough to affect Congress, notice
that many NASA employees and contractors joined because of
their personal belief and passion for space exploration.
There was also a press and public relations issue. There were
complaints about spending money on space exploration when
there were pressing local needs. There were egos to soothe. In
other words, the Moon Project was just like any other project
only more so.
Make a list of other goals, who has those goals, and what it
would take to meet those goals. Notice that some people may
have a goal thats incompatible with your project, just like those
who felt that spending any money on space exploration was
wasteful. Be on the lookout for any constituency devoted to
keeping your project from success and, early on, try to anticipate
and deal with the obstacles they may present.
First, interview people with disparate goals. Sometimes its
possible to achieve their goals along with the main project goals
with no extra cost and time. Wouldnt it be a shame and a waste
to have problems from these people when they could so easily
have been avoided? A computer firm once installed a $2 million
system for a company, and achieved every one of the Triple
Constraints. During training, however, they found out that the
people who had to operate the system hated it. It didnt do
anything they wanted. One of the programmers realized, If wed
known about their needs, we could have integrated them into our
project with no extra cost or time. But we didnt ask.
Second, identify potential conflicts. If you can meet everybodys
needs within the same project time and budget, wonderful! If you
 Focus on the Objective 35

cant, perhaps you can meet all the needs with extra time and/or
extra money. You should at least askyou just might get the
resources, and the organization will benefit.
Third, work with conflicts. If you have needs you cant meet with
your resources and no additional resources are available, or if you
cant achieve all the goals that your project constituency has, you
must make a decision. Use this three-step process:
1. Get the affected parties together to try to achieve their own
consensus; act on the consensus. If this fails
2. Make the decision based on the overall goals of the company
to the best of your ability. Get advice from management if
you need it. If this fails
3. Make the decision based on who has the most power to help
or hurt you. (Notice that this is not based exclusively on rank.
Sometimes the actual users have tremendous power: the
power to make the project fail.)
Step 8: Refine your project goals and test them with the
affected parties. The final project constraints read as follows:
Project: Put a man on the moon
Time constraint: Before the Soviet Union does, or by the end of
the decade, whichever comes first
Performance criteria: Safe return to Earth. Secondary: Provide as
much infrastructure for future space exploration as possible.
Deliver quality, pure scientific information.
Budget constraint: What is technically necessary, but no more
than Congress is likely to approve. Secondary: Emphasize work in
key congressional districts and technology spin-offs
Driver: Time constraint
Middle constraint: Performance criteria
Weak constraint: Budget constraint
36 Practical Project Management

Step 9: Use the Triple Constraints regularly throughout the

project to help you solve problems and meet your
challenges. One particular source of power project managers
often overlook is the power inherent in the weak constraint. As
head of NASA, if you are in trouble on the Time constraint, the
first thing you should consider is spending more money. In the
current NASA environment, however, the clearest way to meet the
Budget driver is to delay the project goal.
In the Persian Gulf War, General Schwartzkopf was faced with a
Performance driver and Time as the middle constraint because of
the issues of keeping the international alliance and domestic
political opinion together. Notice that he brought over far more
resources than some thought necessary. He used the flexibility of
the weak constrainta hidden resource for a savvy project
manager.

Look Before You Leap

As you can see, much is involved in the definition phase of your
project. Many project managers, including some who are very
experienced, rush this step or assume they already know what
the project is about. Dont fall into this trap, no matter how
experienced you get.
Dont rush this phase. The most dangerous words that can ever
come out of your mouth as a project manager are, Yes, Ill do it!
before you truly understand what youve agreed to. When you
say yes, you arent merely agreeing to what has actually been
said, but also to every hidden assumption, wish, and fantasy your
project originators may have.
 Focus on the Objective 37

This isnt to suggest that you should say no, or even that you
have the option of saying no. You can, however, ask questions
and dig, all the time making positive noises, up until youre ready
to accept the assignment. Will this cause problems with your boss
or customer? Not necessarily. Many bosses would have more
respect for certain members of their staffs if these people did ask
a few more questions at the beginning of a project rather than
waiting until disaster strikes.
You may be thinking that this is an enormous amount of work to
do just to get the goal right. But consider this: You havent even
begun to plan, much less manage your project. But doing the
objective and goal-setting part perfectly is the most critical phase
of the project. Do this stage right and everything else will be
easier. Do it wrong, and nothing else will save you.
After all, if you dont have time to get it right in the first place,
when exactly do you expect to find the time to do it over?
38 Practical Project Management

Exercise #2:
Ranking the Triple
Constraints
Try identifying and then ranking the Triple Constraints for the
following project. The answers are on the next page.
Project: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the
worlds most popular museum, was a Federal government project
accomplished ahead of schedule and under budget.
The goal of the project was to build a world-class aviation and
space museum for a budget of $30 million and open it on July 4,
1976.
1. Identify the Triple Constraints.
Project: _______________________________________________
Performance criteria: ___________________________________
Budget constraint: _____________________________________
Time constraint: _______________________________________
2. Rank the Triple Constraints.
Driver: _______________________________________________
Middle constraint: _____________________________________
Weak constraint: ______________________________________
 Focus on the Objective 39

Answers to Exercise #2:

1. Identify the Triple constraints
Project: National Air and Space Museum
Performance criteria: World-class
Budget constraint: $30 million
Time constraint: July 4, 1976
2. Rank the Triple Constraints
Driver: Time
Middle constraint: Budget
Weak constraint: Performance
The driver is obviously the Time constraint because the museum
was an important part of the bicentennial celebration.
The weak constraint was the Performance criteria. Although
world class is arguably the most important of the constraints,
its equally the most flexible. If youve been to the museum, you
probably didnt count the number of airplanes on display. Why?
Because you didnt care. Your idea of world-class wouldnt have
been affected whether there were thirty or forty airplanes
hanging; therefore, if problems developed, hanging fewer
airplanes might allow the museum to open on time and on
budget with insignificant impact on customer perception.
Budget is the middle constraint. Thirty million dollars is a round
number. No one expected the project to cost exactly
$30,000,000.00. In fact, even plus or minus a few hundred
thousand would have been considered on budget. A $100,000
variance would amount to only 0.1 percent, pretty good for a
project that size.
Starting
to Plan

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42 Practical Project Management

Dwight David Eisenhower once observed, Plans are useless, but

planning is essential. Karl von Clausewitz put it another way:
No battle plan ever survived first contact with the enemy.
There are several important truths here. Plans are useless
because no battle plan ever survived first contact with the
enemy. No matter how thoroughly you plan, the uniqueness of
each project virtually ensures that you wont anticipate
everything. Plans never happen exactly as planned.
Yet planning is essential because plans provide two key
advantages:
First, the process of planning is educational. If you dont make a
plan, you dont know what your project is about.
Second, a plan always serves as a benchmark, a way to tell where
you are relative to your destination. A roadmap is useful even
when you get lost; a project plan is useful evenespecially
when your project goes off track.

Transition From Goals to Plans

According to the official process of project management, you
must establish an objective before you proceed with the
planning process. Realistically, however, the boundaries of
objective setting and planning blur. As you work through the
planning process, expect to uncover questions, problems,
and issues that are best solved by reopening the objective-
setting process. Try to solve each problem in the earliest
possible step, even if that means you must sometimes
backtrack.
 Starting to Plan 43

From Project Level to Task Level

Stage 1 of Your Plan
The process of planning begins with the project itself. To create a
plan, you must break the project down into tasks.
A task is a work package that is one element of a larger project.
Like a project, a task has a beginning, a middle, and a clearly
defined end. Also like a project, a task always has the Triple
Constraints of time, budget, and performance.
A subtask is a task that is broken down into smaller work
packages. Use subtasks to improve detailed control in larger
projects where the identified tasks are themselves complex and
hard to manage.
A subproject is sometimes used as a synonym for task. A very
large project is often broken down into subprojects, which are
further broken down into tasks and then into subtasks.
Operationally, whether your work assignment is a project, a
subproject, a task, or a subtask depends primarily on your
perspective. In other words, where you stand depends on where
you sit.
The key to successful task planning is not to forget anything. If you
fail to identify all the tasks required to accomplish your project
goal, youll naturally fail to budget time and resources for those
tasks. When you discover later that they really do exist and you
have to do them anyway, your project is in trouble.
44 Practical Project Management

Unless the project is so small and simple that you can guarantee
you wont forget anything, use the brainstorming process to
identify tasks. Here are the steps:
1. Assemble your project team, or at least key members who
represent the different major functional areas of your project.
2. Brainstorm every task you can think of. Write the tasks down
on individual sticky notes so you can move them around
and group them later.
3. Refine your tasks. As your team brainstorms, individual
members will think of tasks based on their own conceptions
of the project. You may identify several different approaches
to take, but you will need to choose one approach. Doing so
will eliminate some tasks. Other tasks may be able to be
combined into larger tasks. Still other tasks will be best
managed by breaking them into smaller tasks. Use your
judgment.
4. Identify possible categories you can use to organize the tasks.
5. Group the tasks into those categories. (If youre using sticky
notes, you can actually move the notes into categories.)
6. Review the list several times for any tasks you may have
forgotten.
7. As you continue with the planning process, be alert for
discoveries of forgotten tasks.
8. Review the final plan for logical workflowand check again
for anything you may have forgotten.
 Starting to Plan 45

Exercise #3:
Bottom-Up Task
Identification
You can do this exercise as an individual or with a group.
Imagine that youre responsible for planning your companys
summer picnic. Brainstorm all the tasks you must do.
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
Note: If you did this as an individual exercise, try it again with a
group to see how many more items you can come up with.
Check the answer key on the next page for items that others who
have completed this exercise frequently forget.
46 Practical Project Management

Answers to Exercise #3
Here are the picnic tasks people frequently forget:
Providing toilet facilities
Scheduling a rain date
Providing beverages
Providing utensils
Arranging cleanup
Acquiring cooking supplies
Buying paper plates
Did you forget any of these? What would be the fate of the picnic
if you had?

How to Build a Work Breakdown

Structure (WBS)
The Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS, helps you organize your
project and its tasks. Here are the levels of the WBS.
1. State the project. Your WBS starts with Level 1, which is
your project (see fig. 3.1).
2. Define the subprojects. Subdivide your project into
subprojects, which form Level 2 of the WBS (see fig. 3.2).
Subprojects actually help define the management structure of
your project in addition to defining categories of tasks. For
your subprojects, use the categories you created in the
brainstorming process. You could normally manage a project
such as the company picnic with a committee structure.
Committees might include Food and Beverage, Entertainment,
Site Operations, Publicity, and Executive. Each committee can
be a subproject, and as you group the individual tasks under
each subproject, you can instantly tell from the WBS who is
responsible for it.
 Company Picnic
Starting to Plan
47

Fig. 3.1. The first level of the WBS is always the project.
 48

Company Picnic

Executive Publicity Entertainment Site Operations Food/Beverage

Practical Project Management

Fig. 3.2. The second level of the WBS consists of the subprojects, which can also illustrate the management structure of
your project.
 Starting to Plan 49

Its worth taking the time to think about your subproject structure.
The subproject structure for the picnic WBS is set up by
functional area. Other possibilities are:
Chronological/Phased. The NASA moon project was set up
using a roughly chronological approach to the WBS (see fig.
3.3). You can also conceive of this as grouping by phases.
Discipline. Often, a building construction project will group
tasks by skilled trade area (see fig 3.4).
Cross-departmental. Sometimes, a project uses the existing
organizational structure. If the jobs on the project will each be
done by an existing department (e.g., Marketing does some
tasks, Engineering others), youll naturally use the
departments as your Level 2 subprojects (see fig. 3.5).
If your WBS subproject structure helps you to understand and
assign the work, youve done it right.

Put a man on
the moon

Mercury Gemini Apollo

Fig. 3.3. A WBS with a chronological/phased approach to the subproject

structure.
 50

Office Plaza

Architecture Concrete/ Electrical/ Carpentry/ Steel Framing

Foundation Plumbing Drywall
Practical Project Management

Fig. 3.4. A WBS using a subproject structure defined by job discipline.

 WhizBang Computer

Administration Marketing/ Manufacturing Training Accounting

Advertising
Starting to Plan
51

Fig. 3.5. A WBS using a subproject structure defined by department.

52 Practical Project Management

3. Assign tasks to the WBS. Level 3 of your WBS is the Task

level (see fig. 3.6). Take the tasks and assign them to the
subprojects, grouping like with like. Dont worry at this time
whether your tasks are listed in the expected order of
accomplishment. Sequencing of tasks comes later.

WBS Shortcut
The advantage of listing your tasks on sticky notes is that
you can easily create your WBS using a whiteboard. Make a
new sticky sheet for the project itself. Thats Level 1. Make
sheets for each subproject. (Tip! Use a different color for
each subproject, and use the same color for the tasks that go
under it. Color-coding the WBS makes it easier to track
whos responsible for each task, and even what category of
task it is.) Finally, group the task sticky note sheets under
each subproject. Youre finished!
 WBS Level 1 Project
Company Picnic
WBS Level 2 Subprojects

Executive Publicity Entertainment Site Operations Food/Beverage

Recruit committee Create flyer Baseball Prepare site Plan menu

members checklist

Plan budget Draw maps Volleyball Visit/check Purchase

available sites food/drink

Evaluate previous Article for employee Kids games Select site Cooking
picnics newsletter supplies/equipment

Draw timeline Posters for office Prizes/Trophies Rent equipment Utensils/plates

Music Recruit and plan for Cooks/servers/

set-up/clean-up crews cleaners
WBS Level 3 Tasks
Company award
ceremony
Starting to Plan
53

Fig. 3.6. The third level of the WBS consist of tasks assigned to subprojects.
54 Practical Project Management

Using the WBS on Large Projects

On a small project, three levels is normally sufficient for a good
WBS. On larger projects, the tasks themselves could easily be
called projects in their own right. You can break these task/
projects into smaller, more manageable packages, creating
additional levels on your WBS.
For example, the NASA Project WBS in figure 3.3 has three
subprojects: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Within Mercury alone,
there would be Level 3 tasks such as these:
Design and build a rocket.
Design and build a space capsule.
Manage individual missions.
Set up worldwide telemetry.
Design a system to recover capsules.
Build launch pads.
Each of these, of course, can easily be considered a project.
Theoretically, all the subtasks can be put into a giant WBS
pyramid. In practice, this is quite unwieldy. Normally, a WBS
consists of three and at the most four levels. Individual managers
responsible for work packages inside the WBS make their own
WBS structures for their own elements of work. A project control
office may keep copies of all the WBS plans and cross-reference
them, but they are normally kept on separate pages.
 Starting to Plan 55

Large projects often number tasks to make controlling them

easier. If you number tasks, you should number subtasks as well,
since the subtasks go into the master plan.
Here is a key insight in managing large projects using a WBS.
Whether you are the manager at the top of the WBS pyramid, or
a subproject manager in the middle, two things are always true:
1. You need to know the general shape of the pyramid and
whats going on.
2. You need to focus on your primary responsibility, which is
that area of the pyramid under your control. When your
project is part of a larger whole, your mission is to complete
your project in line with that goal, not as an end in itself.
56 Practical Project Management

Exercise #4:
Installing a LAN System
as a Sample Project
For this exercise, create a sample project and follow it through
the planning process. So far, youve learned to develop a good
objective and a WBS.
Project: You have been assigned to manage a project to install a
local area network (LAN) in an office of twenty-five people, each
of whom has an individual computer station. The LAN will consist
of a single server (host computer), the wiring to connect the
individual computers scattered around the office, and the software
to operate the LAN. The LAN should provide the following
features: e-mail, file sharing, and cost reductions (people will be
able to use the same printers and peripherals). Your boss has
given you a budget of $40,000 and told you the project must be
completed before the start of the new fiscal year (September 30),
which is 16 weeks away, to keep the budget authority.

Part 1
1. Identify the Triple Constraints.
Project: _______________________________________________
Performance criteria: __________________________________
Budget constraint: _____________________________________
Time constraint: _______________________________________
2. Rank the Triple Constraints.
Driver: _______________________________________________
Middle constraint: _____________________________________
Weak constraint: ______________________________________
 Starting to Plan 57

Answers to Sample Project Triple

Constraints, Part 1
1. Identify the Triple Constraints.
Project: Install LAN
Performance criteria: E-mail, file sharing, printer
sharing
Budget constraint: $40,000
Time constraint: Before next fiscal year (16
weeks)
2. Rank the Triple Constraints.
Driver: Time
Middle constraint: Budget
Weak constraint: Performance
In this situation, you wouldnt be completely sure about the
Triple Constraint ranking without doing some more investigation.
But based solely on what you know now, it would make sense to
regard Time as the driver, since the expiration of your budget
authority would make the project fall apart.
The $40,000 budget and the criteria for what the LAN should
accomplish are less certain. In this case, the primary costs will be
for hardware. You probably have more flexibility as to the
features and speed of the new LAN; it will also be easier to
modify the LAN later if more or better features are desired. The
likely situation, therefore, is that Budget is the middle constraint
and Performance is the weak constraint.
58 Practical Project Management

Part 2
Brainstorm and group the tasks. Use sticky notes (or simply an
additional piece of paper or the blank WBS on the next page) to
brainstorm the tasks necessary for this project. Create your groups
and prepare a preliminary WBS using the groups as your second
level and your tasks as the third level.
One version of the WBS for this LAN project is shown in figure
4.1. It will likely differ from yours; this doesnt mean your answer
is wrong. Different project managers will inevitably organize the
same project in a different fashion, and theres nothing wrong
with that. Do compare the two versions. Does yours have
reasonable subprojects? Are your tasks complete? Did you forget
anything?
Now that you have experience in creating a WBS, turn to the next
chapter to learn how to turn the WBS into a plan.
 Starting to Plan 59

Install LAN
Laying Out
the Project

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62 Practical Project Management

Now that youre armed with a completed WBS, youre ready for
the next step in the planning process: determining the sequence
of activities. As you learned earlier, one of the characteristics of a
project is that it can be broken into tasks that can be sequenced.
How you choose your task sequence has a substantial impact on
the outcome of your project.
Return to your sample LAN project. You have prepared your
version of a WBS by identifying and grouping tasks. Remember,
the version in figure 4.1 is not necessarily more correct than
yours.
The WBS in figure 4.1 identifies four subproject areas: project
management, purchasing, installation and testing, and training.
The logic here is a combination of functional breakdown and
rough chronological (purchasing comes before installation,
installation comes before training). This does not mean, however,
that the tasks in each WBS subproject will happen in the order
shown on the WBS. Thats the next step of project planning:
creating a Dependency Sequence.
 Install LAN

Mgmt. Purchasing Install/Test Training

Needs Select Manuals/

Analysis Server Wire Offices Procedures

Select Set Up Develop

Specs. Cables Server Training

Project Select Install

Mgmt. Software Software Train Users

Connect
Acceptance Purchasing Network

Test/Debug
Laying Out the Project
63

Fig. 4.1. A possible WBS for installing a LAN.

64 Practical Project Management

Project Management as a Task

Do you treat the work of project management itself as a
task? Experts disagree whether it should be listed as a task in
the WBS.
Here are some reasons against putting it in: Project
management isnt a task in the manner of the actual work.
Nothing is dependent on project management; that is, no
task is waiting for project management to finish so that it can
begin. Project management is ongoing, from the outset of
the project to the conclusion. It doesnt fit into the planning
and sequencing process.
Reasons for putting it in: Although it may not be a task,
project management does involve work. It consumes
resources. If youre a full-time project manager, your time
and salary are charged against the project. If you dont
account for the resource costs of project management in the
WBS, you must be doubly certain to account for them
elsewhere.
If you are a part-time project manager, that is, you must
perform technical tasks on your own project while providing
overall direction, notice that project management is
consuming a portion of a resource that would otherwise be
available full-time for task accomplishment. Again, you must
be sure to budget out the project management resource. The
WBS approach makes this nearly automatic.
Project management is listed as a task in the WBS for the
sample LAN project in figure 4.1 to show the consumption of
the resource.
 Laying Out the Project 65

Planning as a Task
Why isnt the activity of planning shown as a task on the
WBS? Although planning is a time-consuming activity, it
normally doesnt go into the WBS. After all, the WBS and
other planning documents are the result of the planning
process. Planning is finished when the project begins.
If youre running a project with unusually complicated and
difficult planning issues, you can make planning a separate
project, with the result of the project being a plan to
accomplish the next project.

Creating a Dependency Sequence

Using Sticky Note PERT
Before you can create a Dependency Sequence, you must be
familiar with these terms:
A dependent task is a task that cant begin until one or more
predecessor tasks are complete. For example, if youre planning
to install a swimming pool in your back yard, you must first dig a
holeand then pour in the concrete. (Doing it backwards would
obviously be ineffective.) Pouring concrete is dependent on
digging the hole. Digging the hole is the predecessor task to
pouring concrete. In project management language, the words
dependent and predecessor are usually reserved for the specific
tasks immediately before and following the subject task, even
though there may be a long string of tasks before and after.
A parallel task is a task that may be performed during the same
time frame as other tasks. For example, you could landscape the
area around the swimming pool at the same time you were
putting paint and sealant on the pool concrete, as these tasks do
not directly interfere with each other.
66 Practical Project Management

A lag task is a task that must be shown in the work flow although
it has no work associated with it. For example, when you pour
the concrete for your swimming pool, the concrete must cure
before you can paint and seal it. Although that takes waiting, or
lag, time, it doesnt require any work. Some project
management authorities show lag tasks merely as gaps in the
schedule; however, its best to show these tasks so you wont
accidentally forget them.
A dummy task in the planning technique known as activity-on-
arrow PERT is an arrow that shows a dependency relationship
between two otherwise parallel tasks. Youll learn about that type
of dummy task in greater detail later in this book.
A milestone task is a task that requires no time or budget, but
must be shown in the work flow. Milestones are often
checkpoints, starting lines, finishing lines, or report dates. For
example, a milestone in the swimming pool project could be
Start Swimming! This task would simply mark the moment when
people could dive in. Theres no work or time involved, just a
milestone. In a project timeline, a milestone is often shown with a
diamond symbol ().
In Chapter 3, you were strongly encouraged to use sticky notes in
different colors to create your WBS. In this chapter, you will learn
how to use those colored note sheets as a valuable shortcutone
thats nicknamed Sticky Note PERT. PERT, or Program
Evaluation and Review Technique, is a powerful and
sophisticated tool for planning projects. Usually, only skilled
project managers running large projects use PERT. Managers of
smaller projects often avoid it because of its reputation for
complexity; they use the Gantt chart technique instead.
While the Gantt chart (covered in Chapter 7) is extremely useful
for small projects, you should still learn the basics of PERT project
layout, no matter how small your projects are.
 Laying Out the Project 67

To create a Sticky Note PERT chart, take your Level 3 task notes
from your WBS and place them in the order you think they
should be performed. Draw lines or arrows between the notes.
The resulting drawing is called a PERT chart.
You can gain many insights about your project by completing a
PERT chart. Youll normally discover that while some tasks can
only be put together in a single sequence, you often can make a
strategic choice that has a profound impact on the ultimate
outcome of your project.
Figure 4.2 shows a Sticky Note PERT chart created from the Install
LAN WBS.
Heres how to use the sticky notes to create a PERT chart: Begin
by taking the sheets for Needs Analysis and Project
Management and making those the lead-off tasks in the project.
Remember, Project Management isnt a task in the same sense
as Needs Analysis, since nothing is dependent on its
completion.
 68

Select Select Wire

Server Cables Offices

Needs Connect
Analysis Specs. Purchasing Network

Select Set Up Install Test/

Software Server Software Debug
Practical Project Management

Start Train Users

Manuals/ Develop
Procedures Training

Project Acceptance
Mgmt.

Fig. 4.2. A PERT chart based on the Install LAN WBS.

 Laying Out the Project 69

If your project begins or ends with more than one task going on
simultaneously, its a good idea to start with an extra dummy
activity so that all the lines come together at both ends of the
project. The Start box in figure 4.2 is an example. You dont
need a Finish box in this example because all lines connect up
in the final Acceptance box.
Once the Needs Analysis is complete, you can develop project
specifications, so Specs is one item that follows Needs
Analysis in the chart. So far, most project managers would lay
out this project in the exact same way. However, the next step
isnt so straightforward and clear.
When you have an option in laying out project tasks, first list all
the possibilities and analyze their pros and cons. Then and only
then, make your strategic decision. As you continue with your
planning process, you may uncover additional information to
support or conflict with your previous decision. Revisit your
layout decision as necessary until youve made the best choices
for your project.

Making the Strategic Choice

You know you must shop before you buy, and the LAN project
requires you to shop for three items: the server (a computer that
will run the LAN), the cables and connectors that will bring all the
computers together into the network, and the software package
that will run the LAN. As you plan, notice that you can do the
shopping in several different orders. You may already have an
idea of the smart way to do this, but before you make a decision,
always list the possibilities. Figure 4.3 provides four options for
doing so.
70 Practical Project Management

Needs Specs Select Select Select

Analysis Software Server Cables

Needs Specs Select Select Select

Analysis Server Cables Software

Select Select
Server Cables
Needs Specs
Analysis

Select
Software

Select
Server

Needs Specs Select

Analysis Software

Select
Cables

Fig. 4.3. Four options for shopping for LAN equipment. When you have
more than one option for when to perform a project task, you have a
strategic choice.
 Laying Out the Project 71

Option 1 is to lay the tasks out in a straight dependency sequence

and to select software first, followed by the server and then the
cables. Since the software package determines the ultimate
functions of the LAN, you can make a strong case for choosing
this method: Youll necessarily put your emphasis on choosing
the perfect software first and then buying hardware and cables to
meet your software needs.
Option 2 simply reverses the selection process: Youll choose the
hardware elements first, and then the software. Because you
already have an installed base of computers, you might need to
ensure hardware compatibility. Or, you may have special discount
purchasing arrangements with certain vendors, and those vendors
have a limited selection. Or, since the hardware costs more than
the software, budget limitations might force you to pick the server
and cables first, and then to narrow your software search to what
will run on what you can afford to buy.
Option 3 puts the hardware tasks on one parallel track and the
software tasks on another. How can you do this? Assuming that
you have done a good job analyzing the needs and developing
the specifications, you have enough information to assign the
shopping to two different people and send them out. The key
advantage of this method is saving time. But what is the cost of
saving time (you know you cant get something for nothing)? The
price of saving time is additional resourcesputting another
person on the task. Notice that one person (assuming proper
skills) can do all the work in either Option 1 or Option 2, but it
will take more time. In Option 3, two people can go to different
stores simultaneously, reducing calendar time but increasing
resources. Time versus resource tradeoffs is a critical tool you will
use to achieve project goals.
If some parallel tasking is good, would more be better? Option 4
points out that you could send three people shopping and get
server, cables, and software at the same time. Again, this assumes
that specifications are well-drawn and complete.
72 Practical Project Management

None of these options is right and the others wrong. Any one of
these options might be the right one for your project
circumstances. The point is this: Only when you list and study the
options do you have the power to pick the best one for your
project.
For the sake of this example, Option 3 was chosen. Why? First,
the Time constraint has been established as the driver. Parallel
tasks save time. Why not Option 4, then? Heres one rationale:
Selecting the cables before selecting the server is risky, so the
small amount of time parallel tasking would save wouldnt be
worth it. Notice that this is just one opinion. Yours need not be
the samewhen youre the project manager.
To finish your project layout, youll make similar decisions
throughout the network. Heres the logic behind some of the
decisions for the PERT chart shown in figure 4.2.
1. To Train Users, you need Develop Training and Connect
Network to be complete. Arguably, you could do the training
off site at the vendors location, using the vendors LAN. This
is a quality versus time trade-off decision.
2. Test/Debug will need to be done in two phases. The first
phase will consist of the testing that must be completed to
allow the Train Users task to begin. The second phase
consists of additional work that can parallel and follow Train
Users. This phase will include issues the users themselves
identify, plus minor problems that can be fixed at any time.
We have a choice of breaking Test/Debug into two separate
tasks, or of setting up the schedule so the tasks overlap.
3. Project Management actually ends after the Acceptance
phase is over. Sometimes, a milestone () for End of Project
is placed in the plan so that Project Management will have
something to connect to.
 Laying Out the Project 73

Risk and Resource Management in

Dependency Sequencing
Youve learned that one important issue in choosing task
sequence options is time. Two others are risk and resources.

