Project Planning
identifying all of the activities necessary to complete the project
**Planning PRECEDES Scheduling
Project Scheduling:
- determining the order of planned activities
- assigning duration
- setting the start and end time for each activity
Benefits of Planning
- Completion of the project on time
- Centralized communication tool
- Organized work leads to improved quality
- Prevents problems
- Reduces the number of changes
- Prevents duplication of work
- Prevents interruptions and delays of work
- Reduces confusion and misunderstandings between people on the project team
Responsibilities of Owner
- Establishes the project completion date
* Sets priorities for the components making up the project
Responsibilities of Designer
- Develops the design schedule
* Meets owners requirements, priorities
Responsibilities of Contractor
- Develops a schedule for all activities
- Materials, labour, equipment
- Organization of subcontractors
Two general techniques for planning and scheduling
Bar Chart (Gantt Chart) and Critical Path Method (CPM or Network Analysis)
Gantt Chart
- Graphical time scale of the project schedule
- Easy to interpret
- Difficult to update
- Does not show interdependencies of activities
- Does not integrate costs or resources with schedule
- Good for overall scheduling or simple scheduling
Critical Path Method (CPM)
•Provides interrelationships of activities and scheduling of costs and resources
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
Definition: In PERT activities are shown as a network of precedence relationships using activity-on-arrow network construction
•Multiple time estimates
•Probabilistic activity times
Dummy Arrow
an arrow that represents a dependency of one activity upon another. It carries zero time and has no resources.
•Drawn as broken arrows or dotted line
Logic Dummy
used when two chains of activities have a common node yet they are at least partly independent of each other
Transient Time Dummy
If a delay must occur between the completion of one activity and the start of another (a dashed line between activities)
Total Float (TF)
The amount of time an activity may be delayed without delaying the project completion date
* TF = LF -EF = LS -ES
Free Float (FF)
The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start of the immediate successor activities
Critical Path
Series of interconnected activities having zero free or total float
