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Project Management: A Tale of Fact, Failure and Fiction

Learn the essentials of project management, from fact to fiction, and how to tackle challenges effectively. Explore tools like Gantt charts, risk assessment, and critical path analysis. Enhance your skills audit to maximize project success.

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Project Management: A Tale of Fact, Failure and Fiction

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  1. Project Management:A Tale of Fact, Failure and Fiction David Millard School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton, UK

  2. What is the problem? • Any project is made up of many complex tasks and resources • Resources are limited and tasks have dependencies on one another • This makes it very difficult to manage the big picture: • How long will the project take? • What will you need to make it successful? • When are the periods of most work? • What are the consequences of something going wrong?

  3. What is the problem? • Project Management is your friend • Explains to others what you are doing • Demonstrates due diligence • Can actually be useful to the project • Today will review a few genuinely useful tools

  4. Act 1 Fact

  5. A Question You are a hero! You see that a heavy sign has come loose at the top of a tall building. At any moment it might fall onto the people passing in the street below What do you do?

  6. Skills Audit • You are not Superman (or Superwoman)! • It is better to be Real than to be Right • Practical decisions are based on your real skills rather than the skills you think you should have • In a Project identifying skills early can: • Support decision making • Identify new things you need to learn

  7. Simple Example

  8. Simple Example

  9. Simple Example STRENGTH STRENGTH

  10. Act 2 Failure

  11. Things Go Wrong • When planning the temptation is to assume that everything will (more or less) go right • It doesn’t • We should plan for problems and failures

  12. When does it Matter? PERT chart for a project with five milestones (10 through 50) and six activities (A through F). The project has two critical paths: activities B and C, or A, D, and F – giving a minimum project time of 7 months with fast tracking. Activity E is sub-critical, and has a float of 2 months. Wikipedia • Critical Path Analysis • Plotting how activities rely on one another • In order to find the critical activities • Delays to critical activities delay the whole project

  13. Risk Assessment • A much lighter approach • Better suited to smaller projects with a simple structure • Simply list the significant things that could go wrong • For each, the Risk R = L* p • L is the magnitude/severity of the Loss • p is the probability it will happen

  14. Risk Assessment Scenario Risks ? • You are designing a simple Twitter App for the iPhone. Your app will show users the tweets of people located nearby, and you want to find out if that influences the phrases and #hashtags they themselves use • You are using your own MacBook for development and although you are experienced at using the Twitter API, you have never written an iPhone App before

  15. Risk Assessment Scenario Risks MacBook may be lost or damaged Difficulty with iPhone development Very few people will download the App • You are designing a simple Twitter App for the iPhone. Your app will show users the tweets of people located nearby, and you want to find out if that influences the phrases and #hashtags they themselves use • You are using your own MacBook for development and although you are experienced at using the Twitter API, you have never written an iPhone App before

  16. Risk Assessment

  17. Act 3 Fiction

  18. Time is on the March • Skills and Risks are important, but your biggest challenge is one of Planning • What do you need to do • When does it need to be done • Is this project possible in the time? www.despair.com

  19. Planning with Gantt • Henry Gantt (1861–1919) • Devised a simple graphical system for planning • Based on plotting tasks and milestones against a timeline • Good for managing small projects • A variety of tools • Microsoft Project, Omnifocus, Eclipse (via Plugins) • Microsoft Excel, Vector Drawing Package

  20. How do you build one?

  21. Identify Major Tasks

  22. Identify Major Tasks

  23. Identify Sub-Tasks

  24. Identify Sub-Tasks

  25. Revise If Needed!

  26. Revise If Needed!

  27. Identify Milestones Completed Survey Completed Specification Beta Release Candidate Report Submitted

  28. A Convenient Fiction?

  29. A Convenient Fiction? • Gantt charts are a planning tool – they can change! • They are not a contract, or a stick to beat yourself • Use them to plan your time, but also: • Keep track of progress • Be aware of delays • Help adjust your future planning and expectations

  30. Don’t be a Drunken Monkey • Small Project Management should be lightweight and practical • Fact • Be realistic about what you can achieve • A Skills Audit can help formalise decisions about what is doable • Failure • Remember that things can and will go wrong • A Risk Assessment can help you plan contingencies for likely problems • Fiction • Have a plan, but remember that plans change • Gantt Charts are an easy and flexible way of planning your time

  31. The End Thank you, good luck and any questions?

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