Risk Management
Some tasks are inherently riskier than others. Risk means
likelihood of task failure, which can come in any of the Triple
Constraints: a task can be late, over budget, or fail to achieve its
performance requirements.
The placement of a task in the dependency sequence can
increase or decrease risk. One argument against choosing Option
3 for hardware/software selection (see figs. 4.2 and 4.3) is that its
riskier to have two people off choosing hardware and software
than for one person to do it in a dependent sequence. Making the
tasks parallel arguably increases risk. This doesnt mean that you
shouldnt sequence the tasks in this way, but you should at least
be aware of the risk.
Sometimes, paralleling tasks can lower risk. Lets assume that
selecting the hardware and cables together will take less time
than selecting the software. Parallel tasks need not take exactly
the same amount of time to complete. Since the start of
Purchasing requires that all the selection work has been
completed, you have extra time available to select hardware and
cables, measured by:
Time(Software) - (Time(Server) + Time(Cables)) = Time(Slack)
Slack time is the extra time available to complete the shorter
parallel tasks. Its another hidden resource for the professional
project manager. Youll learn much more about slack time in later
chapters. For now, remember this key point: slack lowers risk.
When theres extra time before the successor task begins, lateness
in a task (as long as it doesnt exceed the available slack) isnt
74 Practical Project Management

critical. Given extra time, you may be able to improve

conformance to performance standards or even control costs.
While slack doesnt eliminate risk altogether, many problems can
be solved with a little extra time.
You may discover additional risk issues on your tasks as you
continue the planning process. If necessary, revisit the
dependency sequence and, where possible, replan to put high-
risk tasks where slack is available.

Resource Management
Choosing to shop for software parallel to shopping for the server
and cables presupposes that you have the staff available to do
both jobs simultaneously. In reality, you may not. Since making
tasks parallel saves time at the expense of resources, you must
have the resources available in the first place.
For example, if youve set up all your tasks so that they are full-
time equivalent (i.e., every task takes a full-time person for its
duration), and you have three people on your project team, you
cant make more than three tasks parallel at any one time.
You may have a situation in which a dependency relationship
exists between two tasks, not because the tasks are related, but
because the second task cant begin until the person performing
the first task finishes with that task. Resources, then, can force
dependency relationships.
When you manage multiple, simultaneous projects, you may have
cross-project dependencies. If the same team handles multiple
projects, Worker A may do Task A for Project B and then move
on to do Task D for Project C. If Worker A runs overschedule on
Task A, Task D necessarily starts late. Therefore, in a very real
sense, Task D/Project C is dependent on Task A/Project Ba
cross-project dependency.
 Laying Out the Project 75

Managing these complex work and resource relationships is one

of the chief benefits of planning. Only by identifying all the
potential conflicts can you hope to resolve them.

Types of Dependencies
The common understanding of dependency is that if Task B is
dependent upon Task A, then Task B cant start until Task A is
complete. This is called a finish-to-start (FS) dependency. While
its the most frequently-encountered type of dependency, its not
the only one. As you lay out your project, youll encounter
various types of dependencies, including these:
Finish-to-finish (FF) dependency
Start-to-start (SS) dependency
Start-to-finish (SF) dependency
Overlaps
Lag
The rest of this chapter focuses on each of these dependencies.

Finish-to-Finish (FF) Dependency

The finish of Task B is dependent upon the finish of Task A in a
finish-to-finish dependency. Task B can begin before or during
Task A, but it needs the finish of Task A before it can conclude.
For example, Connect Network is currently FS dependent on
Wire Offices. (See fig. 4.2.) You will wire all the offices, and
when youre finished, youll connect the computers.
Instead, you could make Connect Network FF dependent on
Wire Offices: You connect the individual computers as you wire
each office. However, the absolute final stages of Connect
Network require Wire Offices to be complete.
76 Practical Project Management

Like parallel tasking, an FF dependency can save time and may

also improve the efficiency of the work.

Start-to-Start (SS) Dependency

In a start-to-start dependency, the start of Task B is dependent
upon the start of Task A. You could make Manuals/Procedures
SS dependent upon Purchasing.
Instead of starting the manuals and procedures as soon as youve
made the hardware and software choices, you might wait until
the beginning of purchasing, especially if you anticipate, for
example, that it might be difficult to buy the hardware and
software you selected. As soon as Purchasing begins, making
the selections official, you can start on Manuals/Procedures.

Start-to-Finish (SF) Dependency

A seldom-used relationship, a start-to-finish dependency indicates
that the finish of Task B depends on the start of Task A.
You might decide to make Set up Server SF-dependent on Wire
Offices because you cant finish Set Up Server until at least one
office has been wired.

Overlaps
Sometimes there is a relationship between tasks that doesnt
involve the exact start or finish. You can overlap these tasks. For
example, in figure 4.2, Purchasing may be FS-dependent upon
Select Cables and Select Software for efficiency reasons. (Some
organizations have complex procurement processes, and doing it
all together may be desirable.) But, on the other hand, you might
be able to use an overlap relationship for these tasks. Start the
purchasing process after the starts of Select Server and Select
Software, buying each item in the mix as soon as the selection
 Laying Out the Project 77

decision is made. By overlapping the tasks, Purchasing finishes

ahead of when it might have if you had waited until all the
selection decisions were made.
Overlap can be described in time, task, or percentage terms:
Start Purchasing one week after the beginning of the
selection tasks. (Time)
Start Purchasing as soon as the first selection item is
completed. (Task)
Start Purchasing with a 25 percent overlap on Select
Server. (Percentagethis means that Purchasing begins
after 25 percent of Select Server is complete.)

Lag
Imagine that you purchased your server, cables, and software by
mail order. Now you have a lag between the time when the
purchase is complete and the time when you can begin Wire
Office and Set Up Server. That time lag is the time you spend
waiting for the packages to arrive. Its easy to forget lag when
youre mapping out a project planmake sure you account for
any delays.
Tip: For significant periods of lag, draw it in the project
schedule so you cant forget it.
Remember, at this point, you should consider your project layout
tentative. You need a basic layout so you can continue the
process. By creating a basic layout, youve made some strategic
decisions, but you still dont have all the facts. Revisit the project
layout as you gain greater knowledge of your project, since
decisions about your final layout have a substantial impact on
your projects outcome.
78 Practical Project Management

Exercise #5:
Making Your Own
Sticky Note PERT
Youve been asked to put together a word processing system for
your department secretary. The system is to consist of a
computer, a word processing package, and a printer. Using the
WBS shown below, create a Sticky Note PERT layout. For the
purposes of this exercise, try to make tasks parallel when
possible. Assume all dependencies are FS-type.
You will need some sticky notes or small sheets of paper and a
surface to lay them out on.

WP System

Determine Buying Install/Train

Needs

Needs Choose Choose Install

Computer Software

Purchasing Train
 Laying Out the Project 79

Answer to Exercise #5
Here is one possible project layout. If youve made different
choices, you havent necessarily completed the exercise
incorrectly. Compare this version to your own version to check
your understanding of the process.

Choose
Computer Train

Needs Purchasing

Choose Install
Software
Analyzing
Your Tasks

Ch
ap
te
r

5
82 Practical Project Management

Part of properly understanding your project is understanding the

details of the tasks that make it up. Task analysis is the process of
studying your tasks, gathering the various data you need to
manage the tasks, writing specifications, constructing estimates for
task performance, assigning the work, and identifying potential
problems.
As with any other aspect of the planning process, take your time
and do the task analysis process right. Drawing together in a
single place all the information you need allows you to give
better and clearer work assignments, to look realistically at
management issues, and to control the performance of the actual
work.

Large Versus Small Projects

in Task Analysis
Different types of projects require different levels of task analysis
detail. Complex projects, especially those involving large dollar-
value contracts, require highly detailed specifications, sometimes
running into hundreds of pages. Smaller projects may benefit
from shorter, less detailed specifications that rely more on the
initiative and judgment of the person responsible for each task.
How detailed does your task analysis need to be? To answer that
question, think about the following issues:
1. How much direct management control will you have over the
work to be performed? (More control = less need to
document in advance)
 Analyzing Your Tasks 83

Sequence First or Task First?

Should you plan the sequence first or analyze the tasks first?
Project management authorities disagree.
Planning the sequence first gives you the advantage of
analyzing your tasks in their proper context. Tasks are
affected by their predecessors, and they affect their
successors.
On the other hand, by analyzing the tasks first, you gain
more detailed task knowledge. This information can be
useful as you make decisions about risk and resource issues
that are inherent in parallel tasking. You may be able to
construct a better dependency sequence as a result.
Although this book plans sequence first and analyzes tasks
second, there is actually thirdand betteroption: Integrate
the two steps. Gather easily available task data and prepare
a rough dependency sequence. Add detailed task analysis
information, and then revisit the dependency sequence.
Work back and forth until youve refined your project plan.
In the real world, planning seldom fits the one-step-at-a-time
model shown in workbooks.
Planning is an iterative process. The knowledge you gain as
you work through each step often forces you to redo earlier
steps in the process.
84 Practical Project Management

2. What level of confidence do you have in the capability and

positive motivation of your detail team to achieve the goal?
(More capability/better motivation = less need for detail)
3. What are the consequences of a significant misunderstanding?
(Minor consequences = less need for detail)
Specifications cant be made fool-proof, as the sage said, because
fools are so ingenious. Highly detailed contract specifications
exist primarily to deal with payment issues. If you need them, do
thembut if you dont, dont.

A Form for Task Analysis

The sample form in figure 5.1 shows the information you need to
gather for each project task. You may use this form or create your
own version. Dont feel restricted by the size of the form, or feel
obligated to fill it up; the amount of information you need
necessarily varies by the type of project and project conditions.
You must, however, answer these questions:
Whos going to do each task?
How long will each task take?
How much will the task cost?
What are the deliverables/outcomes of the task?
 Analyzing Your Tasks 85

Task Analysis Form

Task No.:

Task Name:

Predecessor Task(s):

Successor Task(s):

Specifications/Deliverables:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
ResourcesPeople/Department:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
Equipment/Supplies:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
Time Estimate:
Must Start ____________ Must Finish ____________

Milestones:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
Optimistic ________ Pessimistic ________ Most Likely _______
Cost Estimate:
Salaries $____________________
Equipment/Supplies $____________________
Contract Costs $____________________
Overhead @ ____% $____________________
TOTAL $____________________
Fig. 5.1. The success of any project depends on how well you analyze each
individual task. A Task Analysis Form similar to the one shown here can
aid you in analyzing a projects tasks.
86 Practical Project Management

Completing a Task Analysis

Lets take a task from the LAN project and complete a task
analysis form for it. Lets choose the task Wire Offices.
This task involves stringing wire through ceiling panels and walls
to reach twenty-five individual computer stations.

Task Number
Youll find it convenient to number your tasks. You can number
tasks sequentially (1 to X), or you can create your own system.
For the LAN project, the elements of the WBS are numbered first
as follows:
1. Management
2. Purchasing
3. Install/Test
4. Training
Wire Offices is the first task in the third WBS category, making
it Task 3-1 (see fig. 5.2).

Task Name
The Task Name in this example is obviously Wire Offices. You
can simply use the name you gave the task in the third level of
the WBS.
Task No: Task Name:

3-1 Wire Offices

Fig. 5.2. The Task Analysis Form provides a place to record the Task
number and the Task name.
 Analyzing Your Tasks 87

Predecessor and Successor Tasks

Using the Dependency Sequence, you can identify the tasks that
come before (predecessor tasks) and after (successor tasks) the
subject task (current task). Notice in figure 5.3 that Purchasing is
the fourth task in the second WBS category and Connect
Network is the fourth task in the third WBS category.

Predecessor Task(s) Successor Task(s)

2-4 Purchasing 3-4 Connect Network

Fig. 5.3. The predecessor task comes before the current task; the successor
task comes after. Its important to note these on the Task Analysis Form.

Specifications and Deliverables

Specifications are the detailed performance criteria the task must
achieve. Deliverables are the end products the task must achieve.
You may list either or both on the Task Analysis Form, depending
on your project.
While detailed specifications and deliverables may go on for page
after page, you should identify particularly vital requirements up
front. For example, the requirement that the wiring must not
disrupt departmental work (see fig. 5.4) is more important than
other details, such as outlet boxes must be within 6 inches of the
wall baseboards.

Specifications/Deliverables:
Cable must connect all 25 workstations to central server.
Wire to be completely encased in wall or ceiling.
Must avoid disrupting department work.

Fig. 5.4. Use the Task Analysis Form to note the vital specifications and
deliverables.
88 Practical Project Management

ResourcesPeople/Department
Claudia Browne, Maintenance
Chad Cowles, MIS Department

Fig. 5.5. Assigning people to the tasks requires thoughtful analysis. If you
dont have enough information at this point to assign actual people, list the
skills team members will need to complete the tasks.

Human Resources
Allocating human resources to tasks is one of the most complex
parts of task analysis. You must take into account the following:
Skills. Can the people you have available to you do the job?
Availability. Can the people you are considering be there
when you need them?
Other obligations. What other responsibilities and
commitments do these people have? These impact availability.
You may find that you dont have enough information to properly
allocate resources to tasks at this stage of the planning process.
Instead of assigning people, assign skills. For example, instead of
Claudia, you could write: 60 people-hours of work requiring
skills in wiring and building maintenance. Assign team consisting
of maintenance and MIS people. As the planning process
continues, you can choose the actual team members
(see fig. 5.5).
 Analyzing Your Tasks 89

Equipment/Supplies
Forcing yourself to think about the supplies and equipment can
help avoid costly surprises later. Be sure to consider every aspect
of the task. Recall from Chapter 2 how easy it was to forget such
essential items as utensils and paper plates when planning for the
company picnic. Dont overlook the obvious! (See fig. 5.6.)

Equipment/Supplies
Stepladder, wire fish equipment, cable, outlet boxes,
standard toolbox.
All tools available in-office except for cable and outlet boxes.

Fig. 5.6. Notice that in addition to listing the tools needed, its a good idea
to note where they can be obtained.

Time and Cost

So far in the task analysis youve dealt with information that is
fixed and definite, or at least that you can make fixed and
definite. Time and cost issues are more difficult to analyze
because they require you to predict the future and make plans
based on the unknown. You have to make estimates, and you are
held responsible for the quality of those estimates.
Throughout your project management career, youll regularly be
asked to predict the unpredictable. Use the techniques in the
accompanying chart to hone your estimating skills.
90 Practical Project Management

Six Tips to Exceptional Estimating

1. Use actual time estimates from similar tasks in other
projects. Good estimates are based on historical data;
use the best historical data you can find.
2. Involve the person most knowledgeable about the task
and ask for his or her estimates. But be sure to learn
that persons tendencies: Are you dealing with someone
who is an optimistor a pessimist? (Some people claim
to be realists. Theyre usually pessimists.)
3. Research the history of the vendors and subcontractors
you plan to use. How experienced are they? How
reliable have their estimates been in the past? Get
references and check them out.
4. Look for standard reference books containing time
estimates. From the standard garage book that says how
long it should take a mechanic to fix your car to
software industry norms for the development of code,
many references exist for specific work-types. Check
your trade or professional organization for details.
5. Be especially cautious when estimating for tasks whose
outcome and timing directly affect the final project
outcome. When possible, build in extra time and
resources to allow slack for those tasks.
6. Train yourself to be an exceptional estimator. Whenever
you need an estimate, make an off-the-top-of-your-
head guess and write it down. Then make an estimate.
When you finish the actual work, compare the actual
result to your guess. By giving your brain regular
feedback, youll find yourself becoming progressively
more accurate.
 Analyzing Your Tasks 91

Time Estimate
Must Start N/A____ Must Finish N/A____
Milestones
50 percent of offices wired (2.5 wks.)
100 percent of offices wired (3.5 wks.)
Outlet boxes installed and wiring connected (4 wks.)
Optimistic 2 wks. Pessimistic 9 wks.
Most Likely 4 wks.

Fig. 5.7. Estimating the time required to complete a task isnt an exact
science, but you can learn to make fairly accurate estimates. Record them
on the Task Analysis Form.

Must Start/Must Finish dates. Most tasks have an as soon

as possible start condition; that is, they start at the earliest
moment their predecessor tasks allow. Occasionally, a task may
be more restricted. For example, if the wiring of your offices was
being done in a new building and you had contracted with a
drywall crew to come in on a certain date to put up the interior
walls, then you might assign a Must Finish date to Wire
Offices.
In general, Must Start/Must Finish dates should be used only
when necessary (see fig. 5.7).
Milestones. Milestones are checkpoints that are built into
projects so you can monitor actual progress. As you can see in
figure 5.7, the first wiring parts are expected to take longer than
the later ones because of a learning curve. A 50 percent wiring
completion milestone is set as the first checkpoint. The second
checkpoint comes when all the basic wiring is done. The final
phase of the work is connecting up the wiring. The final
checkpoint is also the end of the task.
92 Practical Project Management

Optimistic/Pessimistic/Most Likely. How long will it actually

take to do the work? When the task has a relatively low risk,
assign the Most Likely time based on your estimating; then go on
to the next section.
Sometimes tasks have high risk. For example, if youre working in
an older building, you wont know about conditions behind the
walls until you start drilling. If youre lucky and the space is easy
to work in, you should be able to finish relatively quickly, say in
two weeks. Thats the optimistic outcome. But theres a chance
that the walls, as constructed, wont allow the wiring to take
place according to plan and that major work will be necessary to
get it doneperhaps nine weeks. That, of course, is the
pessimistic outcome. However, if the building is like others of
similar vintage, which is most likely, youll encounter some minor
problems but should be able to get the job done in four weeks
(see fig. 5.7).
Optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely values are used in PERT
time estimating, which is discussed in Chapter 6.

Cost Estimate
Salaries $ __________________________
Equipment/Supplies $ __________________________
Contract Costs $ __________________________
Overhead @ ____% $ __________________________
TOTAL $ __________________________

Fig. 5.8. Project costs can include fixed costs and variable costs. Salaries
are a variable cost, while equipment and supplies are a fixed cost.
 Analyzing Your Tasks 93

For all your projects, as youve done in this example, always

estimate time first, then money. Tasks normally have fixed costs
and variable costs (see fig. 5.8). Fixed costs are costs for
equipment and supplies. Five hundred feet of cable, far more
than you need, comes on a single roll for $250. Thats a fixed
cost. Whether it takes two weeks, four weeks, or nine weeks to
physically wire the office has a tremendous impact on the salaries
portion of the task budget. Thats a variable cost. The roll of wire
costs a fixed amount regardless of installation time, but the same
is not true of salaries.
Contract costs may be fixed or variable, depending on the nature
of the contract. A firm fixed price (FFP) contract has an exact
money figure attached, and is a fixed cost; a cost plus (CP)
contract, which allows for the contractor to recover actual costs
plus a percentage for gross profit, is a variable cost.
Dont forget overhead charges that may apply to your project
costs. Overhead can include general and administrative (G&A)
costs, salary overhead, profit margin, and other costs. They are
often structured as a percentage addition to actual costs. If they
will be charged to your project, then you have less real money to
spend than you might have thought at first glance.
94 Practical Project Management

Task Analysis Time Savers

1. Although you need a Task Analysis Form for each task
in your project, you dont have to prepare them all
personally. Assign forms to the team members most
likely to perform the work. However, do budget time to
review what they produce.
2. On a large project with subtasks, prepare the forms for
your Level 3 WBS tasks and assign group and team
leaders to prepare forms for the deeper levels.
3. Save your Task Analysis Forms! You may be in charge
of similar projects in the future that allow you to reuse
(with slight edits) the forms youve already prepared.
4. If youre planning for a number of similar projects that
follow a basic sequence (although each one will have
unique characteristics), its worth it to go into substantial
depth on a single example and then photocopy the
Task Analysis sheets for all the projects.
 Analyzing Your Tasks 95

Solve Problems Easily by

Catching Them Early
The Godzilla Principle says that problems grow with neglect,
moving along the spectrum from easy to impossible. The
technique of What If? Analysis allows you to create a Control
Point Identification Chart (see fig. 5.9), a powerful tool for
improving your project oversight.
In the Control Point Identification Chart, you identify something
that might go wrongor rightthat would be out of the
ordinary. Use a brainstorming session for each task to identify
potential problems and opportunities. Then, identify early
warning points and list possible solutions and strategies.
Most people plan only for things that can go wrong. This wastes
another hidden resource: good luck. When things do go wrong,
you must deal with them. But if you dont exploit the things that
go right when they occur, you cant take advantage of their
benefits.
There are three points where you may have the power to solve or
eliminate a problem:
1. When you first think of it. If you think it might rain on
your picnic, you can rent a tent or schedule a make-up date.
Problem solved.
2. At the early warning point. In the LAN wiring example, the
first wall would be the early warning point that the wall
construction may be troublesome. As soon as you drill into
that first wall, youll know.
 96

Control Point Identification Chart

What could go How/when
Task right/wrong? would I know? What could I do?
3-1 Wire Offices Interior braces in Early warning Perhaps drill one sample
walls could make point: first wall wall to see if this is a
wiring far more problem
difficult and time-
Practical Project Management

consuming Provide management with

early warning, as this
condition would make
lateness unavoidable
Draft additional help to
speed up this task

Fig. 5.9. A Control Point Identification Chart can help you anticipate problems early on and solve them before theyre
beyond your control.
 Analyzing Your Tasks 97

3. When it happens. Although the general strategy is to solve

it early, some problems are costly or difficult to fix, or hard to
predict in advance. You should still list these problems and
solutions on the Control Point Identification Chart, but you
dont need to act unless the problem occurs.
The chart on page 99 lists some routine problems and their
possible solutions.

ShowstoppersOr, What If Godzilla Does

Get to Tokyo?
If it rains on your picnic, youre responsible because you can
plan for rain. But what if theres an earthquake? Godzilla has
entered Tokyo, but this is different.
An earthquake isnt simply a problem, its a showstopper. The
planning process doesnt have an answer for you. Even if you
had thought, Gee, what if theres an earthquake? it wouldnt
have helped. Likewise, if youd asked yourself What if a nuclear
bomb drops on my picnic? or What if aliens from outer space
attack during the picnic? you couldnt have arrived at a solution.
Obviously, this line of thinking can get ridiculous in a hurry. But
the point is this: Rain is your responsibility because you can plan
for it; these other catastrophes are what lawyers call Acts of God.
You cant afford to worry about them, since theres nothing you
can do about them if they do happen.
98 Practical Project Management

If you could have done something about it, its your

responsibility. If you couldnt have done anything about it, no
matter how much pre-planning you might have done, then its a
showstopper.
There is one caveat you should keep in mind: if you know about
a possible showstopper that could destroy the project, tell your
project originators of the possibility early. For example, Sorry,
but the walls are solid concrete. Its physically impossible to run
wire through them. Well have to take a completely different
approach. Heres a new set of time and budget estimates.
 Analyzing Your Tasks 99

Common Problems and Possible Solutions

Problem Areas Possible Solution
Human Resources Identify replacements for each key
team member.
Cross-train for critical skills.
Equipment/Facilities Negotiate commitments for key
equipment and facilities in advance.
Capital Expenditures Make sure you know your
organizations budget cycle and
capital expenditure procedures.
Costs Eliminate nonessential elements.
Substitute less costly resources.
Offer a bonus for improved cost or
delivery.
Administrative Develop detailed operating
Procedures procedures and standards.
Treat support activities as internal
customers: learn their procedures
and make friends.
Contracting Study contract issues to prepare for
negotiations.
Demand compliance.
Seek alternative sources to increase
your options.
Schedule Slippage Recover during later steps.
Narrow the scope of the work.
Throw more resources at it.
Shift resources from less time-
sensitive tasks.
Contract out.
100 Practical Project Management

Exercise #6:
Prepare a
Task Analysis
A. In the previous chapter, you put together a Sticky Note PERT
chart for a word processing system. Now, prepare a mini-task
analysis for one of the tasks on that PERT Chart. Youll notice
that some elements on the Task Analysis Form have been
eliminated because they arent necessary on a project of this
size.

Task No:

Task Name:

Predecessor Task(s):

Successor Task(s):

Specifications/Deliverables:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
ResourcesPeople/Department:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
Equipment/Supplies:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________

Since this is a sample project and you dont know the names
of specific people, describe skills in the Resources section.
 Analyzing Your Tasks 101

B. Answer the questions from the Control Point

Identification Chart:
1. What could go right/wrong?
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
2. How/when would I know?
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
3. What could I do?
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Managing Time
and Cost

Ch
ap
te
r

6
104 Practical Project Management

How long will it take?

How much will it cost?
These two questions often strike fear into the hearts of project
managers. No matter how committed they are to quality, no
matter how hard they try, project managers find it difficult to
predict the future. Without a crystal ball to predict the future,
project managers must rely on statistical tools and techniques to
get their estimates straight.
There are two fundamental approaches to time estimating: PERT
and CPM (leaving aside WAG and SWAG). This chapter will focus
on how you can use these two tools to predict the unpredictable.

How to Use PERT Time

During the 1950s, the United States Navy project-managed the
Polaris project. This project, to build a nuclear submarine and
sea-launched ICBM, was one of the most complex engineering
projects in the history of the world up to that time. As part of the
management process, the Navy developed PERT, the Program
Evaluation and Review Technique. PERT is a soup to nuts
comprehensive project management system aimed at highly
complex projects. Chapter 5 explored the task sequencing aspect
of PERT, in the form we nicknamed Sticky Note PERT. Now,
youll learn how to estimate using the PERT technique.
The PERT time technique is used when there is high uncertainty
about how long it will take to perform a given task. By using
tools of statistical analysis, the PERT method allows you to create
a time estimate that accounts for good luck and bad luck
variables as well as to calculate the confidence level, which is the
likelihood youll achieve the estimated time.
 Managing Time and Cost 105

Imagine that you approach an engineer on the Polaris project

who designs missile guidance systems. You say: I need a
guidance system for the new ICBM that will allow us to shoot the
missile from under water anywhere in the world, and then travel
3,000 miles to its destination and land within 100 yards of its
target. Nothing like this has ever been done before. So, how long
will it take you?
Of course, the engineer looks at you as if youve gone crazy.
How should I know? Its R&D! If I knew in the first place, I
wouldnt have to do it!
Nevertheless, you need an answer. The duration of the system
design affects the total project time constraint, the budget
constraint (staff salaries), as well as numerous dependencies and
other scheduled events. How can you get a meaningful answer
when you understand the difficulties and uncertainties in making
the estimate?
What factors make the estimate difficult? you might ask the
engineer.
The engineer is likely to reply: The most important factor right
now is that I can think of maybe ten theoretical approaches I can
take toward the design of the guidance system. Ill do my best to
rank the design approaches by likelihood, but the simple truth is
that I just dont know which one is the right oneat least not yet.
If I get lucky, the first approach I pick might be the right one. If
Im unlucky, it might not happen until the tenth. My best guess
would be the third or fourth try, which is about average for me,
but I dont want to be held to that, since theres just too much
uncertainty. Thats why I just cant give you an answer.
106 Practical Project Management

Actually, the engineers response reflects the PERT system for

time estimating uncertainty. Hes outlined these three possible
scenarios:
T(o) = The Optimistic time, or the best case with a probability
of at least 1 percent.
T(p) = The Pessimistic time, or the worst case with a probability
of at least 1 percent.
T(m) = The Most likely time.
Using this information, you can determine:
T(e) = The PERT Estimate
Returning to the Polaris project example, imagine asking the
engineer:
If you did get lucky, and the very first approach you picked
turned out to be right, how long would it take you?
The engineers likely reply?
About three months, but you cant put that down in your time
estimateits not very probable.
To which you respond:
Whats the worst-case scenario?
Engineer:
The tenth approach does it. That makes it take about thirty
months. I feel pretty safe with a thirty-month estimate.
You:
Ill bet you do. How about the most likely case?
Engineer:
Well, probably nine or ten months. Say ten. Thats third
approach or maybe fourth. Thats the most probable, but as I
said, I really cant guarantee that estimate, because I just dont
have the facts.
 Managing Time and Cost 107

Determining the Three Estimates

How do you create the three estimatesT(o), T(p), and
T(m)given all sorts of extremes? Here are some ideas:
Historical data. Lets say your project is a grant proposal.
One task is writing professional biographies of the grant
staff. The staff varies by project, and the emphasis on the
resums also varies. If you have written numerous grant
proposals before, calculate the fastest youve ever performed
the biography stage, then the slowest, and then calculate the
median.
Research. Many construction projects shut down when it
rains; therefore, the amount of rain influences the number of
calendar days it takes to perform a task. Historical weather
data can tell you the driest and wettest months on record
and provide a prediction for whether the current month is
expected to be wetter or drier than average.
Published data. When you take your car to the shop, the
estimated labor time (and thus the cost) for your repair are
taken from standard volumes that list how long a mechanic
will take to do a particular repair. Those estimates were
probably created using the T(e) method; some even show
ranges. Such volumes exist for many fields, including
software development.
Scenarios. The engineer in the Polaris example gives three
values that are scenario-based. Assuming the first approach
is right is a scenario; so is assuming the last approach is the
one that works.
108 Practical Project Management

So now you have three estimates:

T(o) = 3 months
T(p) = 30 months
T(m) = 10 months
How would you calculate T(e)? First, lets look at a typical time
estimate curve. In most cases, T(o) is closer to T(m) than T(p) is,
since theres a limit to how small T(o) can be (T(o)>0), but no
real limit to how large T(p) can be (see fig. 6.1).
Situations vary, of course, but usually the worst case is farther
away from the most likely than the best case is.

Fig. 6.1. The best caseT(o)is usually closer to T(m) than the worst
caseT(p)is.

Even though the curve in figure 6.1 shows the shape of the time
distribution, it doesnt reflect the relative probability of T(o) and
T(p) actually happening. Although Murphys Law would indicate
 Managing Time and Cost 109

that T(p) is more probable than T(o), it really isnt. You dont
know the relative probability. On all tasks in all projects, the
relative probability of the extremes should be about even. This
gives the standard bell curve distribution.

Fig. 6.2. Although you dont know the relative probability of T(p) or T(o)
occurring, it should be even for the extremes. This produces a bell-shaped
distribution.

In the standard bell curve distribution, T(m) is given a weight of

4. From that, you can create this weighted average formula
for T(e):
T(e) = T(o) + (4*T(m)) + T(p)
6
In the engineers situation, T(e) = 3+(4*10)+ 306 , or 736 , which is 12 16
months. Depending on the level of precision you want in your
estimate, you might choose to round the T(e) value to 12 months.
110 Practical Project Management

Wait just a minute! the engineer says. Why is 12 16 months any

more valid an estimate than 10 months, or 15 months, for that
matter? Isnt this just a SWAG?
While WAGs and SWAGs are legitimate project estimating tools,
this is neither. If there were only one task in the entire project,
then, of course, the 12 16 months estimate would be clearly
nonsense. However, the sample project has numerous tasks.
Lets say there are 6,000 different tasks in the project. Is it likely
that at least some tasks will have good luck? Yes, of course.
Is it equally likely that at least some tasks will have bad luck?
Equally, yes.
Would you expect most tasks to finish up at more or less their
most likely time estimates? Probably.
Thats why this technique of calculating T(e) is so powerful. We
may not know which tasks will have good or bad luck, but we do
know that some tasks will have good and bad luck.
That allows us to bring probability theorystatisticsinto play.
You can safely predict that of a large number of tasks, some will
naturally trend toward T(o), some toward T(p), and most toward
T(m). You dont know which ones, of course. By using the T(e)
estimating formula for each task in a project, that means that
while individual task times will fluctuate between the T(o) and
T(p) extremes, the impact of that fluctuation will dampen out
somewhat. The total project estimate is therefore more solid, even
counting the real uncertainty on a task-by-task basis.
Why not just pad the project schedule and be done with it? First,
because its not honest. Second, because you dont know how
much to; pad unless you use this technique. (Then its not
padding; its proper allowance for unpredictable contingencies
totally legitimate and appropriate.)
 Managing Time and Cost 111

Third, you get into the liars contest with your boss or client.
Thats when you always add two weeks to each estimate to be on
the safe side. Your boss learns this and automatically cuts two
weeks off any time estimate you submit. So you start adding four.
That way adds madnessor dismissal.

Special Note for Math-Phobia Sufferers

This is the heavy mathematics portion of the book. After this
section, you will do nothing more difficult than basic
arithmetic. So, do you have to do this part at all?
Not every project manager must do this. Whether you
should work to master this method depends on two things:
how uncertain your task estimates are and how important it
is that you give an absolutely solid estimate. If your task
estimates are certain and your deadline is flexible, and if the
statistics dont work easily for you, skip this section
altogether.
Warning! You should either calculate T(e) for each task in
your project or none of the tasks in your projectdont mix
and match if you want a total estimate that has some
statistical validity.

Confidence Levels and the

Standard Deviation
The PERT time estimating technique also helps determine
confidence level, which is the probability that you will actually
accomplish the task on schedule or within a certain variance.
112 Practical Project Management

To determine confidence, you need to know how to calculate the

standard deviation, which is represented by the Greek letter
sigma (m):
m = T(p) - T(o)
6
In the engineers scenario, m = (30
6-3)
, or 27
6 , or 4 12 months.
A long-standing empirical rule says that when you have a nearly
symmetric mound-shaped data set (a bell curve), the following
probabilities apply:
68.26 percent of the time the work will be completed + 1 m
of T(e)
95.44 percent of the time the work will be completed + 2 m
of T(e)
99.73 percent of the time the work will be completed + 3 m
of T(e)

Risk and Standard Deviation

Standard deviation can be used as a measure of risk. A large
sigma (m) value on a task is a high-risk task; a small m value
shows a small risk. Since m shows the range between the
pessimistic and optimistic cases, a large spread means there
is greater consequence of task failure than a small spread.
 Managing Time and Cost 113

In the engineers scenario, the following confidence levels exist:

Table 6.1 Confidence Measurement

Task T(o) T(m) T(p) T(e) m

Design Guidance System 3 10 30 12.17 4.5

Confidence Low High

1 m (68.26%) 7.67 16.67
2 m (95.44%) 3.17 21.17
3 m (99.73%) 3.00 25.67

Note: At 3 m, the Low calculated value is actually

12.17-(3*4.5), or -1.33. Notice that there is no way the Low
value could actually be lower than T(o), so the T(o) value is
just substituted here. Equally, if the High value should
exceed T(p), substitute the T(p) value.

Since early completion is normally less of a problem than late

completion, the engineer can round this off and be 68 percent
confident of finishing in no more than 16 23 months and 95
percent confident of finishing in no more than 21 16 months.
(Normally, there is no real value in going to the 3 m level, since
95 percent confident is high enough for most situations.) This is a
very useful technique when you must absolutely finish a job at a
certain time or else. Just add 2 m to T(e) and back up your start
date accordingly. (Again, round fractional answers to the nearest
sensible time units.)
114 Practical Project Management

Armed with a standard statistical table, you can also work

backwards, calculating a confidence probability (how likely you
are to finish on or before that time) for any given amount of time
based on what fraction of a standard deviation the deadline
represents.

Standard Deviation for a Task Sequence

There is one extra element involved in standard deviation: how to
determine sigma (m) for a sequence of tasks. Consider the
situation depicted in figure 6.3.

A B C

Fig. 6.3. In this task dependency sequence, starting Task B is dependent

upon finishing Task A, and starting Task C is dependent on finishing Task
B.

In project management language, you would describe figure 6.3

by saying that Task B is dependent upon Task A (it cant begin
until Task A is finished) and that Task C is dependent upon Task
B. How long would it take to complete Tasks A, B, and C in
sequence?
 Managing Time and Cost 115

Table 6.2 Time Values for Task Completion

Task T(o) T(m) T(p) T(e) m

A 2.00 5.00 9.00 5.17 1.17
B 3.00 7.00 21.00 8.67 3.00
C 1.00 2.00 3.00 2.00 0.33

Task T(e) m m2
A 5.17 1.17 1.36
B 8.67 3.00 9.00
C 2.00 0.33 0.11

Using the values in Table 6.2, the total time for Tasks A, B, and C
is equal to the sum of T(e) for A, B, C, which works out to 15.84
weeks.
What, then, is the standard deviation for A, B, C? At first glance, it
looks like 4.5, which is the answer when you add up the m
values. But that cant be the answer, since the chance of all three
tasks running late must be less than the chance of any one task
running late. If 4.5 is too high, the average sigma (m) value (1.5)
is too small, since the standard deviation must be greater than the
greatest individual m value.
To calculate the sigma (m) value for A, B, C, you must first square
the standard deviations for each task, add them up, and then take
the square root of the sum (the square root of the sum of the
squares).
116 Practical Project Management

Table 6.3 Time Estimate With Confidence Factors

Sum of T(e) 15.84

Sum of Squares of Std. Dev. 10.48
Square Root of Sum of Squares 3.24
68% Confidence (1 std. dev.) 19.08
95% Confidence (2 std. dev.) 22.31
99% Confidence (3 std. dev.) 25.55

This sounds more complicated than it is. You have already

calculated T(e) and sigma (m) for each task. Armed with a
spreadsheet program, squaring the standard deviations is a simple
matter. Once you know the order in which you will perform the
tasks (you got this from your Sticky Note PERT chart), list the
tasks in sequence and add up the squares of the standard
deviation. Take the square root of the sum, which involves
pushing only one button on your calculatoror setting up your
spreadsheet to do the calculation automatically. For the desired
degree of confidence, add in the number of standard deviations
you wish (one or two in most cases). Voila! You have a valid
estimate with confidence factors. (See Table 6.3.) Round the
numbers to the nearest sensible time units: 3.24 is either 3 41 or 3;
22.31 is either 22 41 or 22.

Crash Time and the CPM Method

Consider this example of simultaneous invention: Around the
time the PERT system was developed, DuPont and Remington
Rand developed CPM, the Critical Path Method. CPM, like PERT,
uses a network approach for large project management. With
 Managing Time and Cost 117

both tools available to them, project managers began almost at

once to use their favorite elements of both PERT and CPM, with
the practical result that PERT and CPM today are used effectively
as synonyms. While this statement is not strictly accurate, on an
everyday level, it might as well be. Most project managers use a
hybrid of the two systems and call the resulting system whatever
they like.
There are some important differences between PERT and CPM,
one of which is the CPM technique for time estimating, called
crash time. Crash time is the fastest time in which a task can be
accomplished given unlimited resources.
Please note that additional resources dont always speed up a
task. If it takes one woman nine months to have a baby, it doesnt
mean that nine women could do the job in only one. In addition,
watch out for the too many cooks spoil the broth problem. Two
people might speed up a task, but twenty would likely slow it
down.
Return to the Polaris example with the guidance system engineer.
Recall your initial request: I need a guidance system for the new
ICBM that will allow us to shoot the missile from under water
anywhere in the world, then travel 3,000 miles to its destination
and land within 100 yards of its target. Nothing like this has ever
been done before. So, how long will it take you?
This time, the engineer looks at you slyly. I dont know. How
many people do I get to help me do this?
The engineer realizes that the actual time to complete many tasks
is dependent on the resources available to do the work. In this
scenario, there are many different approaches the engineer can
take. The engineer can try one approach at a time until the right
one is found, or can lead simultaneous teams on each approach
until the right one is found. The tradeoff is time versus resources.
In other words, you might be able to buy a time very close to
T(o), given enough staff and money. How do you decide what
makes sense?
118 Practical Project Management

Before you analyze the situation further, you must understand

two concepts related to crash time: crash cost and crash slope
(see fig. 6.4).

t
Fig. 6.4. Crash analysis is a way of estimating the effect of applying
additional resources to a project.

Crash cost is the total cost of the resources necessary to achieve

the crash time.
Crash slope is actually two numbers. First, its the difference
between the crash time and the normal time. Second, its the
difference between the crash cost and the normal cost. There can
be different points on the crash slope, because there can be
different scenarios of resources versus time.
 Managing Time and Cost 119

Going back to the Polaris example, follow these steps to decide

the tradeoff between time and resources.
Step 1: Determine normal time.
Lets make the normal time for one engineer the PERT
estimate, about 12 months.
Step 2: Determine crash time.
Hypothetically, lets conclude that three engineers
(supervisor and two staff) could cut the time to six
months, and that five engineers (supervisor and four
staff) could cut the time to four months. Beyond that,
you decide that extra staff wont yield significant
additional time savings.
Step 3: Determine normal cost.
The senior engineer makes about $5,000 a month,
making the normal staff cost $60,000.
Step 4: Determine crash cost.
If staff engineers make $4,000 a month, the three-
engineer/6-month version will cost $78,000, and the
five-engineer/4-month version will cost $84,000.
Step 5: Determine crash slope.
For three engineers, the time savings is six months
and the additional cost is $18,000. The crash slope is
normally written in parentheses, thus: (-6, $18,000).
For five engineers, the crash slope is (-8, $24,000).
Step 6: Determine whether its worth it.
You can probably imagine a situation in which a time
savings of six months is easily worth $18,000 and
another in which it wouldnt be worthwhile. In this
example, youll need more information about the
project layout before you can definitely decide which
scenario makes most sense. Right now, the benefit is
knowing about one more option for better managing
project tradeoffs. Chapter 8 will return to this issue.
120 Practical Project Management

Exercise #7:
PERT
Time Exercise
The easiest way to complete this exercise is to use a spreadsheet
program. Set up the information shown in the table on the next
page. Then calculate T(e), m, and m2 for all the tasks A through J.
Next, assume that theres a sequence of tasks, A, C, E, F, and G,
to be completed in that order.
What is the T(e) for all those tasks?
What is the sum of the squares of the standard deviations of
the individual tasks?
What is the standard deviation of the path sequence (the
square root of the sum of the squares)?
Write your answers in the boxes provided in the table.
 Managing Time and Cost 121

Task T(o) T(m) T(p) T(e) m m2

A 2.00 5.00 9.00
B 3.00 7.00 21.00
C 1.00 2.00 3.00
D 4.00 6.00 20.00
E 2.00 3.00 7.00
F 3.00 9.00 25.00
G 5.00 12.00 18.00
H 3.00 10.00 11.00
I 1.00 2.00 6.00
J 2.00 4.00 9.00

For Tasks A, C, E, F, G
T(e)
- m2
m

Formulas:

T(e) = T(o) + (4*T(m)) + T(p)

6
m= T(p) - T(o)
6
122 Practical Project Management

Answers for Exercise #7

Task T(o) T(m) T(p) T(e) m m2
A 2.00 5.00 9.00 5.17 1.17 1.36
B 3.00 7.00 21.00 8.67 3.00 9.00
C 1.00 2.00 3.00 2.00 0.33 0.11
D 4.00 6.00 20.00 8.00 2.67 7.11
E 2.00 3.00 7.00 3.50 0.83 0.69
F 3.00 9.00 25.00 10.67 3.67 13.44
G 5.00 12.00 18.00 11.83 2.17 4.69
H 3.00 10.00 11.00 9.00 1.33 1.78
I 1.00 2.00 6.00 2.50 0.83 0.69
J 2.00 4.00 9.00 4.50 1.17 1.36

For Tasks A, C, E, F, G
T(e) 33.17
- m2 20.31
m 4.506
How to Make
and Use a
Gantt Chart

Ch
ap
te
r

7
124 Practical Project Management

Although people have been managing projects throughout

history, the tools of project management are mostly of modern
origin. In Chapter 6, you learned that the beginning of the PERT
and CPM techniques dates back to the 1950s. Modern project
management dates back a bit farther than that.
Henry L. Gantt was an ordinance engineer at Aberdeen Proving
Grounds during World War I. His contribution to modern project
management, the eponymous Gantt Chart, is still one of the most
practical everyday tools in the project managers toolbox.

How to Draw a Gantt Chart

A Gantt Chart is a simple project timeline. It shows the
performance of project tasks over calendar time.
Figure 7.1 shows a Gantt Chart based on the exercise example in
Chapter 4: buying a word processing system. The first step in
making this Gantt Chart is to create a task table (see Table 7.1).
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 125

Gantt Chart
Weeks
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Needs Analysis

2. Choose Computer

3. Choose Software

4. Purchase

5. Train

6. Install

Fig. 7.1. A Gantt Chart showing the tasks involved in buying a word
processor.
126 Practical Project Management

Table 7.1 Task Table

Task Duration Dependency

1. Needs Analysis 2 weeks N/A

2. Choose Computer 1 week 1

3. Choose Software 1.5 weeks 1

4. Purchase 0.5 weeks 2, 3

5. Train User 2 weeks 4

6. Install System 1 week 4

You have already created the information you need to build a

Task Table in the process of putting together your Task Analysis
worksheets: the Task ID (a simple sequence as shown in Table
7.1, or a WBS-based numbering system as shown in Chapter 5),
the Task Name, the Duration [use T(e) if you are doing PERT time
estimates; otherwise use T(m)], and the Dependency Relationship
(what follows what).
The first task, Needs Analysis, begins the project, so nothing is
dependent upon it. Needs Analysis starts at the beginning of the
project (beginning of Week 1) and lasts for two weeks.
Two tasks, Choose Computer and Choose Software, share the
same dependency: both are waiting for Needs Analysis to finish.
Therefore, both Gantt Chart bars begin in the week following the
end of Needs Analysis. Since the two tasks dont have the same
duration, the bars arent the same length.
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 127

The fourth task, Purchase, is dependent upon both Choose

Computer and Choose Software. That means it cannot begin
until both predecessors are complete. Even though Choose
Computer is finished at the end of Week 3, Purchasing cant
begin because theres still half a week to go before Choose
Software is scheduled to finish. When one task has multiple
predecessors, its earliest start is after the end of its latest
predecessor.
Finally, Train and Install are both dependent upon Purchase.
They follow the same process as Tasks 2 and 3, above.
As long as you make a Task Table first and follow the
dependency sequence, youll find drawing Gantt Charts quite
easy.
Lets prepare a Gantt Chart for installing a LAN. First, prepare a
Task Table, using T(e) values (see Table 7.2).
Using a spreadsheet program, you can set up formulas to
automatically calculate T(e) and m for each task when you enter
T(o), T(p), and T(m).
Tip! Youll notice that the T(e) and m values keep turning out to
be numbers like 2.27 weeks. This quickly turns silly. Round
them to the nearest sensible time unit. For this example, they are
rounded to the nearest full day (using days rather than weeks as
the standard time unit), resulting in the data in Table 7.3.
Table 7.2 Task Table for Installing a LAN

No. Task T(o) T(p) T(m) T(e) m Dependent On

1 Project Mgmt. 8.80 36.00 14.40 17.07 4.53 N/A
2 Needs Analysis 1.60 4.00 2.00 2.27 0.40 N/A
3 Specifications 1.00 3.00 1.00 1.33 0.33 2
4 Select Server 1.00 2.00 1.60 1.57 0.17 3
5 Select Software 1.00 4.00 3.00 2.83 0.50 3
6 Select Cables 0.20 1.40 1.00 0.93 0.20 4
7 Purchasing 0.20 3.00 0.40 0.80 0.47 5, 6
8 Manuals 2.00 4.00 3.00 3.00 0.33 7
9 Wire Offices 3.00 9.00 4.00 4.67 1.00 7
10 Set Up Server 0.40 2.00 1.00 1.07 0.27 7
11 Dev. Training 2.00 4.60 3.00 3.10 0.43 8
12 Install Software 0.40 1.60 1.00 1.00 0.20 10
13 Connect Network 0.40 2.00 1.00 1.07 0.27 9, 12
14 Train Users 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 0.00 11, 13
15 Test/Debug 1.00 9.00 2.00 3.00 1.33 13
16 Acceptance 0.60 2.00 1.00 1.10 0.23 14, 15
Table 7.3 Task Table With Times Rounded to Nearest Unit

No. Task T(o) T(p) T(m) T(e) m Dependent On

1 Project Mgmt. 44 180 72 85 23 N/A
2 Needs Analysis 8 20 10 11 2 N/A
3 Specifications 5 15 5 7 2 2
4 Select Server 5 10 8 8 1 3
5 Select Software 5 20 15 14 3 3
6 Select Cables 1 7 5 5 1 4
7 Purchasing 1 15 2 4 2 5, 6
8 Manuals 10 20 15 15 2 7
9 Wire Offices 15 45 20 23 5 7
10 Set Up Server 2 10 5 5 1 7
11 Dev. Training 10 23 15 16 2 8
12 Install Software 2 8 5 5 1 10
13 Connect Network 2 10 5 5 1 9, 12
14 Train Users 10 10 10 10 0 11, 13
15 Test/Debug 5 45 10 15 7 13
16 Acceptance 3 10 5 6 1 14, 15
130 Practical Project Management

The only tricky part here is coming up with time estimates for
Task 1, Project Management. You need to know how to
determine the Critical Path, which will be covered in detail in the
next chapter. As a quick preview, to calculate the time for
Project Management, you have to put the task times in the
Sticky Note PERT outline (see fig. 4.2). You need to look for the
longest path, and add up the times for those tasks. In other
words, the time it takes to manage the project is equal to the time
the project itself takes. The longest path in your project is called
the Critical Path.
Armed with the Task Table, the next job is to draw the Gantt
Chart itself. The Gantt Chart in figure 7.2 was drawn by project
management software rather than by hand. (For a brief discussion
of the pros and cons of project management software, see the
accompanying sidebar, titled Computers and Project
Management.)
As you study the Gantt Chart of the sample project, remember
that the project was due in 16 weeks, or by the end of the fiscal
year (September 30, lets assume). According to the draft Gantt
Chart, the project will be finished at the end of the week of
October 1 a week behind schedule! (You could also determine
this by looking at the duration of the Project Management task. If
there are 80 available days16 weeksand the estimated
duration is 85 days, the project clearly is not on track for the
planned deadline.)
Has a mistake been made? Not at all. Its extremely difficult to see
how long a project will take until the Task Table is prepared and
the first Gantt Chart is drawn. The odds are that your first draft
will tend to be over-deadline. Dont worryno Gantt Chart is
ever wrong until its the version you make official.
The job now is to see how you can shorten the duration of the
project without affecting quality.
 June July August September October
ID Name Duration Predecessors 6/11 6/18 6/25 7/2 7/9 7/16 7/23 7/30 8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 9/10 9/17 9/24 10/1 10/8

1 Project Mgmt. 85d

2 Needs Analysis 11d
3 Specifications 7d 2
4 Select Server 8d 3
5 Select Software 14d 3
6 Select Cables 5d 4
7 Purchasing 4d 5, 6
8 Manuals 15d 7
9 Wire Offices 23d 7
10 Set Up Server 5d 7
11 Develop Training 16d 8
12 Install Software 5d 10
13 Connect Network 5d 9, 12
14 Train Users 10d 11, 13
15 Test/Debug 15d 13
16 Acceptance 6d 14, 15
How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

131

Fig. 7.2. A Gantt Chart for installing a LAN, drawn with project management software.
132 Practical Project Management

Computers and Project Management

If you dont have a problem, dont try to fix it with a
computer. This is always good advice, but particularly
important in the area of project management software,
which once won a category award in a computer magazine
for type of software most often purchased merely to sit
unopened on the shelf.
In the same way that a word processing system is of little
use to someone who cant read, project management
software is of absolutely no use to someone who doesnt
know how to create Gantt Charts and other tools by hand. If
you know how to use the tools already, then a computer
can speed up the work, do your arithmetic, keep good
records, and draw your diagrams more neatly. While these
are considerable benefits, they are not project
management. Project management is what project managers
do, not what software does. It would be more accurate to
say that there is no such thing as project management
softwarerather, there is only project tracking and
scheduling software.
This book will use the conventional name for the category,
however. Project management software will do some or all
of the following: create Gantt, PERT, and CPM charts from
Task Table information (you still have to do the task table
yourself), allow you to assign resources to tasks, keep track
of your resource scheduling, alert you to conflicts between
resource availability and workload, track resources allocated
among projects, create task lists, show actual versus plan in
task accomplishment, calculate the Critical Path, and more.
Ease of updating and the ability to look at multiple options
are other advantages.
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 133

Project management software has a reputation for requiring

a significant learning curve, but thats partly because some
people buy project management software because they dont
know how to manage their projects. This is a mistake,
though not one you can blame on the software itself. Youre
better off studying project management first, gaining
familiarity with the tools, and then using software packages
to speed up the work and improve your accuracy.
The availability and user-friendliness of project
management software have improved remarkably over the
last several years. Many project managers who previously
would have found software to be overkill as a tool now find
it useful. This book cant make specific package
recommendations for several reasons: individual needs and
preferences differ, size and complexity of projects differ, and
any recommendation thats valid today would be obsolete in
short order.
Do your homework by reading test reports in leading
computer magazines, analyze your needs, and shop
accordingly. Dont pay primary attention to the price of the
package; the least expensive part of using software is the
cost of the software itself. Most of the real cost will be user
time.
Project management software packages do fall into some
rough categories. These are power categories, not quality
categories.
Major projects. For the very largest of projects ($10
million+), you can get comprehensive packages that run on
mainframes and networks. Primavera is a well-known
package in this category. Although it comes in a Windows-
based version, the comprehensive Primavera package has
134 Practical Project Management

numerous modules and add-ons and can cost more than

$100,000 for a full implementation. If youre running 15,000
tasks on a $4 billion project, this may be a bargain; if youre
running 20 tasks on a $5,000 project, its clearly a little
excessive.
Medium projects. The most popular category of project
management software includes titles like Workbench,
Timeline, SuperProject, and Microsoft Project. (Microsoft
Project was used in the preparation of this book.) This
category of full-featured programs allows you to manage
projects of up to 1,000 to 1,500 tasks comfortably. Most carry
street prices ranging from $400 to $700.
Small projects. For basic Gantt Charting, small projects, or
project managers who dont want to do resource planning in
software, numerous packages, including FastTrack
Scheduler, InstaPlan 5000, and OnTarget, are available.
Some organizer software packages and personal information
managers (PIMs) now include basic Gantt Chart functions.
Theres even some shareware (EasyProject) that works at this
level.
Non-project management software. If the only tool you
have is a hammer, all problems look like nails. Use the right
tools for the job. In addition to formal project management
software, consider using spreadsheets, drawing programs,
flowcharters, and other tools.
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 135

Ways to Shorten a Project Schedule

There are many different approaches you can take to shorten a
project schedule. Currently, the sample project has a duration of
85 days, with 80 days as the goal. That means you need to cut
roughly five days from the projectnot a big deal. But wait!
Before finalizing this, lets calculate the sigma (m) of the project,
which is the m of the Critical (longest) Path (the darker bars on
the Gantt Chart, which were automatically calculated by the
programanother bonus for using software). To calculate the m,
square the standard deviations of the tasks, add them together,
and take the square root of the sum. This gives a m of 9.54 days.
To be 95 percent confident of meeting the end-of-fiscal-year
deadline, add 2m to the total duration, for 104 working days. That
would be the ideal length of time for this project, which means
you need to cut 24 days from the current 85. (See Table 7.4.)
What if you cant? Its not a catastrophe if you cant find a way to
cut 24 days, but you must cut a minimum of 5 days to get to the
80-day target. Cutting all 24 days gives you a 95 percent chance
of meeting the goal regardless of problems, but youre paid to
manage the problems.
As you examine the sample project for ways to cut time, consider
these three methods:
Adding resources to critical tasks
Changing task sequence
Reducing the project/task scope
136 Practical Project Management

Table 7.4 Total Project Duration

Task T(e) m m2
Needs Analysis 11.33 2.00 4.00
Specifications 6.67 1.67 2.78
Select Software 14.17 2.50 6.25
Purchasing 4.00 2.33 5.44
Wire Offices 23.33 5.00 25.00
Connect Network 5.33 1.33 1.78
Test/Debug 15.00 6.67 44.44
Acceptance 5.50 1.17 1.36
Totals 85.33 91.06
Square Root of std. dev. = 9.54
2m = 19.08
95% Confidence 104 days
Available 80 days
NEED TO CUT 24 days

1. Add resources to critical tasks. Apply the CPM crash time

conceptadditional resources can shorten some tasks. Apply
crash time only to tasks where speeding them up actually
shortens the project: follow the task sequence to the end to
make sure. (Tip! If a task is noncriticalthat is, not on the
longest pathwe say it has slackextra time to complete it
before it bumps into the next task. For a fuller discussion of
slack, see page 171. Notice that if you crash such a task,
the project isnt going to finish any quicker.) Resources can be
extra team members, outside contractors, staff borrowed from
other departments, or even overtime.
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 137

Add one person to Wire Offices. Thats a 50 percent staff

increase, which should (you hope!) speed up the project by at
least 50 percent. [Take the 50 percent off T(o) and T(m), but
take only 25 percent off T(p).] Also buy some consulting
services to help with both Set Up Server and Install
Software. Doing so should reduce each task by about a
week. (Budget implications will be dealt with later;
remember, time is the driver.)
2. Change task sequence. When you created the original Sticky
Note PERT chart, you made various decisions about task
sequence. How you sequence your tasks has a dramatic
impact on total project duration. Consider alternatives that
might be shorter. Dont forget ways to forge a dependency
sequence other than FSespecially overlaps.
For this example, overlap Specifications with Needs
Analysis by five days. If you consider that needs analysis will
be done in sections, you can start developing specifications
for each section as it is completed. Also, you can start writing
the manuals as soon as you decide on the software and
hardware; you dont have to wait for Purchasing to be
completed.
3. Reduce the project/task scope. You can speed up a task if
you do less work. Do you need all the planned features? Is it
necessary to your driver that the entire wish list be included?
If you can redefine the work in a way that doesnt interfere
with fundamental quality issues, you can speed up the
project.
For this example, plan on being less comprehensive in
manual development and rely much more on existing
commercial documentation. As an alternative to creating a
full-fledged manual, you can issue a Frequently Asked
Questions report after the system is on-line, which youd
probably need to do in any case. That should cut manual
preparation time in half.
Table 7.5 Task Table Resulting From Actions to Shorten Project
138

No. Task T(o) T(p) T(m) T(e) m Dependent On

1 Project Mgmt. 6.30 32.75 11.40 14.11 4.41 N/A
2 Needs Analysis 1.60 4.00 2.00 2.27 0.40 N/A
3 Specifications 1.00 3.00 1.00 1.33 0.33 2, overlap 1 week
4 Select Server 1.00 2.00 1.60 1.57 0.17 3
5 Select Software 1.00 4.00 3.00 2.83 0.50 3
6 Select Cables 0.20 1.40 1.00 0.93 0.20 4
7 Purchasing 0.20 3.00 0.40 0.80 0.47 5, 6
Practical Project Management

8 Manuals 1.00 2.00 1.50 1.50 0.17 5, 6

9 Wire Offices 1.50 6.75 2.00 2.71 0.88 7
10 Set Up Server 0.40 2.00 1.00 1.07 0.27 7
11 Dev. Training 2.00 4.60 3.00 3.10 0.43 8
cut Develop Training time by more than half.

12 Install Software 0.40 1.60 1.00 1.00 0.20 10

13 Connect Network 0.40 2.00 1.00 1.07 0.27 9, 12
commercial vendor that offers generic training in LAN
operations. You would then need to do just a one-day

14 Train Users 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 0.00 11, 13

Also contract out most of the Develop Training task to a

15 Test/Debug 1.00 9.00 2.00 3.00 1.33 13

workshop on your companys unique issues, which should

16 Acceptance 0.60 2.00 1.00 1.10 0.23 14, 15

 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 139

If you followed these three recommendations for shortening the

project, you would redo the task table as shown in Table 7.5 (see
Table 7.6). Then you would round the durations back to the
nearest day. (Notice that you wouldnt work from the previously
rounded figures; that compounds error. In each case, you return
to the original figures.) This cuts the project down to 71 days9
days under schedule. But based on the 2m ideal goal, you would

Table 7.6 Task Table With Durations Rounded to Nearest Day

No. Task T(e) m Dependent On

1 Project Mgmt. 71 22 N/A
2 Needs Analysis 11 2 N/A
3 Specifications 7 2 2, overlap 5 days
4 Select Server 8 1 3
5 Select Software 14 3 3
6 Select Cables 5 1 4
7 Purchasing 4 2 5, 6
8 Manuals 8 1 5, 6
9 Wire Offices 14 4 7
10 Set Up Server 5 1 7
11 Dev. Training 16 2 8
12 Install Software 5 1 10
13 Connect Network 5 1 9, 12
14 Train Users 10 0 11, 13
15 Test/Debug 15 7 13
16 Acceptance 6 1 14, 15
 June July August September
140

ID Name Duration Predecessors 6/11 6/18 6/25 7/2 7/9 7/16 7/23 7/30 8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 9/10 9/17 9/24

1 Project Mgmt. 71d

2 Needs Analysis 11d
3 Specifications 7d 2FS-5d
4 Select Server 8d 3
5 Select Software 14d 3
6 Select Cables 5d 4
7 Purchasing 4d 5, 6
8 Manuals 8d 5, 6
9 Wire Offices 14d 7
Practical Project Management

10 Set Up Server 5d 7
11 Develop Training 16d 8
12 Install Software 5d 10
13 Connect Network 5d 9, 12
14 Train Users 10d 11, 13
15 Test/Debug 15d 13,
16 Acceptance 6d 14, 15

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

Fig. 7.3. A Gantt Chart.
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 141

Table 7.7 Total Project Duration

Task T(e) m m2
Needs Analysis 11.33 2.00 4.00
Specifications 1.67 1.67 2.78
(-5 days for
overlap)
Select Software 14.17 2.50 6.25
Purchasing 4.00 2.33 5.44
Wire Offices 13.54 4.38 19.14
Connect Network 5.33 1.33 1.78
Test/Debug 15.00 6.67 44.44
Acceptance 5.50 1.17 1.36
Totals 70.54 85.20
Square Root of std. dev. = 9.23
2m = 18.46
95% Confidence 89 days
Available 80 days
NEED TO CUT 9 days

still need 89 days for 95 percent certainty. Since you only have
80, youre somewhere between 67 percent and 95 percent
confident of meeting the goallets say around 75 percent. Thats
without extra effort on your part. Figure 7.3 shows a Gantt Chart
based on the revised task table, and Table 7.7 shows the total
project duration.
(If the math still seems confusing, use this section as a reference
guide on your next project. Do each step in the process one at a
142 Practical Project Management

time, using your project. Youll find that the answers will make
better sense to you when theyre based on work you have
experience with.)

Using a Gantt Chart for Resource

Allocation and Resource Management
You can use your Gantt Chart to determine how many people
you need on your project team, how they should be scheduled,
and how to resolve potential conflicts.
Lets start with the revised sample project Gantt Chart (see fig.
7.4). First, calculate staff requirements using a simplified method,
and then youll learn how to do it in more realistic circumstances.
Make the following assumptions:
1. Each task requires one full-time worker in each week.
2. All team members possess the skills to perform any function.
3. The project manager is a full-time manager and doesnt have
to perform any tasks on the project.
Given these assumptions, how many people do you need on the
project team?
The way to determine this is to look down each column of the
chart, each representing one calendar week. Count the bars down
each column, and youll find the following resource loading for
the project. (Note: This was done by hand, not with software.
While there is a way to do this with software, the technique
varies from program to program.)
 June July August September
ID Name Duration Predecessors 6/11 6/18 6/25 7/2 7/9 7/16 7/23 7/30 8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 9/10 9/17 9/24

1 Project Mgmt. 71d

2 Needs Analysis 11d
3 Specifications 7d 2FS-5d
4 Select Server 8d 3
5 Select Software 14d 3
6 Select Cables 5d 4
7 Purchasing 4d 5, 6
8 Manuals 8d 5, 6
9 Wire Offices 14d 7
10 Set Up Server 5d 7
11 Develop Training 16d 8
12 Install Software 5d 10
13 Connect Network 5d 9, 12
14 Train Users 10d 11, 13
15 Test/Debug 15d 13,
16 Acceptance 6d 14, 15
Staff Requirements 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2
How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

143

Fig. 7.4. Gantt Chart showing staff requirements for each week of the LAN installation project.
144 Practical Project Management

As you can see from the Gantt Chart in figure 7.4, your staff
requirements for this project break down as follows:
Two people during three weeks of the total project
Four people during two weeks of the project
Three people during all the remaining weeks
How many people do you need? Two is too few, four is wasteful,
and three is sometimes insufficient.
Because three is the most common resource requirement, start
with a team size of three, counting the project manager. This
brings up two problems.
First, what do you do in the weeks in which you employ more
people than you need? Is that wasteful? Not if you are proactive.
The extra, or slack, resources, may be able to do extra work to
speed up other tasks. This is an essentially free way to crash-time
tasks. Slack resources may also be used to reduce project risk
you have resources you can keep in reserve for emergencies. Or,
they may be assigned useful organizational work that doesnt
involve your project. However you decide to use your reserves,
consider yourself lucky: few project managers ever have to worry
about not having enough work for their staff to do.
The second, and more serious, problem with creating a three-
member team is what to do in weeks when the staff requirement
is greater than project team size. Remember, during two weeks of
the project, youll require four team members. There are two
potential solutions:
1. Adjust the resources to fit the schedule. Theres no rule
that all team members must be start-to-finish members of
the project team. You may have a core of team members who
remain with the project throughout its lifespan, and others
who come in as needed, either to supplement the team or to
supply specialized talents. Plus, theres always overtime
another way to add resources to meet peak demand.
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 145

2. Adjust the schedule to fit the resources. This process is

known as leveling. If there are insufficient resources in a
given week, shift the work ahead. Ideally, you will level
within slack; that is, you first adjust the tasks that already
have extra time built into the schedule so you wont
jeopardize the entire project schedule. When slack is
insufficient to resolve all conflicts, the total schedule begins to
slip. When time is not the driver, this may be perfectly
satisfactory. (Tip! When youre trying to level within slack,
youll sometimes discover that a given task may be split: one
section may be done first, then another task may intervene,
and then the remaining part of the first task may be finished.)
Of course, the simple assumptions used here to demonstrate this
method dont apply in every real-world situation. Some tasks
require more than one staff member, some less than forty hours
in a week.
You can still calculate resource loading requirements for each
period of your project. Add each bar in the Gantt Chart for the
number of team members required each week (fractions for less
than full-time work), just as you did before.
What about the other assumption: that all project team members
possess all necessary skills?
To resolve this conflict, you have to schedule work to people.
Lets return to the original one-staff one-task assumption, but this
time assume that not everyone has all the necessary skills.
The core team consists of Bill Mata, Project Manager, and staff
members Bob Hancock and Rey Harter. Assume that Claudia
Geary will be used as a temporary resource for overload weeks.
146 Practical Project Management

In addition to the Project Gantt Charts youve been doing so far,

you can also prepare a Resource Gantt Chart that shows the
assignments of a resource over time. (This is handy not only as a
management and control device, but also when a single resource
is scheduled across multiple projects. Many of the midrange
software packages will produce this kind of report automatically.)
The first staff member to schedule is Project Manager Bill Mata
who has only one task. (See fig. 7.5.)
Assign your next resource, Bob Hancock, first to Needs
Analysis. (See fig. 7.6.) When he finishes this task, look down
the next column of the Project Gantt Chart to see what jobs are
available. Two jobs begin shortly after the end of his task: Select
Server and Select Software. There are three possible scenarios:
1. Bob has the skills to perform either task. Schedule other team
members whose skills may be more limited first, then give
Bob whatever is left over.
2. Bob has the skill to perform one of these tasks but not the
other. Assign him the one he has the skill to perform.
3. Bob doesnt have the skill to perform any of the tasks that
begin that week. This doesnt mean he isnt necessarily a
valuable member of the team; sometimes work and skill just
dont match up. Notice that Bob now becomes a slack
resource (a resource without scheduled work for that period)
until you are able to match him with a task for which he is
skilled. You now have another week in which your resource
need exceeds your available staff. As you did before, you will
either have to adjust staff to meet the schedule (others work
overtime or obtain another temporary staff member) or have
to adjust the schedule to meet the staff (rearrange tasks to
bring forward something Bob can do, or push everything
back and possibly delay the project completion).
 June July August September
ID Name Duration Predecessors 6/11 6/18 6/25 7/2 7/9 7/16 7/23 7/30 8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 9/10 9/17 9/24

1 Project Mgmt. 71d

How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

147

Fig. 7.5. Resource Gantt Chart for Bill Mata.

148 Practical Project Management

Lets assume Bob does have the necessary skills. You assign all
his tasks, but find out that theres nothing else for him to do after
he finishes training users. Hes now a slack resource. Slack at
the end of the project is not as useful as slack during a project,
but it does mean he is available for crash support at the end of
the project. Since you dont have as much margin in your
schedule as you ideally wanted, he may be a good emergency
resource for later. Perhaps he can help with the end of Test/
Debug and Acceptance. Or, he can be released early, lowering
project salary costs.
Now, assign work to your temporary employee, Claudia (see fig.
7.7). Inspect the Project Gantt Chart for the overload period,
looking for tasks that fit together, both in terms of their schedule
location and the skills required. The two construction-trade jobs,
Wire Office and Connect Network seem like good back-to-
back possibilities. (Notice that these jobs require specialized
skills, so you must recruit a temporary resource with those skills.)
Assign those to Claudia Geary.
 June July August September
ID Name Duration Predecessors 6/11 6/18 6/25 7/2 7/9 7/16 7/23 7/30 8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 9/10 9/17 9/24

2 Needs Analysis 11d

5 Select Software 14d 3
8 Manuals 8d 5, 6
11 Develop Training 16d 8
14 Train Users 10d 11, 13

Slack
Resource
Time
How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

149

Fig. 7.6. Resource Gantt Chart for Bob Hancock. His slack resource time is shown by the arrows.
150 Practical Project Management

That leaves Rey Harter. Assign his work as you did Bobs, looking
for potential skill and task conflicts. Assume you dont find any.
Unfortunately, you do find a different problem: there are no tasks
available for him to perform from the middle of the week of 8/6
to the beginning of the week of 8/20 (see fig. 7.8). Rey is now a
slack resource for that period.
This situation is actually desirable, because Rey can serve as
emergency support for any problems that occur during the
Connect Network and Develop Training tasks assigned to that
period. Again, the presence of slack resource time lowers project
risk, because Rey and Bob can be shifted to speed up key project
tasks or to handle emergencies as they crop up. Although slack
resource time is not infinitely flexible, its still an asset.
(Tip! Though it sometimes seems sensible to schedule less
qualified or productive employees as slack resources, remember
that your slack resources are also your emergency reserve. More
flexible employees may be a better choice. Also, if you are a
working project manageryou must do technical tasks on your
own projectsschedule yourself as the slack resource to the
extent possible to improve your flexibility and ability to meet
changing demands.)
 June July August September
ID Name Duration Predecessors 6/11 6/18 6/25 7/2 7/9 7/16 7/23 7/30 8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 9/10 9/17 9/24

9 Wire Offices 14d 7

13 Connect Network 5d 9, 12
How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

151

Fig. 7.7. Resource Gantt Chart for Claudia Geary.

152 Practical Project Management

With more complicated scheduling situations, the procedure is the

same.
Tip! For very large projects with hundreds of staff members, first
schedule the project using generic job titles and quantities, not
individual people (e.g., Programmer x 6, Technician x 3,
Carpenter x 12, Industrial Engineer x 2). If youre using
software (and for that size project you probably are), you can
have it total up the number of person-hours for each occupation
and derive your ideal project team size by using simple division.
 June July August September
ID Name Duration Predecessors 6/11 6/18 6/25 7/2 7/9 7/16 7/23 7/30 8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 9/10 9/17 9/24

3 Specifications 7d 2FS-5d
4 Select Server 8d 3
6 Select Cables 5d 4
7 Purchasing 4d 5, 6
10 Set Up Server 5d 7
12 Install Software 5d 10
15 Test/Debug 15d 13
16 Acceptance 6d 14, 15

Slack
Resource
Time
How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

153

Fig. 7.8. Resource Gantt Chart for Rey Harter. His slack resource time is shown by the arrow.
154 Practical Project Management

Gantt ChartDont Manage Your

Project Without It
Because the Gantt Chart is such a traditional tool and appears so
simple on the surface, it doesnt always get the respect it deserves
as a project management tool. Here are some of the uses of a
Gantt Chart:
1. Management reports. The simplicity and visual strength of a
Gantt Chart makes it the ideal tool to use when youre
reporting to someone who doesnt know project management.
2. Testing the Time constraint. When youre doing
preliminary project planning and have numerous parallel
tasks, you often dont know how long the project will take in
calendar time. The Gantt Chart will show you.
3. Allocating resources. The Gantt Chart helps you to allocate
and track resources and identify conflicts.
4. What-If analysis. You can explore many options visually and
determine which one(s) are best for your project.
5. Resource management. The Resource Gantt Chart works
both in controlling resources on a single project and in
managing resources across projects in a multiple project
environment.
6. Tracking progress. The Tracking Gantt Chart, which youll
explore later, allows you to compare actual project
performance to plan, shows you the consequence of tasks not
finishing on their assigned times, and gives you a tool to
explore options.
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 155

Exercise #8:
Create Your Own
Gantt Chart
Create a Gantt Chart from the following Task Table.

Task Table
Task Duration Dependency
A 2 N/A
B 1 A
C 2 A
D 1 B, C
E 2 D
F 1 D
G 1 E, F
156 Practical Project Management

Gantt Chart
Weeks
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 How to Make and Use a Gantt Chart 157

Answer Key for Exercise #8

Gantt Chart
Weeks
Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

G
Using PERT
and CPM
Charts

Ch
ap
te
r

8
160 Practical Project Management

How to Create a PERT/CPM Chart

Youve already explored PERT charting as a method of creating
your initial project dependency sequence. Now, lets delve further
into this powerful set of project management tools to discover
more options and more power to help you achieve your goal: on
time, on budget, and to performance standards.
As mentioned previously, although PERT and CPM are two
different systems for project management, in a practical, everyday
sense, these terms are used synonymously. Virtually all project
managers use a hybrid of the two systems. Some use more PERT,
some more CPM, but a mix nonetheless. Most computer software
packages for project management also blend the two. In Microsoft
Project, for example, the menu lists PERT Chart but not CPM
Chart as a display option, but the display is closer to CPM than it
is to PERT.
Both PERT and CPM are network planning methods. That is, they
show the project as a network of linked and sequenced tasks.
You can analyze the network as a whole or just the individual
tasks and their relationships to other tasks. Such analyses allow
you to gain insight and options for your project.
Besides the different methods of telling time (which youve
already explored), another difference in the two approaches is
the style of charting. PERT uses the technique known as activity
on arrow, while CPM uses the technique known as activity on
node.
Each type of chart, PERT and CPM, contains arrows and nodes.
The nodes are drawn as boxes or circles, analogous to the Sticky
Notes you used to create your version. The arrows are the lines
connecting the nodes. Earlier, you used the CPM, or activity on
node approach by making the nodes themselves the tasks, and
using the arrows simply to connect the nodes. The arrows show
dependencies.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 161

Activity on node charting is used as the primary tool in this book

for three reasons:
1. It allows you to use Sticky Note PERT, working directly from
the WBS to an initial project layout.
2. The majority of project management software packages use
this approach, meaning that youre more likely to encounter
it.
3. It avoids the dummy arrow issue, which is necessary in
activity on arrow charting (see sidebar on page 166).
On the other hand, it loses one advantage of the activity on arrow
charting technique: You cant draw it easily to timescale.
Using tasks from the sample LAN installation project, lets show
various relationships in activity on node charting.
Referring to figure 8.1, youll notice that Select Cables is
dependent on Select Server.

Select Server Select Cable

1 2w 2 1.08w
6/6/95 6/19/95 6/20/95 6/27/95

Fig. 8.1. Activity on node charting for sample LAN installation project.
Select Cables is dependent on Select Server.
162 Practical Project Management

Figure 8.2 shows that Select Software and Select Server are
both dependent on Specifications. They are parallel to one
another.

Specifications Select Software

1 1.5w 3 3w
6/6/95 6/15/95 6/15/95 7/6/95

Select Server

2 2w
6/15/95 6/29/95

Fig. 8.2. Both the Select Software task and the Select Server task are
dependent on Specifications, but theyre parallel to each other.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 163

In figure 8.3 you can see that Purchasing is dependent on both

Select Software and Select Cables. They are parallel to one
another.

Select Software Purchasing

1 3w 3 0.92w
6/6/95 6/26/95 6/27/95 7/3/95

Select Cables

2 1.08w
6/6/95 6/13/95

Fig. 8.3. Activity on node charting for sample LAN installation project.
Purchasing is dependent on both Select Software and Select Cables.
They are parallel to one another.
164 Practical Project Management

Manuals and Purchasing are both dependent on both Select

Software and Select Cables, as shown in figure 8.4. Both pairs
are parallel to one another.

Select Software Manuals

1 3w 4 3w
6/6/95 6/26/95 6/27/95 7/17/95

Select Cables Purchasing

2 1.08w 3 0.92w
6/6/95 6/13/95 6/27/95 7/3/95

Fig. 8.4. Both Manuals and Purchasing are dependent on two tasks:
Select Software and Select Cables. Further, both sets of tasks are parallel
to one another.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 165

As shown in figure 8.5, Test/Debug is dependent upon

Connect Network. Train Users, however, is dependent on
both Connect Network and Develop Training. Connect
Network and Develop Training are parallel; Test/Debug and
Train Users are parallel although they arent directly related.

Connect Network Test/Debug

2 1.29w 4 3w
6/6/95 6/14/95 6/14/95 7/5/95

Develop Training Train Users

1 2w 3 2.17w
6/6/95 6/19/95 6/20/95 7/4/95

Fig. 8.5. In this phase, Test/Debug and Train Users are dependent on
Connect Network. There are two sets of parallel tasks: Connect Network
and Develop Training, and Test/Debug and Train Users.
166 Practical Project Management

Activity on Arrow Charting

If youre curious about activity on arrow as an alternate
charting approach, heres an overview.
In this technique (actually PERT in the strict sense), the
arrows are the tasks and the nodes are called events: they
show the beginning and end of tasks and serve as short-term
checkpoints.
As figures 8.6a to 8.7b show, you can show the same
relationships using the activity on arrow method as you did
with activity on node.

Select Select
Server Cables

Fig. 8.6a. Activity on arrow charting for sample LAN Installation

project. Select Cables is dependent upon Select Server.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 167

Select
Software
Specification

Select
Server

Fig. 8.6b. Activity on arrow charting for sample LAN Installation

project. Select Software and Select Server are both dependent on
Specifications. They are parallel to one another.

Select
Software
Purchasing

Select
Cables

Fig. 8.6c. Activity on arrow charting for sample LAN Installation

project. Purchasing is dependent upon both Select Software and
Select Cables. They are parallel to one another.
168 Practical Project Management

Select Manuals
Software

Select
Cables Purchasing

Fig. 8.7a. Activity on arrow charting for sample LAN Installation

project. Manuals and Purchasing are both dependent on both
Select Software and Select Cables. Both pairs are parallel to one
another.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 169

Connect Test/
Network Debug

Develop Train Users

Training

Fig. 8.7b. Activity on arrow charting for sample LAN Installation

project. Test/Debug is dependent upon Connect Network. Train
Users, however, is dependent on both Connect Network and
Develop Training. Connect Network and Develop Training are
parallel; Test/Debug and Train Users are parallel although they
are not directly related.

The dotted arrow, called a dummy task, shows a

dependency relationship where there is no actual task to
connect the nodes. This is necessary in activity on arrow
charting, but not in activity on node charting.
Earlier, the reasons why activity on node charting is
preferred in this book were listed. There is one deficiency in
this choice: because the arrows can be drawn to any desired
length, you can make a timeline with the activity on arrow
technique, allowing you to combine advantages of both
PERT and Gantt in the same chart (see fig 8.8).

Figure 8.9 shows the entire project network charted in activity on

node.
170 Practical Project Management

14
16
15

Dummy
13

12

11
9
10
1

8
7
6

5
4
3
2

Fig. 8.8. The entire project network using activity on arrow charting.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 171

Determining the Critical Path, Critical

Tasks, and Slack
As with a Gantt Chart, the important thing about CPM and PERT
charting is how to use it to gain insight into your project.
The following key concepts and technical terms are necessary for
you to know to analyze PERT/CPM charts.

Paths
A path is a sequence of tasks in a dependent order. A full path is
a sequence that leads from the first task of a project to the final
path of the project. A path segment is a sequence of tasks in
between two tasks that are inside the project; that is, not
including both the first and the last task.
The length of a full path or a path segment is the sum of the
times of the tasks on that path.
The Critical Path is the longest full path in a project. You may
have multiple critical paths if more than one path is tied in length
for the longest path.

Tasks
A critical task is a task on the critical path.
A noncritical task is a task on any path or path segment that isnt
critical.

Slack
Slack and float are synonyms (this book uses slack) that refer to
the extra time available to perform noncritical tasks. Slack comes
in two varieties: total slack and free slack. Total slack is the
amount of time a task can be delayed without delaying the end of
the project. Free slack is the amount of time a task can be delayed
without delaying the start of the next task.
172 Practical Project Management

Project Mgmt.

1 71d
6/12/95 9/18/95

Needs Analysis Specifications Select Software

2 11d 3 7d 5 14d
6/12/95 6/26/95 6/20/95 6/28/95 6/29/95 7/18/95

Select Server Select Cables Purchasing

4 8d 6 5d 7 4d
6/29/95 7/10/95 7/11/95 7/17/95 7/19/95 7/24/95

Manuals

8 8d
7/19/95 7/28/95

Project: Install LAN Critical Noncritical Subproject

Fig. 8.9. The entire project network using activity on node.

 Using PERT and CPM Charts 173

Wire Offices

9 14d
7/25/95 8/11/95

Set Up Server Install Software Connect Network Test/Debug

10 5d 12 5d 13 5d 15 15d
7/25/95 7/31/95 8/1/95 8/7/95 8/14/95 8/18/95 8/21/95 9/8/95

Develop Training Train Users Acceptance

11 16d 14 10d 16 6d
7/31/95 8/21/95 8/22/95 9/4/95 9/11/95 9/18/95

Milestone Critical Marked

174 Practical Project Management

Negative slack refers to a situation in which there isnt enough

time (a negative amount of time) to accomplish a task.
Several of these steps are done automatically by project
management software packages. You still need to understand
how these are done by hand so that you will know what the
computer is up to.
As noted, a path is a sequence of tasks. Just follow the
connecting lines from task to task, starting with the first task in
the project and following on to the end. For the sample LAN
installation project, several full paths lead from start to finish (see
Table 8.1).

Table 8.1 Full Paths for Sample LAN Installation Project

Path Times

2-3-5-7-9-13-15-16 71

2-3-5-7-9-13-14-16 66

2-3-5-7-10-12-13-15-16 67

2-3-5-7-10-12-13-14-16 62

2-3-4-6-7-9-13-15-16 69

2-3-4-6-7-9-13-14-16 64

2-3-4-6-7-10-12-13-15-16 66

2-3-4-6-7-10-12-13-14-16 61

2-3-4-6-8-11-14-16 64

(Note: The 5-day overlap in Task 3 has been subtracted.)

 Using PERT and CPM Charts 175

The longest path, or the Critical Path, is 2-3-5-7-9-13-15-16,

requiring a total of 71 days. Remember, by definition, the Critical
Path is the length of time the project is expected to take. (Notice
that the 1 path, consisting only of Task 1, is also 71 days, but
that path isnt considered critical because it refers only to the
project manager. Remember, theres disagreement about whether
this task should be included in the project at all. Your role as
project manager will take exactly as long as the full project takes,
no matter what. Ignore a path consisting solely of the project
manager in calculating Critical Path.)
Why have a special name for the longest path? Why not just call it
longest path? Imagine that it takes longer to finish
Specifications than the schedule permits. Notice the start of
Select Server is automatically delayed, which bumps Select
Cables and so on down the Critical Path, finally bumping
Acceptance. When you make the longest (critical) path longer,
the project automatically becomes longer.
On the other hand, what if Select Software is late? The path
segment between Specifications and Purchasing contains
Tasks 4 and 6, with a total time of thirteen working days. Select
Software takes fourteen days. Tasks 4 and 6 can be up to one
day late without jeopardizing the start of Purchasing. Therefore,
Task 4 has a total slack (slack that wont endanger the end of the
project) of one day, but no free slack (wont jeopardize the start
of the next task). Task 6 has both total slack and free slack of one
day, since a day late would jeopardize neither the end of the
project nor the start of the next task. (Notice that another way to
think of a critical task is that it has total slack and free slack of
zero.)
Heres another example. Take a look at the path segment
between Purchasing (Task 7) and Connect Network (Task 13).
Task 9, a critical task, takes fourteen days. Task 10 and Task 12
together take ten days. Those two tasks each have total slack of
four days (14 days on the Critical Path minus 10 days on the non-
176 Practical Project Management

Critical Path). Total slack belongs to both tasks, though if Task 10

is late, it robs slack from Install Software. Task 10 has no free
slack, because any lateness delays the start of Task 12. Task 12
has free slack of four days, since it can be that late without
jeopardizing the start of Task 13.
The concepts of critical tasks and slack have profound
implications for the management of your project. They tell you
where to focus, help you manage your risk, and identify extra
time and options for achieving your goals.

Critical Path Software Shortcut

Youll note that in figure 8.9, the Critical Path boxes have
thicker borders and appear on top. If youll look back at the
earlier project Gantt Charts, youll also find that the Critical
Path tasks have darker bars than the noncritical tasks. Most
project management software provides automatic Critical
Path calculation.

The most efficient way to determine Critical Paths and slack is to

do a forward pass and then a backward pass through your
project.
In the forward pass, start with Task 1 and write down the earliest
date that task can start (normally the end date of the predecessor
task if youre using FS dependencies). This is called the early
start. Do the same for each task from start to finish.
Then perform a backward pass. Starting with the final task and
working backward, write down the last date a task can start
without affecting its successor task. This is called the late start. Do
the same for each task.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 177

For each task, if the early start and late start dates are identical,
the task is on the Critical Path. If there is a difference between the
early start and late start dates, the difference is the available slack
for that task.
Here is a table of early start and late start dates prepared by
software for the sample LAN installation project. It shows
available free slack and total slack in elapsed days (ed).
Table 8.2 Early Start and Late Start Dates for Sample LAN Installation Project
178

ID Name Scheduled Start Scheduled Finish Late Start Scheduled Finish Free Slack Total Slack
1 Project Mgmt. 6/12/96 8:00 am 9/18/96 5:00 pm 6/12/96 8:00 am 9/18/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
2 Needs Analysis 6/12/96 8:00 am 6/26/96 5:00 pm 6/12/96 8:00 am 6/26/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
3 Specifications 6/20/96 8:00 am 6/28/96 5:00 pm 6/20/96 8:00 am 6/28/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
4 Select Server 6/29/96 8:00 am 7/10/96 5:00 pm 6/30/96 8:00 am 7/11/96 5:00 pm 0.63ed 1ed
5 Select Software 6/29/96 8:00 am 7/18/96 5:00 pm 6/29/96 8:00 am 7/18/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
6 Select Cables 7/11/96 8:00 am 7/17/96 5:00 pm 7/12/96 8:00 am 7/18/96 5:00 pm 1ed 1ed
7 Purchasing 7/19/96 8:00 am 7/24/96 5:00 pm 7/19/96 8:00 am 7/24/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
8 Manuals 7/19/96 8:00 am 7/28/96 5:00 pm 7/25/96 8:00 am 8/3/96 5:00 pm 2.63ed 6ed
Practical Project Management

9 Wire Offices 7/25/96 8:00 am 8/11/96 5:00 pm 7/25/96 8:00 am 8/11/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
10 Set Up Server 7/25/96 8:00 am 7/31/96 5:00 pm 7/31/96 8:00 am 8/4/96 5:00 pm 0.63ed 4ed
11 Develop Training 7/31/96 8:00 am 8/21/96 5:00 pm 8/4/96 8:00 am 8/25/96 5:00 pm 0.63ed 4ed
12 Install Software 8/1/96 8:00 am 8/7/96 5:00 pm 8/7/96 8:00 am 8/11/96 5:00 pm 4ed 4ed
13 Connect Network 8/14/96 8:00 am 8/18/96 5:00 pm 8/14/96 8:00 am 8/18/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
14 Train Users 8/22/96 8:00 am 9/4/96 5:00 pm 8/28/96 8:00 am 9/8/96 5:00 pm 4ed 4ed
15 Test/Debug 8/21/96 8:00 am 9/8/96 5:00 pm 8/21/96 8:00 am 9/8/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
16 Acceptance 9/11/96 8:00 am 9/18/96 5:00 pm 9/11/96 8:00 am 9/18/96 5:00 pm 0ed 0ed
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 179

How to Use the Critical Path for More

Project Power
Conventional project management wisdom suggests that PERT/
CPM techniques are used primarily for the control of large and
complex projects. However, even if your projects are small, you
can still use the power of the Critical Path to help you meet your
project objectives. Here are several ways you can benefit:
Explore alternate ways to achieve your goal. Using Sticky
Note PERT, you realized you could lay out a project several
different ways, each offering options and tradeoffs of time, risk,
and resources. If your project goal seems impossible, sometimes a
different layout can make the impossible achievable.
Manage your time more effectively. As project manager, youre
like the plate-spinning act on the old Ed Sullivan show, keeping
multiple plates spinning at all times. You have to set priorities to
survive. Critical tasks are necessarily of higher priority than non-
critical tasks, because noncritical tasks can run late (up to their
available slack) with no consequences for the project deadline.
Manage project risk. You learned previously that sigma (m) is a
measure of risk, and you can see the risk more clearly in your
chart. Critical tasks with high m values are the most dangerous to
achieving your deadline. A noncritical task with slack > 2 m has a
95 percent chance of meeting its deadline with no intervention or
special action on your part. You can calculate m for each path or
path segment in your project, and identify potential problems.
180 Practical Project Management

When you identify problems of high m and low (or no) slack, you
can do any of the following:
Redesign the workflow to put those tasks on paths with more
slack.
Add resources to lower risk.
Give more management attention to those tasks.
Redesign the task itself to lower its risk.
Move your resources where the problems are. As youll
recall, a slack resource is a resource on your team who does not
have a current assignment. Perhaps there was no assignment
available at that time. Perhaps the slack resource is performing a
noncritical task and cannot be reassigned to new work until the
path segment is finished. If the resource has the ability to help
out elsewhere in the project, the resource may be assigned either
in advance, as part of your planning, or held in reserve for
emergencies.
For example, Task 6, Select Cables, has one day of slack, both
free and total. If you have assigned a full-time staff member to
that task, that person has one day of slack in his or her schedule.
If there is a problem with Task 5, Select Software, which runs
parallel and is on the Critical Path, the person can be selecting
the software. That person has shifted for one day to get the work
done with no consequence for the project deadline. If there is a
problem in Task 6, that person can be up to one day behind
schedule with no consequence for the project deadline. As you
can see, slack lowers risk.
Adjust task start and finish dates to meet your needs.
Holding some slack in reserve for emergencies is good project
management strategy. Another option is to schedule some tasks
for late start rather than early start. For example, you could start
Install Software on 8/2/96, or deliberately choose to have it start
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 181

on 8/3/96, if that would improve project flexibility or solve

problems elsewhere on your project. Of course, it does lower the
slack at the end of the task, giving you less margin should
something go wrong in Install Software.
Shorten your project. The power of CPM crash time becomes
more readily apparent once you understand the concept of the
Critical Path. Applying crash resources to Critical Path tasks
shortens your total project time.
Warning! Check to see if changing your project times has created
a new Critical Path. If you shorten a Critical Path segment by a
greater amount than the slack available on its noncritical twin, all
you do is switch which one is critical. Now, the old Critical Path
is noncritical, with slack equal to the extra shortening.
Also, remember that crashing noncritical tasks is usually a waste
of resources, since all you do is create more slack. There is an
exception: if the noncritical task is very risky, and there is a
significant likelihood that it will in fact exceed the available slack,
then crashing that noncritical task may lower total project risk
enough to be worthwhile.
Tip! If your project plan has lots of resource slack, try transferring
people, equipment, and other resources from noncritical to
critical tasks to get the benefit of crash time without spending
extra money. Of course, keep checking to make sure you dont
inadvertently change the Critical Path. There isnt anything wrong
with changing the Critical Path if it seems smart to you, but its
dangerous for the Critical Path to change without you being
aware of it.
182 Practical Project Management

Lower your costs. You can reverse crash noncritical tasks to

save money. In CPM crash time, you spent resources to save time,
but this is generally smart only on the Critical Path. Try to reverse
this on noncritical tasks with lots of slack. Consider:
1. What is the cheapest you could accomplish the task, given
unlimited time?
2. How much time would you have to spend? (Is there enough
slack to cover the extra time?)
3. Calculate the crash slope for time spent and money saved. Is
it worth it? If youre using free resources from slack paths, the
answer is probably yes. If the choice would make your
project late, it may be worthwhile if budget is more important
than the extra time.
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 183

Exercise #8:
Determine the
Critical Path
Using the chart below, answer Questions 1 to 3 regarding Critical
Path.

2 5 7
Select Delivery
Software Lag Time Installation
5 days 6 days 1 day

1 4 8
Needs
Analysis Purchasing Acceptance
5 days 1 day 1 day

3 6
Select
Computer Training
3 days 3 days
184 Practical Project Management

1. List the paths through this project shown on the previous

page, and give the total time for each path.
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
2. Which is the Critical Path, and how long will this project take?
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
3. Which tasks have slack, and how much total slack does each
task have?
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
 Using PERT and CPM Charts 185

Answer Key for Exercise #9

1. Paths:
1-2-4-5-7-8 19 days
1-2-4-6-8 15 days
1-3-4-5-7-8 17 days
1-3-4-6-8 13 days
2. 1-2-4-5-7-8 is critical (its the longest). Total project time is
therefore 19 days.
3. Tasks 3 and 6 are the only two tasks not on the Critical Path.
By comparing the shorter path segment to the longer path,
you get the following slack results:
Task 3: 2 days slack (Task 2 minus Task 3)
Task 6: 4 days slack (Tasks 5 and 7 are both between 4 and 8;
compare both to Task 6, giving 7 days minus 4 days.)
 Budgeting
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188 Practical Project Management

Finance for Project Managers

Every organization has its variation on the concept of the hidden
keys to the executive suite. It refers to the rules, explicit or
implicit, that separate those who have or will achieve executive
rank from those who wont. Some of the hidden keys are
arbitrary. Some arent. And while the keys of every organization
vary, one key is universal: no matter how strong your technical
skills, no matter what your track record, you will never be
considered executive material in any organization unless and until
you demonstrate that you speak the language of money in the
terms financial professionals use. Finance is the language of
senior management; if you dont speak it, you cant communicate
effectively.
While you dont necessarily need to rush right out and get your
MBA in finance (not that it would hurt), you do need to have a
basic background in finance and budgeting for the sake of your
project, as well as for the sake of your career. (The Bibliography
and Suggested Resources at the back of this book lists several
excellent books for honing your finance and budgeting skills.)
Budget is always one of the Triple Constraints. Even when budget
is the weak constraint, its still important. Knowing how and
when to use budget flexibilityand how to cope when there is
noneis a central project management skill.
 Budgeting for Projects 189

Understanding Your Organizations

Financial System
The first step in any organization is to make sure you understand
your internal financial systems. Always make a friend (or friendly
acquaintance) in the finance/accounting department so you can
have someone to ask about internal rules. Here are five key
questions to consider as you begin any project:
1. Have I accounted for both fixed and variable costs?
Fixed costs have a definite price. The server, cables, and
software themselves are fixed costs. Variable costs change
based on external factors. For example, labor is a variable
cost, because it varies based on the amount of time it takes to
install the software, run the wires, and so on.
Always estimate time first, and then budget, even when
budget is the driver. Because labor costs money (unless
youre running a volunteer staffand even then you have
overhead-type costs that vary by time), you must have your
time estimates done in order to cost the project in the first
place.
One bonus of the PERT time method youve learned in this
book is that the same process that adjusts your time estimate
also adjusts your estimates for the variable costsgiving you
proportionally the same budget margin as you have time
margin.
2. Are direct labor costs charged to my project budget, or am I
charged only hard costs (equipment, rentals, outside
contracts)?
If you arent charged for direct labor, then direct labor is
cheaper for you (even if it isnt necessarily a bargain for the
organization as a whole). When faced with a choice between
190 Practical Project Management

internal and external resources, use internal ones to reduce

demand on your budget. If youre charged for direct labor
costs, make sure you build them into your budget.
3. Is my project charged for overhead, general and
administrative (G&A), profit, or other burdens?
In a comprehensive cost accounting system, certain
organizational costs are allocated among the departments and
projects. These include overhead (employee benefits, etc.),
G&A (rent, utilities, support services), and built-in profit
targets (the goal for how much profit the organization wants
to earn on your project). These are normally quantified as
percentages.
For example, you might have a G&A burden of 20 percent.
That means 20 percent of your project budget is automatically
spent to buy your share of the rent and utilities. You must
deduct that money off the top. If employee benefits cost
about one-third of direct labor costs, then you need to take
your labor costs and add 33.3 percent to them. Overhead and
profit targets are treated the same way as G&A burdens
direct charge to your project budget and taken off the top.
(Overhead and profit are normally billed on contract jobs, and
are less frequently charged on internal projects.)
You can easily have a situation in which 40 percent to 50
percent of your ostensible project budget is not available for
direct project expenses! This isnt necessarily a recipe for
disaster, unless you get caught unaware. When planning your
budget or asking for the desired funding, make sure you
account for these hidden costs and put them upfront in your
proposal.
4. Will my project time span coincide with key financial cycle
dates, and how will those affect me?
Many organizations have some seasonality in money. For
example, the deadline in the sample LAN installation project
 Budgeting for Projects 191

is influenced by the upcoming end of the fiscal year, which

impacts the availability of funds. If youre a government
contractor, the government fiscal year cycle can wreak havoc
on your schedule. Certain retail businesses (the toy business,
for example) are highly dependent on the Christmas buying
season for most of their revenuethey are cash-rich in
January, cash-poor in September.
If you dont know about seasonality and financial cycle issues
in your organization, use that friend in finance. You must
have this information in a form specific to your organization.
If you switch companies, dont assume the rules you learned
still apply. Each organization has its unique issues. Learn
them.
5. If Im doing a project for an outside client or customer, what
accounting and financial issues do they have?
Ask the same questions for your client or customer as you
would for an internal client. Make sure you know about any
special issues the client has that can affect your project.

Identifying Key Project Financial Issues

Besides overall organizational financial issues, you may have a
number of financial and budget problems unique to your
particular project.
1. Do other departments within my organization have to perform
portions of this project? Must I account for their costs? How do I
get good estimates from them?
The problem of support group estimates is sometimes
substantial. This occurs when you must add to your budget
the costs that someone not under your control will incur. For
example, in the sample LAN project, you might ask the
building maintenance staff to string the LAN wires in the
walls. This is additional work for themits not accounted for
192 Practical Project Management

in their budget. They want your budget to pay their costs,

which is reasonable. The question is, how much should you
allow? Negotiate this upfront, and be aware of a tendency for
others to inflate their estimates to lower their risk at the
expense of your project budget (or to free up some of their
money for other unrelated work).
2. Am I making my labor cost estimates based on getting specific
people, or on more general standards?
The person-month problem occurs when you create a time
estimate for a task based on the idea that you will get Suzy
Superstar instead of Tom Turkey as a member of your project
team. If you build the estimate around Suzys superior
performance and you get Tom, your project estimates fly right
out the window. Either make sure you get Suzy in the first
place or make the time estimate based on an average
performer. This problem also occurs if you base all your time
estimates on your personal skill level and you are more
experienced than your associates and team members are.
Tip! You could make Suzys estimate T(o), Toms T(p), and
someone who is average in skill T(m), and then calculate T(e)
for your project estimate.
3. Will my project either take years to complete and/or involve
international operations?
Although at the time of this writing, inflation isnt the
immediate threat it once was, even low inflation over a long
enough period of time can drive up project costs substantially.
Build in an inflation allowance on multiyear projects.
A bigger danger is currency exchange rate fluctuations on
international projects. You need to build in an allowance,
which you can base on historical data, worst-case scenario, or
the best you can get away with.
 Budgeting for Projects 193

4. Is my project heavily research and development (R&D)

oriented, making many of my budget issues essentially
unpredictable?
When you explored the difficulties of putting a man on the
moon in Chapter 2, one part of the difficulty was putting
together a valid budget estimate in the first place. On the
surface, this was an impossible task, because even for the
head of NASA, there were so many utterly unknown variables
that an accurate estimate couldnt be achieved. How can you
put together a reasonable estimate under these circumstances?
Depending on the related or similar project experiences
youve had or can discover, you may use any of the following
estimating techniques:
Order of Magnitude Analysis (35% accuracy). At the time
of the NASA project, the U.S. had never gone to the moon,
but had launched Vanguard. This is considered a related
experience. From this, you can estimate an order of
magnitude factor, which is how many times more difficult
going to the moon is versus launching the Vanguard satellite.
Multiply the Vanguard budget times the order of magnitude
factor, and you have an estimate that is +35 percent
accurateand that may be the best you can achieve. Make
sure you explain this to your client/customer/boss/project
originator, and document your explanation.
Approximate Estimate (15% accuracy). The only
difference between this method and Order of Magnitude
Analysis is the quality of the comparable experience, which is
similar rather than related. That is to say its closer to the
current situation than related. Vanguard was only related to
Mercury, but Apollo was similar to Mercury and Gemini.
Again, multiply the actual budget of the similar experience
times an order of magnitude factor. Because the comparable
experience is closer, the accuracy of the estimate is better:
15 percent.
194 Practical Project Management

Detailed Cost Data (5-7% accuracy). Here, you break

down the project into its tasks and cost each element in
detail. This is the most time-consuming but the most accurate
of the methods. There is still a variance of 5 to 7 percent
because no two situations are ever exactly alike.
Learning Curves Method. Practice makes perfector at
least better. Both Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 went to the moon.
They were nearly identical in mission structure. Should the
cost estimate have been the same for each? The Learning
Curves Method says that subsequent repetitions should cost
less because you learn from each experience. The first Saturn
V booster rocket cost more than the next, and so forth. If two
projects are identical in structure, lessons learned from the
first should make the second cheaper.
General SWAG. Get a dart board and make a guess. Give it
your best shotsometimes thats all you have to go on. The
accuracy of this method depends on the quality of your
experience and judgment. Figure it as your job.
 Budgeting for Projects 195

Job Costing the Project

There is yet another method of project estimating: your client/
customer/boss tells you how much you have to spend and your
job is to make it all fit. There may really be only that amount of
money. Or, there are other demands on the money. Or, there
may be room to negotiate. If you plan to negotiate your project
budget, keep these two essentials in mind as you plan your
strategy:
1. The earlier you start the negotiation, the more options are
usually available.
2. If it all comes down to your guess versus your bosss guess,
your boss wins. Rank hath its privilege. To trump your bosss
opinion, you need facts. Hard data. Do your homework
before you negotiate.
Now go through the process of fitting a project into an existing
and fixed budget. Assume youre given a budget of $40,000 to
install the LAN system. Can you do it?
You can try. First, for help in resource costing, check the features
of your project management software. Most full-featured
programs allow you not only to assign resources to jobs, but also
to enter the cost of using those resources (e.g., salaries, overtime
rates, etc.) and then to create budget reports using that data.
Figure 9.1 was produced using a conventional spreadsheet
program.
Using the time estimates and staff assignments from your previous
work, you can cost the direct labor. The benefits and overhead
columns are straight percentage multipliers. Contracts, materials,
and supplies are described on the worksheet (see fig. 9.1).
 Task Days Labor Overhead Contracts Materials Supplies G&A TOTAL
1. Project Mgmt. 71 $11,360 $3,749 $0 $0 $0 $1,511 $16,620
2. Needs Analysis 11 1,056 348 0 0 0 140 1,545
3. Specifications 7 672 222 0 0 0 89 983
4. Select Server 8 768 253 0 0 0 102 1,124
5. Select Software 14 1,344 444 0 0 0 179 1,966
6. Select Cables 5 480 158 0 0 0 64 702
7. Purchasing 4 384 127 0 6,750 0 726 7,987
8. Manuals 8 768 253 0 0 0 102 1,124
9. Wire Offices 14 1,120 370 0 0 750 224 2,464
10. Set Up Server 5 480 158 0 0 0 64 702
11. Develop Training 16 1,536 507 1,000 0 0 304 3,347
12. Install Software 5 480 158 0 0 0 64 702
13. Connect Network 5 400 132 0 0 0 53 585
14. Train Users 10 960 317 3,000 0 500 478 5,254
15. Test/Debug 15 1,440 475 0 0 0 192 2,107
16. Acceptance 6 576 190 0 0 0 77 843
TOTALS 204 $23,824 $7,862 $4,000 $6,750 $1,250 $4,369 $48,055
 Staff Materials Extra
Project Manager $20 per hour Computer $5,000 Charges
Assigned to Task 1 $160 per day Software 1,000 Overhead
Cables 250 33%
Computer Analyst $12 per hour (2 on team)
Connectors 500
Assigned to remaining $96 per day G&A
TOTAL $6,750
Maintenance Staff $10 per hour 10%
Contracts:
Assigned to Tasks 9, 13 $80 per day
Training
Development $1,000
Train Users 3,000

Fig. 9.1. Budget Worksheet for the Sample LAN Installation Project.
198 Practical Project Management

Youll notice immediately that the initial pass puts you more than
$8,000 over budgetand thats before you even get started on the
work! You may have also noticed something else: if you werent
charged the benefits and overhead burdens, youd be nearly
$4,000 under budget!
Although this can be frustrating, it shouldnt be surprising.
Overhead and benefits are real organizational costs, and they
must be accounted for. In a previous chapter, you were able to
lower your time estimate for the project. Now lets see what you
can do to lower budget projections.
One idea you used to save time wont work for money: making
tasks parallel. While time can be paralleled, money cant be.
Money doesnt care if its on the Critical Path or not.
Here are several tools that do work to help create a workable
final budget:
Eliminate nonessential elements. Take a good look at each
task. Does it need to be done at all? Does it need to be done
the way youve designed?
Check crash time results. Because certain costs go away
when a project is shortened, sometimes crashing a given task
can save more than it costs when the entire project is
considered.
Do it a cheaper way. Look at your specifications. Do you
really need the high-priced spread, or will Brand X achieve
the same results?
Move slack resources. Use the reverse crash method to
see if you can save money by using some of your slack.
Spend money that isnt budgeted to your project. If
youre charged for contracts but not for staff work, use staff
work even if the real cost is higher, because that money isnt
charged to your project.
 Budgeting for Projects 199

Check constraint priority. If budget is the weak constraint,

you might not worry about being over.
Renegotiate. Armed with solid evidence, you might
renegotiate the budget and get more money.
Now that youre aware of these tools, return to your budget
worksheet for the LAN Installation project (see fig. 9.1), and try
the following ideas:
Shop for a cheaper computer. Try a clone brand. Instead of
buying all the computing horsepower you might need in the
long run, buy an upgradeable machine of more limited
capacity. Also, buy less robust software, allowing for a later
upgrade. Dont compromise cables and connectors. Cut
supplies for wiring by borrowing from other departments.
Put yourself as the project manager to work. Personally
do Needs Analysis, Purchasing, and Acceptance, and half
of Test/Debug. This takes a big bite out of staff salaries.
This project really doesnt need a full-time project manager.
Still, assign yourself last so that you dont find yourself
overburdened operationally. Your first role is to manage the
project. (Note that assigning yourself to those tasks should
speed up their completion, but dont put the time savings on
your schedule just yet. Remember, you have less than 2 m of
margin, so this extra time is part of your defense against
schedule slippage.)
Negotiate harder on the training costs (development and
training itself). Cut the training supplies budget with smaller
manuals. Figure on providing followup and technical support
no matter what.
By implementing these strategies, you now have a budget of less
than $40,000! (See fig. 9.2.)
 Task Days Labor Overhead Contracts Materials Supplies G&A TOTAL
1. Project Mgmt. 71 $11,360 $3,749 $0 $0 $0 $1,511 $16,620
2. Needs Analysis 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3. Specifications 7 672 222 0 0 0 89 983
4. Select Server 8 768 253 0 0 0 102 1,124
5. Select Software 14 1,344 444 0 0 0 179 1,966
6. Select Cables 5 480 158 0 0 0 64 702
7. Purchasing 4 0 0 0 5,000 0 500 5,500
8. Manuals 8 768 253 0 0 0 102 1,124
9. Wire Offices 14 1,120 370 0 0 500 199 2,189
10. Set Up Server 5 480 158 0 0 0 64 702
11. Develop Training 16 1,536 507 750 0 0 279 3,072
12. Install Software 5 240 79 0 0 0 32 351
13. Connect Network 5 400 132 0 0 0 53 585
14. Train Users 10 960 317 2,000 0 250 353 3,879
15. Test/Debug 15 720 238 0 0 0 96 1,053
16. Acceptance 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTALS 204 $20,848 $6,880 $2,750 $5,000 $750 $3,623 $39,851
 Staff Materials Extra
Project Manager $20 per hour Computer $3,500 Charges
Assigned to Task 1 $160 per day Software 750 Overhead
Cables 250 33%
Computer Analyst $12 per hour (2 on team)
Connectors 500
Assigned to remaining $96 per day G&A
TOTAL $5,000
Maintenance Staff $10 per hour 10%
Contracts:
Assigned to Tasks 9, 13 $80 per day
Training
Development $ 750
Train Users 2,000

Fig. 9.2. Revised Budget Worksheet for the sample LAN installation project.
202 Practical Project Management

You might want to develop one final tool to help you manage
and track project costs: a Budget Control Chart. The Budget
Control Chart is a graph that shows cumulative project costs over
the life of the project. At the beginning, you know planned costs,
but not actual. As your project progresses, you can enter actual
costs as they are incurred. Use that information to track your
performance and anticipate potential problems (see fig. 9.3).
 Week of Cumulative $ 40,00
0
June 11 $ 1,170
35,000
June 18 2,762
June 25 4,635 30,000
July 2 7,210 25,000
July 9 9,785
July 16 17,157 20,000
July 23 19,732 15,000
July 30 22,974
10,000
August 6 26,134
August 13 29,541 5,000
August 20 31,689
0
August 27 35,761
Sept. 3 37,213
S1
Sept. 10 38,383

June 11
July 2

June 18
July 9

Sept. 17 $ 39,851 June 25

July 16
July 23
July 30
August 6
Sept. 3

August 13
August 20
August 27
Sept. 10
Budgeting for Projects

Sept. 17
203

Fig. 9.3. A sample Budget Control Chart for the sample LAN installation project.
 Managing
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206 Practical Project Management

Real-World Issues in Project Management

The strong concentration on planning in this book is no accident.
The Five PsPrior Planning Prevents Poor Performanceis the
most important single strategy you can follow to achieve your
desired project outcome. Its perhaps overstating the case to say
that prior planning prevents poor performance, since nothing can
prevent all mishaps, but prior planning is the best tool you have
to minimize problems when Godzilla is still a baby monster.
Projects are difficult to manage for two reasons:
Projects take place within organizations.
Projects have customers.
Both organizations and customers consist of people. People have
different interests, goals, and styles. People dont, as a rule, check
their humanity at the door when they punch in on the time clock.
The project outcome they desire always has an emotional and
personal content as well as a measurable and objective content.
While the political aspects of projects may be a source of
frustration (and occasional despair), you must develop strategies
and tactics to deal with these real-world project management
issues. In other words, get used to it.
Project management is, in a way, the ultimate management skill,
because in addition to its own unique disciplines, project
management includes all the other parts of conventional
management: supervision, leadership, office politics, reports,
meetings, and so on. Accordingly, no one never finishes the quest
to become the perfect project manager. Therefore, make a
commitment to lifelong learning, set a goal of continuous
personal and professional improvement, and focus your learning
on the things you need for tomorrows success, not the things
you needed for yesterdays accomplishments.
 Managing the Project 207

This is particularly good advice if you, like many project

managers, came into the management ranks from a technical
occupation. Most people in technical occupations are taught a
respect for facts and logic, and therefore have a tendency to reject
things that dont fit within a factual and logical context.
Unfortunately, the same values and approaches do not work with
human beings inside the dynamics of a typical organization. If
you have problems in this area, then make that area of learning
your next goal.
As you put the finishing touches on your project plan, verify each
element of the schedule. Next, take a moment to appreciate the
hard work and insight that has brought you to this point. Then
take a deep breath. Now youre ready to actually manage the
project.

What You Need to be a Great

Project Manager
Like all managers, project managers must be leaders. They must
know the business of their organizations. They must know about
current concepts in management, from effective team approaches
to empowerment, from TQM to MBO, from appraising
performance to running meetings to preparing reports to working
with other departments. They must be able to negotiate, to build
consensus, to work and play well with others. Project
management, like all management, requires good people skills.
Project management has unique elements as well. The technical
aspects of project planning, the power of the Triple Constraints,
the use of mathematical and statistical tools specific to the project
worldall are part of the special world of project management.
In this chapter, youll learn some of the management issues and
problems of the project manager. To explore every single aspect
of being an outstanding project manager would require including
book-length chapters on teams, office politics, self-esteem,
208 Practical Project Management

motivation, communications, and more. Obviously, thats not

practical, so the pages that follow will focus on project
management in general and touch briefly on the following issues:
getting and using power and authority, team organization and
management, motivation of team members, gaining support from
other departments, and dealing with the problem of escalating
project objectives. Understand that you must build and expand
your library and tool set across a wide range of management
disciplines.

Why Some Projects Fail

Five Reasons for Failure
1. Lack of Project Manager authority
I must be a mushroom. They keep me in the dark, feed
me manure, and then they can me.
2. Lack of team participation
If workers were smart, theyd be managers. Why ask
them anything? After all, Im the boss.
3. Bad reporting
Reports are just useless paperwork and an irrelevant
management requirement. I fill out the form and then
forget the form.
4. Lack of people skills
I dont thank people just for doing a good job. Doing a
good job is what they get paid for.
5. Unrealistic goals and schedules
Your mission, should you decide to accept it if caught
or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge
 Managing the Project 209

and Others Succeed

Three Reasons for Success
1. Committed teamwork
If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-
good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you
did it. Thats all it takes to get people to win football
games. Paul Bear Bryant
2. SMART Goals With Real Consensus
Specific, Measurable, Agreed-Upon, Realistic, and Time-
Specific.
3. Use of project management tools as a means, not an
end.
We have 562 pages of charts and graphs and still dont
have a clue!

How to Get and Use Power and Authority

You need power and authority to manage a project, but the
traditional project manager usually receives less actual authority
than he or she needs. This is often just a quirk of the
organizational dynamic, but theres a serious additional agenda
item here: real power and authority is not what others give you,
but what you make and what you take.
Some people have an ethical concern about power. Is it morally
acceptable to seek after power? To answer this question, lets use
the engineering definition of power: energy that accomplishes
work.
210 Practical Project Management

For example, you need gasoline to power your car. By itself, this
is neither ethical nor unethical. How you get the gasoline is an
ethical choice: you can buy it or you can steal it. The car will run
when you put gasoline in it. By itself, that is neither ethical nor
unethical. How you drive the car is an ethical choice: you can
drive safely or disregard the rules of the road. What you do with
the car is an ethical choice: you can use it as an ambulance or in
a drive-by shooting. Gasoline and the running car by themselves
are ethically neutral. The point? How you acquire and how you
use power, and the purposes for which you use your power are
subject to ethical rules. The mere fact of power considered alone
is morally and ethically neutral.
In the world of people and organizations, the same logic applies.
You need power to get any work done. Because you have a
commitment to principled behavior, you need to know ways to
acquire and use power that are ethical and appropriate.
If you take this as an endorsement of office politics, you are
correct. How can this book endorse office politics, when they are
so often at the core of project manager frustration and failure?
Because theyre real.
Office politics are a reality in any organization of three or more
people. Office politics are simply what we use to describe the
informal and sometimes emotionally-driven process of working
out goals among people with conflicting interests. People want
what they want, and you must deal with that.
Some people prefer the term organizational dynamics to
describe this process, and thats a legitimate term. However, the
more vibrant phrase office politics gives more of the flavor of
the human conflict and personalities at its core. Organizational
dynamics is more formal; office politics are informaland the
informal power structure in the organization is usually where the
action takes place.
To understand how and where you currently fit, and how you
might change your position if necessary, take the following quiz.
 Managing the Project 211

Q uiz
The purpose and value of this quiz is to get you thinking
about your current and official level of authority concerning
your own project. Take the time to write your answers to
each question fully, using extra paper. Its important to write
your responses down; youll see your ideas more clearly and
be able to use them more effectively.
1. How would your boss define your current official role in
managing your project? Is your official authority in writing,
or informal?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
2. List the resources (people, tools, systems) you need to
accomplish the project goal. Then describe, specifically,
how much official control you have over each resource.
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
3. What authority (if any) do you have to make or approve
purchases, to negotiate and approve contracts, or to make
other decisions that bind your organization legally or
financially?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
212 Practical Project Management

4. Do you select your own team members, are they selected

for you, or is there a hybrid responsibility?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
5. Does each key member of your project team report to you
in a formal sense? If not, what level of authority do you
possess (able to fire, reprimand, dismiss from team, etc.)?
Do any members of your project team outrank you in the
normal office hierarchy?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
6. Whos responsible for creating the plan, approving changes
to the plan, maintaining the plan, and making work
assignments based on the plan? If not you, where do you
fit in?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
 Managing the Project 213

7. Do you have direct access to the ultimate customer or

client for the project, or do you have to go through
intervening management (internal or external)? Are you
accepted by the customer as a technical authority? Do you
regularly attend top-level meetings that impact the project?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
8. At what point do you have to gain the approval of others
higher in the organization to make project-related
decisions? Do you have enough respect and acceptance
from higher authority for your recommendations to be
seriously considered?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
9. List the key organizational players with concern for this
project. Are there people in power positions who have
agendas (hidden or clear) that affect the project outcome,
resources, priority, or methodology?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
10. What is the relative priority of this project when compared
to other projects within the organization? How do other
organizational priorities affect your project?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
214 Practical Project Management

Now that youve completed the quiz, study your answers. If

youre like many project managers, you may be somewhat
depressed when you realize how little real authority you have.
Heres where politics and power come into the equation: the real
power to manage your project is not what others give you, its what
you make and what you take. You need this power to get the job
done, and its up to you to take the necessary steps. Here are
some ways to achieve that power:
1. Assertiveness is power. Project managers must be
assertivenot aggressive, not submissive. Good self-esteem is
a project management skill. If youre given what seems to be
an impossible project assignment, you have to say something
about it. If the information you have isnt sufficient, you have
to ask for additional information. If you arent assertive and
you lack self-esteem, others will walk on you. As Hawkeye
Pierce once said to Frank Burns in an episode of M*A*S*H:
You invite abuse. It would be impolite not to accept it.
2. Accomplishment is power. Nothing succeeds like success,
the old saying goes, and this is true of project managers. Each
time you achieve your goal, each time you get the job done
when others could not, you gain power and influence
proportional to the respect your accomplishment earned. The
best of all political skills is to earn a reputation for
outstanding work.
There are two caveats about accomplishment and respect:
In war, there are many heroes, but only some get medals.
Those are the ones with witnesses. If your great
accomplishment goes unnoticed, it adds nothing to your
power or influence.
Nobody respects a braggart. If youre caught trumpeting
your own horn too much, your accomplishments will be
discounted. Successful managers master the high-wire act
of calling appropriate attention to their success without
slipping over the line into bragging.
 Managing the Project 215

3. Knowledge is power. When you earn a reputation for

knowing what youre talking about, you gain power and
influence. Separate but not unrelated to the idea of
accomplishment, knowledge requires a commitment to study.
Success expert Brian Tracy pointed out that if you read one
book a week in your field, within three years youd
automatically be in the top 5 percent in knowledge. Why?
Because during that time, youd read roughly 150 books, far
more than the average American who reads only one
nonfiction book per year.
4. Relationships are power. Some people say Its not what
you know, its who you know. Well, its both. If you have
knowledge, but lack people skills and good solid
relationships, youll find that you can put your knowledge to
limited use. Of course, some people manage to get by for a
while on people skills alone, without having anything of
substance to offer, but this tends to come out in the long run.
People with knowledge and good interpersonal skills
succeed. These people are called leaders.
If you want to know if youre a leader, Marilyn Moates
Kennedy says in Office Politics, just look back to see if
anyone is following.
Leadership is different from supervision. Your boss can
appoint you as a supervisor, but only your staff can accept
you as a leader. People voluntarily choose to follow leaders,
individuals who are charismatic, who are skilled negotiators,
and who display self-confidence.
One of the tapes in the American Management Association
tape series Success Essentials includes a discussion of how to
manage problem employees. That tape yields a key insight
into why some employees dont do what theyre supposed to
216 Practical Project Management

do. The reason is simplethey believe that doing things your

way wont meet their needs. Marilyn Moates Kennedy defined
office politics by the same standard: What is it exactly that I
can do for you that will make you want to do it my way?
5. Initiative is power. One quick way to determine the limits
of your authority is simply to do it anyway and see what
happens, on the grounds that its often easier to get
forgiveness than permission.
This is not an endorsement to blindly disregard rules and do
whatever you wantquite the contrary. One of the rules of
management of any sort is that management involves risk. If
the problem has one right answer, if the problem is such that
all the facts are available, if the problem fits neatly within
your official purview, then its a simple problem. But
managers arent paid to handle the simple problems. (Enjoy
them when you have them though.)
Managers are paid to handle the tougher problems. A tough
problem may have many answerssometimes none of them
absolutely right. And with a tough problem, many key facts
may be unavailable and sometimes impossible to obtain. A
tough problem has unclear lines of authority. Intelligent risk-
taking, creativity, and good judgment are the fundamental
management skills.
One project managers boss once told him, If I havent had to
call you down for exceeding your authority, youre
demonstrating that you dont have a need for any more.
When the ball lands in your lap, its your ball. Whether you
keep it or pass it, its yours right now.
6. People skills are power. The ability to work and play well
with others, which we remember so well from our childhood
report cards, is still an important element in our adulthood,
especially as project managers.
 Managing the Project 217

There are at least two universal professionssales and

negotiation. These are professions to which we all belong
regardless of our official fields. Were all in the sales business
because we must persuade others to do our bidding. Were all
in the negotiation business because, as top negotiation author
Roger Dawson said, Everything you want right now is owned
or controlled by someone else.
To get what you want, remember that everybodys tuned in to
the worlds most popular radio station, WII-FM . . . the
Whats In It For Me radio network. Armed with this
realization, you must approach sales and negotiation from the
point of view of Mick Jagger, You cant always get what you
want, but if you try real hard, you might just get what you
need. Thats the win/win approach.
The biggest insight for effective sales and negotiation is that
you have two ears but only one mouthand thats a good
ratio. Most people mistakenly associate effective sales and
negotiation with being a fast and aggressive talker, but the
reality is that great persuaders are great listeners. If I am to
give you what you need in order to get what I need, I first
have to understand what it is that you need.
7. Communication is power. If you dont ask, you dont get.
Communication is part of all these power issues. The art of
communication involves the ability to articulate your goals
and desires, to put them across in persuasive and positive
language, to get your message understood. You must be
understood before you can gain acceptance and agreement.
218 Practical Project Management

8. Understanding is power. Who are the key players in this

project, what are their relative powers, and what do they
want? You can puzzle out many of the things that motivate
people by using the following techniques:
Put yourself in their shoes and look at the problem from
their perspective. What will success for the project mean
for them? Does it advance their career or harm it? What
personal benefits do they acquire from the projects
success or failure?
People are motivated to achieve their own self-interests. If
a team member complains and whines every time you give
him or her a work assignment, you may get so annoyed
that you give the assignments to a more positive team
member. The whiner then achieves his or her immediate
goal.
More people think short-term than long-term. When the
whiner is subsequently passed over for a promotion, he or
she is often shocked. The short-term goal has been
achieved at the cost of the long-term goal.
In an experiment to improve child safety, young children
were put in a room with various bottles filled with harmless
liquids. Some were marked with the skull and crossbones
poison symbol. Others were marked with a variety of other
signs. The skull and crossbones did not dissuade children
from drinking from the bottle. It was exotic and forbidden,
and therefore tempting. The green Mr. Yuck face did
discourage the children. Notice that the threat of long-term
death was much less persuasive than the idea of an
immediate unpleasant taste. Quite a few adults still operate at
this level of thinking.
 Managing the Project 219

Team Organization and

Management Issues
Teams are at the center of much current management thinking.
Teams are the new work unit asin Alvin Tofflers phrase
business moves from the bureaucracy of the past to the
adhocracy of the future. Teams are dynamically different from
the conventional boss/worker relationships of the past, and they
require a different management approach. Concepts like
empowerment (which is too often confused with
abandonment) are particularly significant to project managers.
This is because project mangers require the active participation of
team members to achieve significant goals.
While the reality of project management is often that your team is
a given, its clearly ideal to select team members strategically.
Even if you have limited power to select your team members,
work through these issues. You may need to acquire certain skills
outside the core team. You may also identify some likely
management issues affecting team performance. You may not be
able to solve all your problems in advance, but advance warning
is helpful.
The two factors in selecting team members are skills and
personality.
The initial draft of the project tasks should help you determine
the skills youll require of team members. Make a master skill list.
As you choose team members, check off their skills against your
skill list. In the ideal team, you should have at least two people
(one a backup) with each critical skill, so that in the event you
lose a key member during the projects life span, youll have
options. Cross-training is useful; so is preassigning backups so
that each team member keeps his or her backup abreast of
critical details.
220 Practical Project Management

Once youve ascertained that a prospective team member has the

fundamental skills required to do the work, favor personality over
additional skill. In many cases, the ability to work with others
toward a common goal is more important than marginally better
skills. Is the person articulate? Assertive rather than aggressive or
submissive? Can the person attend a meeting and contribute to
itneither dominating it nor sitting there like a bump on a log?
Does the person have a strong work ethic? Does the person
understand and support the projects goals?
Always interview team memberseven if you dont control their
hiring. Here are two areas you should ask about:
Their background. Even if youve worked with these people
for years, you may be surprised to find out about skills they
possess that theyve never had to use in the current work
environment. Does your boss know everything that youve
ever done?
Their goals within the organization and within the
project. Knowing their goals is key to knowing what
motivates them. To give people what they want, you must
know what they want.
Next, think about team organization. This is influenced by the
situation. Does your team need a formal structure where each
member has clearly defined authority and responsibilities. A
construction project is a good example of a project requiring a
formal team structure. Does it need an informal, ad hoc structure
that adapts to changing circumstances? R&D efforts lend
themselves to this loose type of structure. Are team members in
the same physical location, or are they spread out geographically?
Will they have a long-term working relationship, or are they
together only for this brief project?
 Managing the Project 221

Motivating People to Achieve

Have you ever met an unmotivated person?
When trainers ask that question at management seminars, they
get an enthusiastic sea of hands saying Yes! A lack of apparent
motivation in co-workers and team members is a constant irritant
to other team members and managers.
But rephrase the question and ask: Have you ever had a co-
worker who spent more time and energy each day scheming to
get out of work than it would take simply to finish the work and
get it over with? Of course! Such people abound in the
workplace. So, back to the original question: Are they
unmotivated? Hardly. The issue in motivation is not whether
people have it (they do), but what motivates them.
The principles of effective motivation can be summarized in the
GREAT model:

Goals
Roles
Expectations
Attitudes
Time
222 Practical Project Management

Goals. Have you ever been in a situation where no one in the

group could decide where to go for dinner? I dunno. Where do
you wanna go? This back-and-forth volley lasts until someone
says assertively, Lets go to ______.
One way to motivate desired behavior is to be assertive and clear
about what you want and where youre going. A person with
strong, clear goals gets more cooperation and support than
someone without goals.
Roles. People find it easier to cooperate when they know where
they stand and what their responsibilities are. Theres comfort in
clarity. People unsure of their roles and their situation often yield
to fear, and fear destroys positive motivation.
Expectations. People need to know what you expect of them,
and you need to set those expectations high to get maximum
results. Make your expectations clear from the outset, and give
feedback on how to meet them. Remember as youre offering
input that positive feedback is even more helpful than negative
feedback. Catch team members doing things right and tell them
about itearly and often.
Attitudes. The most important attitude on your team is your own.
Like it or not, choose it or not, you are a role model. No one
works harder than you, cares more than you, has more discipline
than you, is more positive than you. Your attitude becomes the
upper speed limit for your team. Make sure you manage your
own morale and keep it high. (Sometimes you have to be a good
actor, even to the point of faking a better attitude than you feel
inside. A bad attitude and a sense of futility on your part can rob
your project of any hope.)
Time. Whether time is the driver or not, time is always of the
essence. If theres absolutely no time pressure, then the project
will be completed when team members get around to it, which
may be never. Promote a sense of urgency to give your team
energy.
 Managing the Project 223

Getting Support From Other Departments

Every course on Total Quality Management (TQM) contains a
segment on the internal customersomeone to whom you give
work or from whom you get work. In general terms, your
customers want something from you (a work output) and you
want something in return (with an external customer, its often
money). Internal customers want work output from you, and you
want work output from them.
In the external world, customers keep you in business by creating
the demand for the products and services you supply. This is true
obviously in the for-profit sector, but its also true in the not-for-
profit sector. In the internal world, other departments make your
projects possible because unless the project is small, you normally
must gain the willing cooperation of other departments that you
neither supervise nor control in order to get the work done.
Frankly, this concept can be expressed in political terms. You
want something from another department and they want
something from you. For example, if you need the Purchasing
department to accelerate your requisitions so you can meet the
schedule, you need their cooperation. But theyre not thrilled with
the extra work demands. How do you get their cooperation?
The best approach is to start far in advance of need. Build good
relationships early. In the case of the Purchasing department, you
might go for a visit. What could we do better to make your life
easier? you ask.
They might reply that youre not filling out the requisition forms
correctly, not giving them enough lead time, or trying to specify
vendors instead of letting them follow their policies. All too often,
you may discover that youre making other peoples lives
miserable and difficult without meaning to, simply because you
224 Practical Project Management

dont know any better. Learning to fill out the forms right might
take some extra short-term effort, but it will likely speed up forms
completion and will definitely speed up Purchasings response
time.
Managing other departments is the same as managing team
members who dont formally report to you. Always ask Marilyn
Moates Kennedys question: What can I do for you that will make
you want to do it my way?

Coping With the Escalating Objective

Although certain management problems can affect any project
manager in any situation at any time, one particular nightmare
that stands out is the escalating project objective. This occurs
when the initial project objective, although properly approved
and signed off by the customer, starts creeping upward as the
project progresses. Time compresses, the budget shrinks, and
performance criteria increase.
Whether change orders are formal or informal, they tend to be a
common part of the project management experience. Its no use
saying it shouldnt be that way (although it shouldnt): you must
instead learn how to cope with it.
Try some or all of the following techniques to cope with project
objectives that expand after the project is underway.
1. Do the entire Triple Constraints process. If you havent
fully negotiated and explored the Triple Constraints using the
process described in Chapter 2, this may be the source of
some of your problems. Too many project managers rush
ahead before identifying the underlying project reason and
the management, organizational, and customer issues that
influence it.
 Managing the Project 225

2. Find out who has an interest in the outcome. Remember

from the Triple Constraints process that a project has a central
objective but often has secondary objectives that are the
related interests of all those who form the project
constituency. You must discover who your project
constituency is, interview them, find out their goals and
perceptions, and integrate as many of their goals as possible
without compromising the central objective.
Dont forget the personal as well as the external motivations.
3. Put it in writing and shop it around. A good goal is a
written goal. Make sure to inform people in advance and in
writing of the goal and give them an early opportunity to
challenge that goal. Although negotiating a workable
compromise can be difficult, its much easier than coping with
a major change order late in the project that virtually
guarantees disaster.
Although people can still change a written goal, its harder
than changing an unwritten goal.
4. Show others your plans, schedules, and budgets. You
cant take for granted that others in management will have the
same level of understanding of the consequences of a
proposed project change that you have. Document the
consequences of a change clearly and objectively (no
whining!).
When a change is requested, print out a current plan and
budget. Next, integrate the change into the existing schedule
and print out the revised plan and budget. Third, brainstorm
positive and proactive ways of achieving the new goal in the
best possible way. Revise the schedule and budget to
accommodate the change. Print that out.
226 Practical Project Management

Now, go to management and/or the customer. Show them the

three versions:
1. No change
2. Integrating the change and going in a straight line
3. Your best ideas about how to integrate the change and still
achieve the rest of the time/budget/performance goals.
Ask whether they have better suggestions.
Perhaps they do have better suggestionsbe positive and
agreeable when you adopt them. Perhaps seeing the
consequences clearly will make them realize that the change
isnt wise or possible. Its easier for people to save face and
back down if youre being positive. Without intending it, you
can all too easily give the impression that you think theyre all
stupid and incompetent with no clue as to the consequences
of the change. Always give people the opportunity to save
face.
Another point to remember is that management has a
tendency to believe, based on much real-world experience,
that employees usually arent proactive about change, but
instead look for ways to prove that change is impossible.
Dont play into that preconceived notion. Always be as
positive as you can about change.
5. Build change into the process. In many projects, change
orders are inevitable because of the nature of the work. It
may not be possible to identify all the real needs until the
work has progressed to a certain point. In this case, you need
to build change into the process.
Set milestones in your project schedule for customer review
and expectation development and tasks for integration of
requirements changes and redevelopment to accommodate
changes. Build this into your initial schedule and budget. If
its inevitable, its inevitable. Plan for it.
Monitor and
Adjust

11
228 Practical Project Management

How to Track Progress

If you sit in your office waiting for people to bring you the
information you need to stay updated about your project, youll
have a long and lonely wait ahead of you. To keep Godzilla out
of Tokyo, you must be proactive in monitoring project events.
When youre proactive, you can act early, when options are
strongest, to solve inevitable project problems.
You can begin your monitoring process during your planning by
developing the Control Point Identification Chart (see fig 5.9 on
page 96), a brainstorming record of what might go wrong (and
right), how you could catch it early, and what you could do
about it. You can build in milestones and reporting periods
throughout your project.

Project Control Chart

To build a Project Control Chart, take the task list from the plan
and create a table, as in Table 11.1. Add actual time and budget
data as they accumulate, and monitor the variance. (Note: Budget
variance is always significant; time variance is only significant on
critical tasks or when variance exceeds available slack. Both free
slack and total slack are listed on the Project Control Chart.)
Table 11.1 Project Control Chart

Task F. Slack T. Slack Schedule Actual Var. Budget Actual Var.

1. Project Mgmt. 71 0 $16,620 $0
2. Needs Analysis 11 0 0 0
3. Specifications 7 0 983 0
4. Select Server 0.63 1 8 0 1,124 0
5. Select Software 14 0 1,966 0
6. Select Cables 1 1 5 0 702 0
7. Purchasing 4 0 5,500 0
8. Manuals 2.63 6 8 0 1,124 0
9. Wire Offices 14 0 2,189 0
10. Set Up Server 0.63 4 5 0 702 0
11. Develop Training 0.63 4 16 0 3,072 0
12. Install Software 4 4 5 0 351 0
13. Connect Network 5 0 585 0
14. Train Users 4 4 10 0 3,879 0
15. Test/Debug 15 0 1,053 0
Monitor and Adjust

16. Acceptance 6 0 0 0
TOTALS N/A N/A 204 N/A 0 $39,851 N/A $0
229
230 Practical Project Management

Milestone Chart
You can also build a Milestone Chart. This is a checklist of key
events and their scheduled completion dates. Key events are
either points requiring approval to proceed or measurable and
verifiable accomplishments that tell you the work is going well.

Table 11.2 Milestone Chart

Milestone Scheduled Actual

Purchasing Decisions Made June 19

Equipment Delivery June 25

Wires in Wall August 11

Network Connected August 18

Users Trained September 4

Fully Tested September 8

Accepted September 19
 Monitor and Adjust 231

Reporting System
You can set up a reporting system. Reporting systems, by their
nature, must be customized around the project and organization.
The most important point about a good reporting system is that
people follow it. Use these principles:
1. Dont ask for information you dont need. Think about
how you will use each bit of information in your report.
2. Design your own report formats. Combat the natural
human tendency to tell you what you want to hear, or to
make the reporter look good.
3. Use graphics when possible. A picture is worth a thousand
words, particularly where reports are concerned. People take
money, time, and other quantifiable variables far more
seriously if they are visually striking.

Meeting Schedule
You can set up a meeting schedule, but remember that although
meetings may be necessary, theyre not automatically effective.
Many project managers assume that everyone knows how to have
a meeting, and then theyre frequently surprised. As a manager,
take meetings seriouslyand expect others to do so as well. Use
these principles to plan your meeting schedule.
1. Make sure enough has changed to justify a new meeting.
You can schedule meetings along with milestones or on a
regular basis, but choose the frequency based on progress. If
all your tasks are weekly, daily meetings are suspect.
2. Have an agenda and purpose for each meeting. Although
most managers know that agendas are important, many dont
use them. When people who will be attending the meeting
know what the meeting is for and know how to prepare, they
are more likely to be productive.
232 Practical Project Management

3. Send out an action summary after each meeting. Skip

minutes, which are mostly useless. An action summary lists
decisions and work assignments made during the meeting.
4. Model desired behavior. Arrive on time, take the business
of the meeting seriously, and work toward an on-time and
on-target conclusion.

Monitoring System
You can set up a monitoring system, including inspections,
progress reviews, tests, audits, and other techniques. Use your
plan as a guide, and insist that all reviews involve reference to
the plan.
The key issue in monitoring is that you realize its importance to
project success. Keep your eye on the ball from project start to
project finish.

Earned Value Method

Certain large projects, especially those in construction and
engineering, use the Earned Value Method. The Earned Value
Method is used in part to determine interim payments when work
is being performed on contract for a client. The Earned Value
Method is a way of showing schedule variance in monetary
termsif youre late, it affects your payment. You should
probably use the Earned Value Method only if youre required to
do so by a customer, then study it in more detail. This brief
explanation is only to help you recognize the terminology and
concepts should you encounter them in your projects.
Here are some of the terms youll need to understand to work
with the Earned Value Method:
The Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS) is the original
budget estimate for a given task.
 Monitor and Adjust 233

The Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP) is the actual cost of

performing the given task.
The Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP) is the earned
valuea measure of the dollar value of the work actually
performed to date.
The Schedule Variance is expressed as BCWP minus BCWS,
which shows schedule variance in monetary terms.
For example, if Task 7 had a BCWS of $6,000 and was only 50
percent complete at the deadline, it would have a BCWP of
$6,000 x 50 percent, or $3,000. If the ACWP to that point were
$4,000, youd be $1,000 over current budget, but youd be
looking at a $2,000 budget overage when you finished (if $4,000
is 50 percent complete, then the expected ACWP is $8,000). The
schedule variance expressed in monetary terms is -$3,000, which
is how much the customer will deduct from the current payment
due.

Tracking GanttA Powerful Tool

Most of the techniques described so far in this chapter can be
used for a variety of work situations, not just for projects. The
Gantt Chart proves useful yet again as a visual way of measuring
progress against schedule and forecasting the impact of problems
on project goals.
To make a Tracking Gantt Chart, take the original plan and draw
an extra line for each task. That line will represent the actual time
each task took. Using the dependency sequence, you can quickly
analyze the consequences of any task slippage. If youre a
software user, your program may have the ability to create a
Tracking Gantt automatically.
234 Practical Project Management

Return now to the simpler of your sample projects to explore this

technique. In the Chapter 8 exercise, you determined the Critical
Path for your project to buy a word processing system. The
Critical Path consisted of tasks 1-2-4-5-7-8 for a total of 19
working days.
In figure 11.1, you see the project laid out as a Tracking Gantt.
Youll see two bars for each task: the upper bar in each pair is
either the actual time it took to perform the task, or a forecast of
the time span for tasks that havent yet occurred.
Three tasks have a completion factor of 100 percent: tasks 1, 2,
and 3. That means they are complete. The remaining tasks have a
completion factor of 0 percent, which means they have not yet
been started. Tasks 1 and 3 took the scheduled amount of time.
Task 2, unfortunately, did not. It was scheduled to take 5 working
days, but has actually taken 8 working days. (Be sure to deduct
weekends from your scheduleunless your project operates 7
days a week.)
Because Task 2 was a critical task, the consequences are severe:
Task 4, scheduled to begin July 3, now begins July 6 because it is
still dependent on the finish of Task 2. Tasks 5 and 6 are pushed
out, and so are Tasks 7 and 8. Unless you take some kind of
action, your 19-day project will take a total of 22 daysthree
days over, which (not coincidentally) is the Task 2 lateness.
Time and money are usually flip sides of the same coin in
projects (unless you supervise volunteers). Now consider the
impact of the project delay on your budget situation. Assume that
each staff member earns $100 per day, one person does each job
full time, and the hardware/software combination cost is $3,000.
Lag time costs $75 per day (maintenance and overhead costs).
(Omit staff overhead and G&A from this example.) This gives you
the Budget Control Chart shown in figure 11.2.
 June 18 June 25 July 2 July 9 July 16
ID Name Duration 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 Needs Analysis 5d 100%

2 Select Software 5d 100%

3 Select Computers 3d 100%

4 Purchasing 1d 0%

5 Delivery Lag Time 6d 0%

6 Training 3d
7 Installation 1d 0%
8 Acceptance 1d 0%

Planned Critical Progress Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

Monitor and Adjust

Project: Critical Noncritical Planned Milestone Planned Summary

235

Fig. 11.1. A Tracking Gantt chart for the sample Purchase a Word Processing System project discussed in Chapter 8.
236 Practical Project Management

Plan Actual
Day Cost Cumulative Day Cost Cumulative
1 $100 $100 1 $100 $100
2 $100 $200 2 $100 $200
3 $100 $300 3 $100 $300
4 $100 $400 4 $100 $400
5 $100 $500 5 $100 $500
6 $200 $700 6 $200 $700
7 $200 $900 7 $200 $900
8 $200 $1,100 8 $200 $1,100
9 $100 $1,200 9 $100 $1,200
10 $100 $1,300 10 $100 $1,300
11 $3,100 $4,400 11 $100 $1,400
12 $175 $4,575 12 $100 $1,500
13 $175 $4,750 13 $100 $1,600
14 $175 $4,925 14 $3,100 $4,700
15 $75 $5,000 15 $175 $4,875
16 $75 $5,075 16 $175 $5,050
17 $75 $5,150 17 $175 $5,225
18 $100 $5,250 18 $75 $5,300
19 $100 $5,350 19 $75 $5,375
20 End $5,350 20 $75 $5,450
21 21 $100 $5,550
22 22 $100 $5,650
Fig. 11.2. The Budget Control Chart for the Word Processing System
project.
 Monitor and Adjust 237

Youll notice that on Day 13, youre in very good shape

financially$3,000 under budget (see fig. 11.3). Of course, thats
cash flow, not budget, since the purchasing has only been
postponed, not eliminated. Assuming that nothing else goes
wrong, you currently expect to end the project three days late
and $300 over budget ($100 a day for each staff members salary).
What can you do? Quite a lot, actually. You cant change the past,
but you can modify every aspect of the rest of the project in the
same way you planned it in the first place. All the techniques you
learned earlier for shortening time and lowering budget are
applicable. Now search the remaining project for opportunities to
save time and/or money and to get back on schedule.
One way to save three days and $300 would be to eliminate Task
6, Training (redefine performance criteria). You could argue that
buying and installing the computer doesnt require training the
eventual user. Unfortunately, eliminating Training doesnt save
you any days because Training isnt a critical path task.
However, as you look through the mail order catalog from which
you plan to buy the computer, you discover that the company
has an option for overnight delivery. In fact, it has two: two-day
service for an extra $200, and one-day service for an extra $300.
This is a crash time opportunity.
Since Delivery Lag Time is a Critical Path task, speeding it up
should make a difference. Should you spend $200 to save three
days or $300 to save five days? (These are two crash slope
choices, which are written -4, $200 and -5, $300.)
You may find that exploring the consequences of using crash
analysis is easier on a PERT chart. The three sections of fig. 11.4
show the three options:
The first PERT chart shows that if you do nothing, the time from
Purchasing through Acceptance will take nine days. (The critical
path is highlighted with thicker lines.)
238 Practical Project Management

The second PERT chart shows the impact of going with the -5,
$300 overnight delivery option. The time from Purchasing
through Delivery and Installation to Acceptance is 4 days, but the
time from Purchasing through Training to Acceptance is 5 days.
The Critical Path has changed! It takes five days to get through
these tasks. (The total project time, however, is 18 days: youre
going to end up a day ahead of schedule! See fig. 11.5)
The third PERT chart shows the impact of going with the -4, $200
second-day delivery option. The time from Purchasing through
Delivery and Installation to Acceptance is 5 daysand so is the
time to get there through Training! In other words, there are now
two critical pathsand this project phase takes five days either
way! You still end up with an 18-day total time estimate.
Common sense says that overnight delivery is a day faster than
second-day delivery, but the PERT chart shows that in this case
there is no time difference. (Some project managers might argue
that paying the extra $100 is a good idea because Installation
might be troublesome. Thats a legitimate argument if you feel
that the risk justifies the expense. However, youre not spending
the $100 to save time; youre spending it for a different purpose:
risk reduction.)
 $6,000

$5,000

$4,000

$3,000

Plan
$2,000 Actual/Forecast

$1,000

$0

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Monitor and Adjust

Fig. 11.3. Graphical representation of the budget versus actual amounts spent for the Word Processing System project.
239
240 Practical Project Management

Deliver y Installation
Lag
6 days 1 day

Purchasing Acceptance
1 day 1 day
Training
3 days

Fig. 11.4a. The expected project schedule if nothing is done.

Deliver y Installation
Lag
1 day 1 day

Purchasing Acceptance
1 day 1 day
Training
3 days

Fig. 11.4b. Paying for overnight delivery. Notice the Critical Path has
changed.

Deliver y Installation
Lag
2 days 1 day

Purchasing Acceptance
1 day 1 day
Training
3 days

Fig. 11.4c. Paying for second-day delivery. Notice there are now two
Critical Paths.
 Monitor and Adjust 241

Now consider the budget. In your first option, you spent an extra
$300, but the budget variance is now only $225 over budget. You
got $75 of the overage back in saved labor costs while cutting
your total project time by one day! (See figs. 11.6 and 11.7.)
You spent an extra $200 in your second option to get back on
your planned schedule. Your total budget variance is now only
$175 overto achieve the same outcome! (See figs. 11.8 and
11.9.)
In some cases, youll find that spending extra money you dont
have can actually lower total budget and time. The reason for
this, of course, is that time and money are flip sides of the same
coin.
As you can see, the Tracking Gantt is not only a powerful tool for
monitoring and control, its also an important element in your
problem-solving strategy.
 June 18 June 25 July 2 July 9 July 16
ID Name Duration 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 Needs Analysis 5d 100%

2 Select Software 5d 100%

3 Select Computers 3d 100%

4 Purchasing 1d 0%

5 Delivery Lag Time 3d 0%

6 Training 3d 0%

7 Installation 1d 0%
8 Acceptance 1d 0%

Planned Critical Progress Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

Project: Critical Noncritical Planned Milestone Planned Summary

Fig. 11.5. Tracking Gantt Chart showing project on schedule.

 Plan Actual
Day Cost Cumulative Day Cost Cumulative
1 $100 $100 1 $100 $100
2 $100 $200 2 $100 $200
3 $100 $300 3 $100 $300
4 $100 $400 4 $100 $400
5 $100 $500 5 $100 $500
6 $200 $700 6 $200 $700
7 $200 $900 7 $200 $900
8 $200 $1,100 8 $200 $1,100
9 $100 $1,200 9 $100 $1,200
10 $100 $1,300 10 $100 $1,300
11 $3,100 $4,400 11 $100 $1,400
12 $175 $4,575 12 $100 $1,500
13 $175 $4,750 13 $100 $1,600
14 $175 $4,925 14 $3,100 $4,700
15 $75 $5,000 15 $475 $5,175
16 $75 $5,075 16 $200 $5,375
17 $75 $5,150 17 $100 $5,475
18 $100 $5,250 18 $100 $5,575
19 $100 $5,350 19 End $5,575
20 End $5,350 20 $5,575
21 21
22 22
Fig. 11.6. Budget Control Chart reflecting new budget variance using
overnight delivery.
 $6,000

$5,000

$4,000

$3,000

Plan
$2,000 Actual/Forecast

$1,000

$0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Fig. 11.7. Speeding up system delivery using Option 1 reduces budget overage by $75.
 Plan Actual
Day Cost Cumulative Day Cost Cumulative
1 $100 $100 1 $100 $100
2 $100 $200 2 $100 $200
3 $100 $300 3 $100 $300
4 $100 $400 4 $100 $400
5 $100 $500 5 $100 $500
6 $200 $700 6 $200 $700
7 $200 $900 7 $200 $900
8 $200 $1,100 8 $200 $1,100
9 $100 $1,200 9 $100 $1,200
10 $100 $1,300 10 $100 $1,300
11 $3,100 $4,400 11 $100 $1,400
12 $175 $4,575 12 $100 $1,500
13 $175 $4,750 13 $100 $1,600
14 $175 $4,925 14 $3,100 $4,700
15 $75 $5,000 15 $375 $5,075
16 $75 $5,075 16 $175 $5,250
17 $75 $5,150 17 $175 $5,425
18 $100 $5,250 18 $100 $5,525
19 $100 $5,350 19 End $5,525
20 End $5,350 20
21 21
22 22
Fig. 11.8. Budget Control Chart reflecting budget variance using Option 2.
 246

$6,000

$5,000

$4,000
Practical Project Management

$3,000

Plan
$2,000 Actual/Forecast

$1,000

$0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Fig. 11.9. Speeding up system delivery using Option 2 reduces budget overage by $125.
 Monitor and Adjust 247

Problem-Solving Strategies
The first and best way to eliminate project problems is to
thoroughly and carefully plan. Realistically, youll never be able to
plan so perfectly to eliminate all problems. Its when problems
arise that project managers earn their money. Here are some
problem-solving strategies that work:
Define the real problem. The first element in an effective
problem-solving strategy is to define the problem. The real
problem isnt necessarily the core problem. Use the Five Whys
technique to look behind the problem. Ask why the visible
problem occurred. When you get a reason, ask why that
happened, and so on. Five whys will get you closer to the core
problem, the one that must ultimately be solved. (Five is a
guideline, not an absolute number.)
Return to the Triple Constraints and the ultimate reason for doing
the project in the first place. Your problem is a real problem if
and only if it threatens that reason. If the Critical Path has slipped,
and time is not the driver, you might not be too concerned about
correcting it. If you are over budget, and budget is the weak
constraint, being overbudget may be superior to the alternatives.
If a performance standard hasnt been achieved, the question you
have to ask is how that might affect real qualitythat is, what the
customer needs, wants, or expects.
Verify that the driver and weak constraint are still in the right
order. Once youve properly determined constraint order, it
doesnt tend to slip around (if it does, that suggests it may not
have been properly defined in the first place). However, major
changes in the external environment (new owners, change in
customers, a stock market crash) can change constraint order, and
with it the dynamics of your project. Check for flexibility in the
weak constraint and, if possible, use that flexibility as a problem-
solving tool.
248 Practical Project Management

Brainstorm options. When you need a great idea, start with a

lot of ideas. The goal of brainstorming is to gather a large number
of ideas that range from sensible to off-the-wall. Prefer quantity of
ideas to quality of ideas in this process. Set a rule that no one is
to evaluate or comment on ideas. Judging ideas at this stage cuts
off free thinking.
Try some of these brainstorming techniques:
1. Print the subject in big letters on a blackboard or flip chart.
2. Set a goal for total ideas (say, 100), and run the session until
that number of ideas is achieved. (Remember, they dont have
to be good ones.)
3. Progress in a round robin style, calling on each participant
in turn, so that big talkers dont dominate the process. Each
team member may offer only one idea per turn. If a
participant doesnt have an idea on a given round, that person
passes.
4. Record all ideas, even jokes, silly ideas, or off-the-wall
suggestions. Remember, no criticism is allowed.
5. Encourage synergy: Build on ideas already on the flip chart.
6. Be patient with the process. Encourage looseness, movement,
and think time.
Narrow the field. After the brainstorming session, reduce the
total number of ideas to a workable size and build team
consensus toward a solution. Use the multivoting technique to do
this. Heres how it works.
1. Number the brainstormed items.
2. Consider each item in order, allowing team members to
clarify, add, combine, or delete items. (To combine or delete,
you must have 100 percent group agreement. Otherwise, let
the ideas stand for this round.)
 Monitor and Adjust 249

3. Team members may lobby for their favorite ideas. Lobbying

must be positive; that is, it must support an item. No criticism
is allowed.
4. Use a show of hands to vote for keeping each item. Team
members may vote for as many items as they want. Cut items
that dont receive significant group support.
5. If there are still too many ideas to consider sensibly, give each
team member half as many votes as there are ideas remaining,
and repeat step four with the limited votes. Repeat this until
the idea list is reduced to a manageable size.
Build consensus toward a solution. The Nominal Group
Technique (NGT) is a powerful strategy for building consensus.
Give each member a voting card and the following instructions:
1. Write the words Item and Rank on each card.
2. List your top five ideas by number under Item.
3. Rank the ideas by your priority, 5 for the highest priority,
1 for the lowest.
4. Now, collect the cards and total up rankings and number of
responses to determine priority. Example: If an idea got three
#1 votes and two #2 votes, it receives 7 points, since
[(3x1)+(2x2)]=7. Lower scores are better. Record the scores for
the group and repeat to eliminate ties.
The reason for this technique is that while there may be
disagreement on the best idea, there may be a strong consensus
on the second best. NGT ensures that the idea with the widest
group support is chosen.
250 Practical Project Management

Examine the solution carefully. Use Force Field Analysis to

explore the solution in detail. Set up the format shown in figure
11.10 on a blackboard or flip chart. Then use brainstorming to
identify driving and restraining forces. Driving forces support
the solution; restraining forces work against the solution.
Use brainstorming and NGT to prioritize the forces you come up
with, look for solutions to any new problems you identify, and
continue until you have developed a workable solution.

Force Field Analysis

Driving Forces Restraining Forces

Fig. 11.10. Using Force Field Analysis, team members can evaluate the
reasons for adopting a solution or identifying reasons a recommended
solution may not work.
 Monitor and Adjust 251

General Techniques for Saving

Time and Money
The toolbox of the experienced project manager is packed with
techniques that can be applied to a wide variety of situations.
When youre stuck and looking for answers, test each of the
following ideas as a potential source.
Renegotiate the project requirements. If youve reached a
point in the project where you have done the best you can and
theres no way to achieve the desired outcome, its time to
renegotiate with the project originators. This is hard to do. You
may feel embarrassed and/or powerless. After all, you are the
captain of this sinking shipnot the best position to negotiate
from.
Dont underestimate your position. Strong negotiators know how
to get the best terms even under these circumstances. Your
position is powerful, indeed. The reality is that youve spent the
time and money. Its gone. The customers choice is to get
nothing for the time and money invested, or to spend extra time
and money (or alter ideal performance standards) to get
something. Something is better than nothing in most cases.
This isnt shameful or manipulativeits simply factual. Although
youre committed to quality and excellence, dont let perfect
become the enemy of good. If you cant achieve the customers
ideal goal, work with the customer to find the best goal you can
achieve to meet as many of the customers needs as possible.
Dont let personal shame or any other emotions undercut you. In
the long run, they dont do you or your customer any favors.
Recover later. The Tracking Gantt analysis showed a strategy for
later recovery. In your initial planning process, you may discover
crash time options or paralleling options that are marginal.
Perhaps they cost too much, or increase risk unnecessarily. Keep
them in your pocket for later and have some back-up solutions to
help you solve your problems.
252 Practical Project Management

Narrow the project scope. As you learned on the Moon Project

in Chapter 2, a project normally has one or two central,
overriding objectives and a host of secondary objectives that are
desirable, but not essential. If you discover that your schedule is
being pushed up because of certain circumstances (e.g., in the
case of the moon shot example, the Soviet program going into
overdrive), its time to narrow the project scope. Evaluate all the
performance standards, determine which cant be compromised
without fundamentally destroying the project, and cut the rest
back.
Throw more resources at it. The crash technique may solve
your problems. Look for opportunities where using additional
resources would reduce time on the Critical Path (but not in
excess of slack on parallel linesthat doesnt accomplish
anything). Depending on penalties for noncompletion or other
costs to the project, paying for extra resources to get the job done
may even save money.
Accept substitutions. Go through your shopping list and
identify whether you really need the turbocharged name-brand
version, or whether the off-brand without the gold-plated sockets
would meet the critical performance objectives.
Work with your subcontractors. Improve your negotiating
position by making sure you have explored alternate sources for
the goods and services you require. Dont make yourself a
hostage unnecessarily. You can go beyond the contract to offer
incentives for better time and quality. You can simply be assertive
and demand complianceyoull be surprised how often that
works.
 Monitor and Adjust 253

Accept partial delivery. Perhaps your supplier cant deliver all

2,000 widgets called for by the project standard, but can deliver
1,000 on time and the balance within a week or two. You can
renegotiate with your customerperhaps the quantity you can
make with 1,000 widgets will satisfy the customers critical
requirement and allow you to meet the rest of the needs on a
renegotiated schedule.
254 Practical Project Management

Exercise #12:
Draw a Tracking
Gantt Chart
Using the data in the Project Control Chart below, create a
Tracking Gantt Chart from the Gantt Chart on page 255.

Project Control Chart

Task Planned Actual Variance

A 2 2 0

B 1 2 1

C 2 3 1

D 1 1 0

E 2 1 -1

F 1 1 0

G 1 1 0
 Monitor and Adjust 255

12
11
10
9
8
Gantt Chart

7
Weeks
6
5
4
3
2
1
Task

G
A

What is the schedule variance of the project? _________________

256 Practical Project Management

Answer Key for Exercise #12

12
11
10
9
Tracking Gantt Chart

8
7
Weeks
6
5
4
3
2
1
Task

G
A

Schedule variance is 3 days late (end at day 11 rather than day 8).
 Special
Techniques for
Managing
Multiple
Projects

12
258 Practical Project Management

Managing the Project Portfolio

Many project managers have responsibility for managing multiple,
simultaneous projects. A collection of co-managed projects is a
project portfolio, and there are special techniques for coping with
those problems.
Sometimes the individual projects in the portfolio are quite small.
You serve as project manager for each individual project as well
as for the portfolio as a whole (if theyre small enough, you also
do technical tasks on each of the projects). Sometimes the
projects are individually quite large. In that case, you normally
employ separate project managers for the different projects, and
you yourself provide overall coordination and executive direction.
The difference between being a project manager and a portfolio
manager is often additional rank and authority.
Project portfolios are divided into two major categories:
independent project portfolios and interdependent project
portfolios.
In an independent project portfolio, the projects fall under a
common management umbrella, but the projects themselves are
essentially unrelated. If you manage a construction company,
each individual construction project is independent of the others.
If one project should fail, the failure has little impact on the other
projects in the portfolio (although it might affect your job!). The
projects in the portfolio may be similar or dissimilar.
In an interdependent project portfolio, the projects are elements in
a super-project that is aimed at a common outcome. The failure
of one project in the portfolio could have a catastrophic impact
on the ultimate outcome.
Whats the difference, then, between an interdependent project
portfolio and a very large project? Its simply a matter of point of
 Special Techniques for Managing Multiple Projects 259

view. If your large project has subprojects that you manage

individually, you might find it useful to look at the work as a
collection of projects as well as a comprehensive project by itself.
All of this leads to the single key to understanding how to make
sense of a multiple-project portfolio: a project and a task are
synonymous. As you learned in the WBS discussion, the
difference between a project and a task is perspective: where you
stand depends upon where you sit. Tasks, like projects, have the
Triple Constraintsthey too have goals.
Therefore, the secret of managing project portfolios is to
remember that from your perspective, you are managing only one
project with multiple (and very large) tasks.
How does this understanding benefit you? It means that you can
apply every single technique that works on a single project to the
project portfolio. The theory is the same; the methodology is the
same. The arithmetic is more complex, and thats the only
difference. (And, of course, thats why you might want to use
software to assist you.)
You already know a lot about managing multiple projects if you
know about managing one project, but this chapter provides
some special insights to assist you.

Independent Project Portfolios

Managing independent portfolios resembles the plate-spinning act
on Ed Sullivan: your job is to keep all the plates spinning.
Wobbling is okay as long as none fall down. Monitor the
individual projects and move your attention from one to the other
as needed. Prioritize the individual projects based on total value
to the organization and portfolio mission. Unlike the Ed Sullivan
act, some of your plates might be made of fine china and others
of melamine. When faced with a priority, focus on the china and
let the melamine fall to the floor.
260 Practical Project Management

If a project and a task are the same, then a portfolio and a project
are also the same. But keep this in mind: The driver of the
portfolio is not automatically identical to the driver of the
individual projects within the portfolio.
That seems impossible, until you look a little further. On a
project/task level, you might have a project with time as the
driver. That would imply that time is the driver for each task in
the project. But what if a task is noncritical? If it has slack, then
time is not the most restrictive constraint. Therefore, the driver of
the task is different from the driver of the project.
The same thing can be true of your portfolio. You must develop
the portfolios Triple Constraints and analyze their ranking to
determine driver/middle/weak constraint order. This allows you
to prioritize the individual projects within the portfolio and make
the right strategic decisions, such as how to allocate resources
across your projects, in order to optimize the driver.
Because the projects arent particularly interrelated, use a Gantt
Chart approach to track them (see fig. 12.1).
Tip! Sometimes youll find that a large magnetic status board
Gantt Chart is a better tool for multiple project tracking than a
computerized one. You can hold staff meetings around it and
make a much stronger visual impact. Use appropriate technology
to solve your problems, not necessarily high technology.
 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter 1st Quarter 2nd Quarter 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter
ID Name June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan

1 Productivity Power
2 Total Quality Cust. Service
3 Write It Right!
4 Risk-Taking
5 Mastering/Communication
6 Secrets/Project Mgmt.
7 Supervisors Nightmares
Special Techniques for Managing Multiple Projects

Project: SkillPath Books Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

261

Fig. 12.1. You can use a Gantt Chart approach to track multiple projects.
262 Practical Project Management

Interdependent Project Portfolios

The interdependent project portfolio is a large project with major
divisions important enough to be considered projects in their own
right. The key to managing this type of portfolio is to remember
that you cant allow any individual project to fail without
fundamentally compromising the overall success of the portfolio.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum was a large
project, but also an interdependent project portfolio (see fig.
12.2). Each individual exhibit gallery clearly qualified as a project,
as did each aircraft that was restored and the construction of the
building itself. As the museum plans were being carried out, the
failure of any project within the portfolio would have
compromised and possibly destroyed the success of the entire
portfolio. For example, if all the exhibit galleries were
successfully completed, but the building construction had been
delayed, the museum wouldnt have opened on time. The quality
of the galleries would have been essentially irrelevant if there had
been no building to put them in.
From a management point of view, one of your critical
responsibilities is to help your individual project managers keep
focused on the overall goal. Its all too easy to become distracted
by the individual requirements of a project within the portfolio
and pursue them in a way thats detrimental to the interests of the
portfolio as a whole. For example, if you could see that one
exhibit gallery were much higher in quality than the rest, would
you encourage that project performance? No, because that gallery
could have the perverse effect of making the others look worse,
thus lowering the perception of quality of the museum as a
whole. Remember: What is best for an individual project in the
portfolio is not necessarily best for the portfolio itself.
 Special Techniques for Managing Multiple Projects 263

Another key management issue in the interdependent project

portfolio is resource allocation. Given the reality that resources
are always limited but opportunity is unlimited, you must allocate
the resources you have to the projects in your portfolio. To
ensure that you meet your most important objectives, you should
allocate resources in a two-pass process.
First, identify the minimum acceptable performance level for each
project in the portfolio and the resources necessary to achieve
that minimum level. Allocate the minimum resource requirements.
If you have no more resources, the minimum is now the best you
can do.
Second, allocate any remaining resources to achieve maximum
portfolio achievement. Dont automatically allocate resources
evenly across your projects, because some of your projects dont
improve portfolio quality once they have achieved the minimum.
For example, in construction no one paints the inside of the
drywall, because it doesnt add to the quality of the building as a
whole.
 Approvals Architectural Design Construction Interior Fit-Out

1 0d 2 52wd 3 156w 4 26w

6/14/71 6/14/71 6/14/71 6/11/72 6/12/71 6/8/75 6/9/75 12/7/75

Aero. Galleries Astro. Galleries S&T Galleries

5 104w 6 104w 7 26w

6/12/72 6/9/74 12/25/72 12/22/74 9/23/74 3/23/75

Restoration Group #1 Restoration Group #2 Planetarium/Theater

9 26w 10 26w 8 52w

6/12/72 12/10/72 12/11/72 6/10/73 12/24/73 12/22/74

Restoration Group #3

11 26w
6/11/73 12/9/73

Project: NASM Critical Noncritical Subproject

Fig. 12.2. The creation of the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum was an example of both a large project and an interdependent
project portfolio. This Pert chart gives an idea of the scope and
interrelatedness of the work.
Move-In Aircraft Installation Exhibit Installation Audio-Visual Hookups Test Systems/Dry Run Grand Opening

12 4w 13 8w 14 8w 15 8w 16 4w 17 0d
12/8/75 1/4/76 1/5/76 2/29/76 2/9/76 4/4/76 3/15/76 5/9/76 5/10/76 6/6/76 7/1/76 7/1/76

Milestone Critical Marked

266 Practical Project Management

Resource Scheduling for Multiple Projects

In your study of Gantt Charting, you used a Resource Gantt Chart
to show how each project resource was used. (Tip! Resources can
be people or they can be machines or equipment.) In a multiple
project environment, some of your resources may be specialized:
they cant do every task in a single project, but they contribute an
important element to each project in the portfolio.
One of the hardest operational challenges is to track and allocate
resources across multiple projects. The Resource Gantt Chart
helps. Theres no reason why each task line on the Gantt Chart
must come from the same project; in fact, you can easily create a
Gantt Chart with each line representing a different project. This
keeps track of resources across project lines.
Look at figure 12.3. Here, you are looking at a magazine layout
artist who does layout work for a portfolio of magazines. He
performs the tasks of paste up, keyline, blueline, and final proof
for each of three magazines. Although there is no project-related
reason not to overlap tasks, there is a resource reason: the layout
artist can only do one job at a time. Notice that resource
availability can drive your scheduling process.
What happens if one task goes over schedule? Notice that
schedule slippage doesnt just impact the individual project, it
spreads across project lines. If youre an individual project
manager (say, the editor of one of these magazines), notice that
factors in another magazine can impact your production schedule
through no fault of your own.
One idea is to build some deliberate resource slack time into the
layout artists schedule: perhaps an empty day each week or so
(depending on the level of risk) so that a problem on one task
has a limited cascading effect.
 Special Techniques for Managing Multiple Projects 267

Least Resource Scheduling

The principle of least resource scheduling is a technique for
getting the maximum total work from your available resources.
If you manage subject-related projects in a portfolio, you
probably use individual resources across project lines, as shown
in the previous section. Those resources are specific in their
application: if they are people, they have specific skills; if they
are machines, they do specific things. You cant move them
around at will; you can only assign them work for which they
have the capability.
You normally dont have exactly the same amount of each
resource. Identify your least (scarcest) resource, that is, the
resource used on multiple projects that is in least supply.
Schedule all your projects around your scarcest resource to
ensure it is used most efficiently.
For example, if the layout artist is your scarcest resource (you
have plenty of editors, writers, and other team members), then
the greatest number of issues you can publish is limited by the
artists time. If it takes 10 total layout days per magazine issue,
and the layout artist works the standard 200 days per year, then
the layout artist can do a maximum of 20 individual issues, no
matter how many editors you have. Even that number may be
high, because it assumes no sick leave, no vacation, and no
accidents.
If you have some additional budget authority, what should you
spend it on? More editors? No, because more editors wont get
more than 20 issues done per year. Add to your least resource
first.
 June 14 June 18 June 25 July 2 July 9
268

ID Name Duration 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

1 Pasteup/Smart Choice #41 4d

2 Pasteup/Training Monthly #30 4d
3 Pasteup/Self-Esteem Annual 4d
4 Keyline/Smart Choice #41 3d
5 Keyline/Training Monthly #30 3d
6 Keyline/Self-Esteem Annual 3d
7 Blueline/Smart Choice #41 2d
Practical Project Management

8 Blueline/Training Monthly #30 2d

9 Blueline/Self-Esteem Annual 2d
10 Final Proof/Smart Choice #41 1d
11 Final Proof/Training Monthly #30 1d
12 Final Proof/Self-Esteem Annual 1d

Project: SkillPath Books Critical Noncritical Progress Milestone Summary

Fig. 12.3. A Gantt Chart for a layout artist who does layouts for several magazines. Notice that the artist cant overlap
tasks because he is the only resourceand he cant do more than one project at a time.
 Special Techniques for Managing Multiple Projects 269

If you hire a second layout artist, does that mean you can now
put out 40 issues per year? It depends on whether two layout
artists is still your least resource. Perhaps editors are now more
limited.
Whenever you have the power to add resources, add least
resources first to achieve maximum production. Manage your
least resource carefully, because any time lost or wasted by that
resource cuts productivity of the entire portfolio.

Techniques for Managing Priorities

and Workflow
Part of achieving success in a multiple-project environment is
designing personal control systems. Here are ideas that others
have used successfully:
Build your own control systems. Use color-coding for project
status reports. Try colored stick-on dots, tinted papers, red dots
for priority issues, and other tricks. Put your project tracking
information in your personal organizer and calendar your tasks.
Use separate clipboards for each project. Keep a project journal/
work diary.
270 Practical Project Management

Get and stay organized. Clean your desk at the end of each day.
Write a weekly To Do list. Do a Monday morning update. Build
quiet time or think time into your work schedule. Buy tools to
manage the paper on your desk and learn to use them.
Set and maintain good priorities. Learn to distinguish between
importance and urgency. Rank your assignments in this way:
1. By which generates the most profit for the organization
2. By which yields greatest payoff for your time
3. By letting your management decide when neither of the
above are compelling.
Speak up. Learn to say no when youre overloaded or cant
afford to be distracted. When something happens that may
jeopardize the project, let the affected people know early.
Negotiate. Be assertive.
How to Wrap
Up a Project

13
272 Practical Project Management

The Final Stages of the Project Life Cycle

Complete
When you complete the project, you turn over the end product
and then complete certain steps:
Prepare the paperwork.
Organize and archive the files.
Reassign project staff and resources.
Prepare a wrap-up report.
Earlier, you read about the problem of the 90 percent complete
project that has been 90 percent complete for a long time, and no
one seems to be able to muster the motivation to get it done.
Projects like this suck up opportunity costs, morale dollars, and
motivational money merely by existing. They are too expensive
for words. Finish them or shoot themtheres no happy medium.
The whole point of managing a project is to finish it, to wrap it
up, and to enjoy the fruits of its success. Sometimes projects
fester and stagnate. In may workplaces, employees post signs that
address the headaches of project management:
When youre up to your rear in alligators, its hard to
remember your original objective was to drain the swamp.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, its
an oncoming train.
The reasons why projects are hard to complete are varied.
Sometimes its job insecurity: If you finish the project, you might
wonder, will the company still need me and my team? Sometimes
its fear of success. Sometimes its a lack of enthusiasm for the
goal. Sometimes its an inappropriate love of process.
 How to Wrap Up a Project 273

Sometimes the remaining tasks on a job are the boring ones:

wrapping up the paperwork, assembling the files, writing the final
reports. Many project managers hate to do them; they
procrastinate. One reason this happens is that these wrap-up
tasks are off-schedule. But dont let them be. If they are part of
making the project a complete success, make them tasks, put
them in the schedule, and assign them to yourself.
Sometimes the end of a project is difficult because initial
expectations were unrealistic. Operating from an impossible plan
and budget, some project managers paper over the problem
rather than face the facts. When the inevitable crisis arrives, they
put the project aside and stall disaster.
If youre going to be an outstanding project manager, make sure
that youre fully committed to the outcome. Do whatever it takes
to keep your energy and focus high. Your mission is success.
Success means completing the project.

Evaluate
Build a mechanism for evaluation into your project. Keep a
project journal and record surprises, problems, and options. Hold
a lessons learned meeting with the project team and brainstorm
ideas for the future.
274 Practical Project Management

Make sure that the evaluation step is proactive and positive rather
than punitive. You dont want to follow the traditional 6 Steps of
the Project:
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment for the Innocent
6. Praise for Nonparticipants
A good evaluation is never aimed at fault-finding. Try the liked-
best/next-time approach. Using this approach, you first focus on
everything that went right and figure out how to replicate it on
your next project. Only after you focus on the positive aspects do
you proceed to the next time phase. Here you focus on how to
make certain tasks even more successful in the future.
Of all the different techniques for gaining excellence and skill as
a project manager, none is more important than evaluating every
project you complete. You might want to reread this book after
you finish your next project to see whether following the ideas
more closely would have made a significant difference in that
project. Identify skills you might need for the future. Develop an
action plan for making yourself a better project manager next
time.

Celebrate
Morale is an organizational asset. Take the time to glory in your
success. Sit back and look at it. Learn to pat yourself on the back.
Dont overlook the importance of others who contributed to the
project. Write letters of appreciation to outstanding team
members. Say thank you in person. If appropriate, have a party
or celebration.
 How to Wrap Up a Project 275

A little creativity goes a long way. At the end of the Smithsonian

National Air and Space Museum project, team members were
given a certificate that read, Thank You For Your Significant
Service in Opening the National Air and Space Museum. On the
bottom of the certificate was a square inch of dry-rotted fabricit
had been removed from the Spirit of St. Louis during refurbishing.
You may not have a memento of that significance to share, but
the basic principle works. In other words, examine the
circumstances of your project. Is there any memento or souvenir
that you can arrange for your team members? It need neither be
expensive nor elaborate. Its amazing how much morale you can
buy with a little dry-rotted fabric.
Youll need many of your team members again in the future.
People like being part of a winning team and having their success
celebrated. Celebrating is a powerful tool for raising team morale
and making your projects even stronger in the future.

Successful Project Managers

This book began by describing project managers as people who
think like project managers. The tools and techniques shared in
these pages are ingredients youll need to achieve, but the most
important element is you. By understanding the tools and
concepts, building on your strengths, and improving your
creativity, you gain the power to succeed.
Doing it right requires time and effort, but its cheaper than
doing it over. No matter how hard you plan and anticipate,
surprises, problems, and conflict are inevitable. Understanding the
political agenda and the motivations of others is always a key.
Your reward for managing an important project successfully is
usually another project, even harder and more political than the
last one. Whether you consider that a reward or not depends on
whether youre a real project manager. There have always been
276 Practical Project Management

only three routes to career success: do what you love, learn to

love what you do, or get the heck out. If you love project
management or have simply learned to love project
managements results, then you will consider this a reward. If you
dont, try to avoid it in the future. There are lots of other
opportunities in the world that dont require these skills.
Although the skills of project management take time and effort to
hone and manage, that time and effort is richly repaid in easier,
smoother, and higher quality projects. You can do it. Good luck.
Glossary
278 Practical Project Management

actual cost of work performed (ACWP). Actual cost of

performing the given task.
budget control chart. A graph that shows cumulative project
costs over the life of the project
budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP). The earned
valuea measure of the dollar value of the work actually
performed to date.
budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS). Original budget
estimate for a given task.
crash cost. The total cost of the resources necessary to achieve
the crash time.
crash slope. It is actually two numbers. First, its the difference
between the crash time and the normal time. Second, its the
difference between the crash cost and the normal cost. There can
be different points on the crash slope, because there can be
different scenarios of resources versus time.
crash time. The fastest time in which a task can be accomplished
given unlimited resources.
critical path. The longest full path in a project.
critical task. A task on the critical path.
dependent task. A task that cant begin until one or more
predecessor tasks are complete.
driver. The Triple Constraint that drives the project. If you fail to
accomplish the driver, the project is a failure, regardless of how
well you accomplish the other constraints.
driving forces. Forces that support the solution.
dummy task. The planning technique known as activity-on-
arrow PERT is an arrow that shows a dependency relationship
between two otherwise parallel tasks.
 Glossary 279

free slack. The amount of time a task can be delayed without

delaying the start of the next task.
full path. A sequence that leads from the first task of a project to
the final path of the project.
goal. A change that one or more customers desires. Goals can
involve cost savings, revenue improvements, work process
improvements, saving time, and so on.
independent project portfolio. The projects fall under a
common management umbrella, but the projects themselves are
essentially unrelated.
interdependent project portfolio. The projects are elements in
a super-project that is aimed at a common outcome.
lag task. A task that must be shown in the work flow although it
has no work associated with it.
least (scarcest) resource. The resource used on multiple
projects that is in least supply.
least resource scheduling. A technique for getting the
maximum total work from your available resources.
middle constraint. The Triple Constraint that is stronger than
the weak constraint and weaker than the driver. It comes in the
middle.
milestone task. A task that requires no time or budget but must
be shown in the work flow. In a project timeline, a milestone is
often shown with a diamond symbol (z).
negative slack. There isnt enough time (a negative amount of
time) to accomplish a task.
noncritical task. A task on any path or path segment that isnt
critical.
objective. A written statement of a project, designed to achieve
one or more goals.
280 Practical Project Management

parallel task. A task that may be performed during the same

time frame as other tasks.
path. A sequence of tasks in a dependent order.
path segment. A sequence of tasks in between two internal
tasks.
predecessor task. The task that comes immediately before a
current task on which the current task depends for its start.
project portfolio. A collection of co-managed projects.
restraining forces. Forces that work against the solution.
schedule variance. Expressed as BCWP minus BCWS, which
shows schedule variance in monetary terms.
slack. The extra time available to perform noncritical tasks.
total slack. The amount of time a task can be delayed without
delaying the end of the project.
Triple Constraints. The key elements in any project definition.
You must fully define and understand the Triple Constraints
before you begin to manage any project. The three constraints are
Time constraint, Budget constraint, and Performance criteria.
weak constraint. The Triple Constraint that is most flexible and/
or least important to achieving your project goal.
 Bibliography
and Suggested
Resources
282 Practical Project Management

Baker, Sunny, and Kim Baker. On TimeOn Budget: A Step by

Step Guide for Managing Any Project. New York: Prentice Hall,
1992.
Blanchard, Kenneth, and Spencer Johnson. The One Minute
Manager. New York: Berkley Books, 1983.
Caroselli, Marlene. Meetings That Work. Mission, KS: SkillPath
Publications, 1992.
Cleland, David I., and William R. King. Project Management
Handbook. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983.
Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.
Dawson, Roger. The Secrets of Power Negotiating (audio);
Chicago: Nightingale-Conant, 1987.
Feder, Michael E. Taking Charge. Mission, KS: SkillPath
Publications, 1989.
Finkler, Steven A. The Complete Guide to Finance and Accounting
for Nonfinancial Managers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
1983.
Frame, J. Davidson. Managing Projects in Organizations: How to
Make the Best Use of Time, Techniques, and People. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.
Gardner, Reich. How to Manage Projects (audio). Mission, KS:
SkillPath Publications, 1989.
Gonick, Larry, and Woolcott Smith. The Cartoon Guide to
Statistics. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Gray, Clifford F. Essentials of Project Management. New York:
Petrocelli Books, 1981.
Haynes, Marion E. Project Management. Los Altos, CA: Crisp
Publications, 1981.
 Bibliography and Suggested Resources 283

Imai, Masaaki. Kaizen: The Key to Japans Competitive Success.

New York: Random House, 1986.
Kennedy, Marilyn Moates. Office Politics (audio); Chicago:
Nightingale-Conant, 1989.
Lowery, Gwen. Managing Projects with Microsoft Project: Version
3.0 for Windows and Macintosh. New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold, 1992.
Moder, Joseph J. Project Management With CPM, PERT, and
Precedence Diagramming. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold,
1983.
Spinner, M. Elements of Project Management: Plan, Schedule, and
Control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981.
Temme, Jim. Managing Multiple Projects, Priorities and Objectives
(audio); Mission, KS: SkillPath Publications, 1990.
Temme, Jim. Productivity Power. Mission, KS: SkillPath
Publications, 1993.
Towers, Mark. Dynamic Delegation. Mission, KS: SkillPath
Publications, 1993.
Zinn, Dain. Project Management (audio); Chicago: Nightingale-
Conant, 1994.

Additional Resources
Project Management Institute, P.O. Box 43, Drexel Hill, PA
19026-3190, (215) 622-1796.
Software Sources. PC Warehouse (800) 367-7080 or
MacWarehouse (800) 255-6227.
Index
286 Practical Project Management

activity on arrow, 66, 160-161, conflicts, 34-35

166-170 contracts, 93, 99, 198
activity on node, 160-161 Control Point Identification Chart,
Actual Cost of Work Performed 95-97, 228
(ACWP), 233 control systems, 269
Approximate Estimate, 193 cost, 99, 103-119, 182
authority, 209-219 client and customer, 191
contract, 93
backward pass, 176 estimating, in task analysis,
brainstorming, 15, 95, 248 89-93
identifying tasks using, 44 fixed, 93, 189
budget, 99, 187-203 human resource, 189-190,
client issues, 191 191-192
currency exchange rate, 192-193 inflation, 192-193
estimating cost in task overhead, 189-190, 195
analysis, 89-93 reducing, 251-253
inflation, 192-193 research and development,
job costing, 195-203 193-194
slack time and, 74 variable, 93
variance, 228 See also budget
See also cost cost accounting, 190
Budget constraint, 24-36 CPM. See Critical Path Method
definition of, 24 crash analysis, 118
Budget Control Chart, 202-203 crash cost
Budgeted Cost of Work Performed definition of, 118-119
(BCWP), 233 crash slope, 182
Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled definition of, 118-119
(BCWS), 232 crash time, 116, 117-119, 136-137,
181, 198
change order, 31, 32, 224-226 Critical Path, 130, 135, 198
checkpoints, 66, 91 charting, 159-182
confidence level, 104-114, 116 definition of, 171
definition of, 104 software for calculating,
standard deviation and, 111-114 132-134, 176
 Index 287

Critical Path Method, 9, 104, early start, 176-177

116-119 early warning point, 95
benefits of using with small Earned Value Method, 232-233
projects, 179-182
elapsed days, 177
critical task, 135-136, 176
equipment, 89, 99
definition of, 171
escalating project objectives,
cross-project dependencies, 74-75 224-226
currency exchange rate, 192 estimates, 89-93, 107-119, 130

deliverables financial systems, 189-191

definition of, 87 finish-to-finish (FF) dependency,
dependency, 75-77 75-76
cross-project, 74 finish-to-start (FS) dependency, 75
finish-to-finish, 75-76 Five Whys technique, 247
finish-to-start, 75 fixed costs, 93, 189
lag, 75, 77 float. See slack
overlaps, 75, 76-77 Force Field Analysis, 250
start-to-finish, 75, 76 forced-choice question, 30
start-to-start, 75, 76 forward pass, 176
dependency relationships, 66, 114, free slack
160-161 definition of, 171
resources and, 74-75 full path
dependency sequence, 62, 87 definition of, 171
dependent task
definition of, 65 Gantt Chart, 9, 66, 123-154
Detailed Cost Data, 194 multiple projects and, 260
diamond symbol, 66 software for creating, 132-134
driver Tracking, 233-234
definition of, 28-29 General & Administrative (G&A)
multiple projects and, 260 costs, 93, 190
dummy task Goal, 4-5, 9, 16, 23, 32-36, 221,
definition of, 66 222
definition of, 23
transition to plans, 42
288 Practical Project Management

Godzilla Principle, 12-13, 16, 95, monitoring systems, 11, 227-253,

228 273-274
Most Likely Time Estimate. See
human resources, 88, 99 T(m)
overhead cost of, 189-190, motivation, 221-222
191-192 multiple predecessors, 127
multiple projects, 74, 257-270
independent project portfolios, Must Start/Must Finish dates, 91
258-261
inflation, 192-193 negative slack
interdependent project portfolios, definition of, 174
258-259, 262-266
network planning methods, 116,
internal customer, 223-224 160
iterative process, 83 Nominal Group Technique (NGT),
249
job costing, 195-203 noncritical path, 136
noncritical task, 136, 176
lag task, 77 definition of, 171
definition of, 66 normal cost, 118-119
late start, 176-177 normal time, 118-119
Learning Curves Method, 194
least resource scheduling, 267-269 objective, 21-39
leveling, 145 definition of, 23
longest path. See Critical Path office politics, 210-218, 223-224
loop Optimistic Time Estimate. See T(o)
stage of Project Life Cycle, Order of Magnitude Analysis, 193
10, 11 organizational dynamics. See
office politics
meetings, 231-232 overhead, 93, 189-190, 195
middle constraint overlaps, 76
definition of, 30-31
Milestone Chart, 230 parallel task
milestone, 66, 91, 226, 228 definition of, 65
path, 171, 174
 Index 289

path length, 171 benefits of using with small

path segment, 171 projects, 66, 179-182
Performance criteria, 24-36 charting, 159-182
definition of, 24 software for creating, 132-134
Personal Information Managers progress, tracking, 228-247
(PIM), 134 project, 54
PERT. See Program Evaluation and characteristics of a, 4-6
Review Technique conclusion, 271-276
PERT Time Estimate. See T(e) evaluating a, 273-274
Pessimistic Time Estimate. See managing with WBS, 46-55
T(p)
portfolio, 257-270
planning, 41-55
reasons for failure, 9, 22, 208
advantages of, 42
schedule, ways to shorten,
iterative process, 83 135-142
key to successful, 43 sequencing activities of a, 62-77,
whether to treat as a task, 65 83, 179
politics task analysis, 81-99
role in determining Triple timeline, 124
Constraints, 27 using Triple Constraints to
See also office politics define a, 25-37
portfolio manager, 258 project consultant, 26
power, 209-219 Project Control Chart, 228-229
predecessor task, 9, 87, 127 project control office, 54
definition of, 65 project layout. See dependency
priorities, 6 sequencing
multiple projects and, 269-270 Project Life Cycle, 9-14, 271-275
versus projects, 6-7 project management, 205-226
problem solving, 95-99, 241, computers and, 132-134
247-250 definition of, 2
program, 5 restraints, 8
versus project, 5, 6-7 tools, 15-16, 124, 209
Program Evaluation and Review whether to treat as a task, 64
Technique, 9, 65-69, 104
activity on arrow, 66
290 Practical Project Management

project manager, 2, 15-16, 199, risk management, 179

205-226, 275-276 dependency sequencing and,
keys to managing large projects, 73-74
55 slack and, 144
power and authority of, 209-219 standard deviation and, 112-116
project originator, 9, 25, 29, 32,
36, 251
Schedule Variance, 233
project portfolio, 257-270
sequence. See task sequence
showstopper, 97-98
reporting systems, 154, 231, 273
sigma, 112-116, 127-129, 135-142,
Research and Development 179
(R&D), 193-194
symbol for, 112
resource allocation, 150, 263
sigma squared, 115
equipment, 89
slack, 176-177, 180-181
Gantt Charts and, 142-154
definition of, 73, 171
human resources, 88
free, 171
software and, 132-134
negative, 172
supplies, 89
resource, 144-146, 198
resource availability, 7-8, 88-89,
time, 73-74, 136
132
total, 171
Resource Gantt Chart, 146, 266
slippage, 99
resource management, 15, 180
SMART goals, 209
dependency sequence and,
74-75 software, project management,
132-134
Gantt Chart and, 142-154
specifications
software and, 132-134
definition of, 87
resource scheduling, 135-137, 180
standard bell curve distribution,
multiple projects and, 266-269
109
software and, 132-134
standard deviation, 111-116
resources, 7-8, 15, 73, 117,
start-to-finish (SF) dependency,
135-137, 154
75, 76
resource costing, 195
start-to-start (SS) dependency,
reverse crash technique, 182 75, 76
Sticky Note PERT, 65-69, 161, 179
 Index 291

Sticky Note WBS, 44, 52 task analysis, 81-99

strategic choice, 67, 69-73 estimating time and cost in,
subcontractors, 252 89-93
subproject, 46-51, 55 resource allocation and, 88-89
definition of, 43 task sequence, 62, 83, 114, 135,
137
structure of, 49-51
standard deviation for a,
subtask, 54-55
114-116
definition of, 43
strategic choice and, 67, 69-73
successor task, 83, 87, 176
task table, 126-127, 129-130
supplies, 89
teams, 219-223
SWAG, 27, 110, 194
time, 103-119, 189, 222
crash, 116, 117-119, 136-137,
T(e), 106-116, 126-129 181
T(m), 92, 106-114, 126-129 Critical Path and, 175, 179
T(o), 92, 106-114, 116, 127-129 estimating in task analysis, 89-93
T(p), 92, 106-114, 127-129 saving, 251-253
task, 4 slack, 73-74
analysis, 81-99 Time constraint, 24-36
critical, 135-136, 171, 176 definition of, 24
definition of, 4, 43 Gantt Chart, estimating with,
dependent, 65 154
dummy, 66 time versus resource tradeoffs, 71
identifying, 44 timeline, 124
lag, 66 total slack
milestone, 66 definition of, 171
name, 86 Tracking Gantt Chart, 154, 233-
number, 86 243, 251
parallel, 65 Triple Constraints, 24-36, 43, 57,
188, 199, 207
predecessor, 65, 87, 127
changing the, 31, 32, 224
scope of, 135, 137-138
definition of, 24
successor, 83, 87
multiple projects and, 260
292 Practical Project Management

variable costs, 93, 189

vendors. See cost: client and
customer; contacts

WAG, 27, 110

WBS. See Work Breakdown
Structure.
Weak constraint
definition of, 27-28
What-If Analysis, 95, 154
Work Breakdown Structure, 9
assigning tasks to, 52
large projects and, 54-55
levels of a, 45-53
subproject structure of, 49
chronological/phased, 49
cross-departmental, 49
discipline, 49
functional, 49
work package, 4, 43, 54
 Available From
SkillPath Publications
Lifelong Learning Library
Practical Project Management: The Secrets of Managing Any Project on Time and
on Budget by Michael Dobson
Team Power: How to Build and Grow Successful Teams by Jim Temme

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Mastering the Art of Communication: Your Keys to Developing a More Effective
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Organized for Success! 95 Tips for Taking Control of Your Time, Your Space, and
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P.E.R.S.U.A.D.E.: Communication Strategies That Move People to Action
by Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D.
Productivity Power: 250 Great Ideas for Being More Productive by Jim Temme
Promoting Yourself: 50 Ways to Increase Your Prestige, Power, and Paycheck
by Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D.
Risk-Taking: 50 Ways to Turn Risks Into Rewards by Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D.
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Write It Right! A Guide for Clear and Correct Writing by Richard Andersen
and Helene Hinis

Handbooks
The ABCs of Empowered Teams: Building Blocks for Success by Mark Towers
Assert Yourself! Developing Power-Packed Communication Skills to Make Your
Points Clearly, Confidently, and Persuasively by Lisa Contini
Breaking the Ice: How to Improve Your On-the-Spot Communication Skills
by Deborah Shouse
The Care and Keeping of Customers: A Treasury of Facts, Tips, and Proven
Techniques for Keeping Your Customers Coming BACK! by Roy Lantz
Challenging Change: Five Steps for Dealing With Change by Holly DeForest and
Mary Steinberg
Dynamic Delegation: A Managers Guide for Active Empowerment by Mark Towers
Every Womans Guide to Career Success by Denise M. Dudley
Great Openings and Closings: 28 Ways to Launch and Land Your Presentations
With Punch, Power, and Pizazz by Mari Pat Varga
Hiring and Firing: What Every Manager Needs to Know by Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D.
with Laura Wyeth, Ms.Ed.
How to Be a More Effective Group Communicator: Finding Your Role and
Boosting Your Confidence in Group Situations by Deborah Shouse
How to Deal With Difficult People by Paul Friedman
Learning to Laugh at Work: The Power of Humor in the Workplace
by Robert McGraw
Making Your Mark: How to Develop a Personal Marketing Plan for Becoming
More Visible and More Appreciated at Work by Deborah Shouse
Meetings That Work by Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D.
The Mentoring Advantage: How to Help Your Career Soar to New Heights
by Pam Grout
Minding Your Business Manners: Etiquette Tips for Presenting Yourself
Professionally in Every Business Situation by Marjorie Brody
and Barbara Pachter
Misspellers Guide by Joel and Ruth Schroeder
Motivation in the Workplace: How to Motivate Workers to Peak Performance and
Productivity by Barbara Fielder
NameTags Plus: Games You Can Play When People Dont Know What to Say
by Deborah Shouse
Networking: How to Creatively Tap Your People Resources by Colleen Clarke
New & Improved! 25 Ways to Be More Creative and More Effective by Pam Grout
Power Write! A Practical Guide to Words That Work by Helene Hinis
Putting Anger to Work For You! by Ruth and Joel Schroeder
Reinventing Your Self: 28 Strategies for Coping With Change by Mark Towers
Saying No to Negativity: How to Manage Negativity in Yourself, Your Boss, and
Your Co-Workers by Zoie Kaye
The Supervisors Guide: The Everyday Guide to Coordinating People and Tasks
by Jerry Brown and Denise Dudley, Ph.D.
Taking Charge: A Personal Guide to Managing Projects and Priorities
by Michal E. Feder
Treasure Hunt: 10 Stepping Stones to a New and More Confident You!
by Pam Grout
A Winning Attitude: How to Develop Your Most Important Asset!
by Michelle Fairfield Poley
For more information, call 1-800-873-7545.
Notes
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