Apr –May 2017

Q1
Project management is important because it ensures what is being delivered, is right, and
will deliver real value against the business opportunity. Every client has strategic goals and
the projects that we do for them advance those goals.

Planning refers to the action of establishing a plan, meaning a set of tasks that needs to
be completed. “Going to the swimming pool this afternoon” is a plan. Studying hard in
high school so that you can go to that university you like, major in that topic and get
hired into that big company is a plan too; although it’s broken down into smaller steps
toward a final goal.
But in our modern societies, time is of the essence. This is what scheduling is all about.
Scheduling is less concerned with what is being done and why, and more with when. A
plan may or may not have time and dates associated to it, whereas a schedule most
certainly will. The schedule is typically represented in a calendar or as a timeline, in
chronological order. It may include things that are not directly related to your plan, i.e.
vacation dates, holidays, your doctor’s appointment. So the action of scheduling is
actually setting up a date and time for something to happen.

Q5
Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is an industry standard method of measuring a project's
progress at any given point in time, forecasting its completion date and final cost, and
analyzing variances in the schedule and budget as the project proceeds. It compares the
planned amount of work with what has actually been completed, to determine if the cost,
schedule, and work accomplished are progressing in accordance with the plan. As work
is completed, it is considered "earned". The Office of Management & Budget prescribed
that EVA is required on construction projects.
EVA works most effectively when it is compartmentalized, i.e. when the project is broken
down into an organized Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS. The WBS is used as the
basic building block for the planning of the project. It is a product-oriented division of
project tasks that ensures the entire Scope of Work is captured and allows for the
integration of technical, schedule, and cost information. It breaks down all the work
scope into appropriate elements for planning, budgeting, scheduling, cost accounting,
work authorization, progress measuring, and management control.
Earned Value Management measures progress against a baseline. It involves
calculating three key values for each activity in the WBS:
1. The Planned Value (PV), (formerly known as the budgeted cost of work
scheduled or BCWS)—that portion of the approved cost estimate planned to be
spent on the given activity during a given period.
2. The Actual Cost (AC), (formerly known as the actual cost of work
performed or ACWP)—the total of the costs incurred in accomplishing work on
the activity in a given period. This Actual Cost must correspond to whatever was
budgeted for the Planned Value and the Earned Value (e.g. all labor, material,
equipment, and indirect costs).
3. The Earned Value (EV), (formerly known as the budget cost of work
performed or BCWP)—the value of the work actually completed.
These three values are combined to determine at that point in time whether or not work
is being accomplished as planned. The most commonly used measures are the cost
variance:
Cost Variance (CV) = EV - AC
and the schedule variance:
Schedule Variance (SV) = EV - PV
These two values can be converted to efficiency indicators to reflect the cost and
schedule performance of the project. The most commonly used cost-efficiency indicator
is the cost performance index (CPI). It is calculated thus:
CPI = EV / AC
The sum of all individual EV budgets divided by the sum of all individual AC's is known
as the cumulative CPI, and is generally used to forecast the cost to complete a project.
The schedule performance index (SPI), calculated thus:
SPI = EV / PV
is often used with the CPI to forecast overall project completion estimates.
A negative schedule variance (SV) calculated at a given point in time means the project
is behind schedule, while a negative cost variance (CV) means the project is over
budget.
Q6

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERT AND CPM:

1. PERT is event oriented whereas CPM is activity oriented. In simple words, in PERT network
interest is focused upon start or completion of events and not on activities themselves.
2. In CPM network no allowance is made for uncertainties in the duration of time involved
whereas in PERT network uncertainty is considered.
3. In PERT, time is not related to cost whereas in CPM the object is to develop an optimum time
cost relationship. However, PERT has since been extended in this direction and the line dividing
PERT/CPM is gradually fading out.
4. In CPM duration of activity is estimated with a fair degree of accuracy. In PERT duration of
activities are not so accurate and definite.
5. In CPM both time and cost can be controlled during planning. Pert is basically a tool for
planning.

6. PERT is used in research and development project, basically for non-repetitive type projects.
CPM is widely used in construction projects.

Q7

Project Management Processes

The key project management processes, which run through all of these
phases, are:

 Phase management.
 Planning.
 Control.
 Team management.
 Communication.
 Procurement.
 Integration.
Let's look at each process in more detail.

 Phase management – Here, you ensure that you adequately satisfy the
conditions for completing each phase, and for starting the next one. To
do this, make sure that you fully understand the "gates", or deliverables
that must be completed and approved by the appropriate stakeholders
before you can exit a phase. Deliverables and sign-off requirements are
usually identified in the Project Initiation Document , so review this
appropriately during the project.

 Planning – Carry out high-level planning for the whole project at the start
of the project, then do more detailed planning for each phase at the start
of each phase. Ensure that you have the right people, resources,
methodologies, and supporting tools in place for each planning phase,
so that you can deliver the project on time, on budget, and to appropriate
quality standards.

 Control – It's essential to control scope , cost , and issues ; and to manage
time, risks , and benefits effectively. Create reports that contain the
information you need to create an accurate picture of how things are
proceeding. A common way of doing this is to use a Project Dashboard .

 Team management – As project manager, you are responsible for

managing the project team. Working on a project is often different from
most "business as usual" activities, and project work may require a
different approach and set of skills. As such, you'll probably need
specific project management training and support. And there are
additional complexities in managing team members who have project
responsibilities as well as other roles at the same time (see our article
on Managing Cross-Functional Teams for more on this).

 Communication – Make sure that you're clear about who is responsible for
communicating to team members, the project board, the
different stakeholders within the business, and relevant third parties.
Inadequate communication is a frequent problem area for projects, and it needs
considerable attention to communicate well.
Our articles on communication skills are a useful starting point for developing
these essential skills.
 Procurement – This is a specialist area. Many projects hire third parties
to manage purchasing, particularly when it involves IT systems.
Managing these third parties is often the role of the project manager.
See our articles on Request for Proposal Documents and Procurement
Management for more on this.

 Integration – Many projects do not stand on their own within an

organization – they often impact other areas of the business. Make sure
that you consider how your project will interface with other projects or
functions.

Understand the project objectives

In order to define the scope of a project, it is necessary to first establish the project
objectives. The objective of a project may be to produce a new product, create a new
service to provide within the organisation, or develop a new bit of software. There are
any number of objectives that could be central to a given project - and it is the role of the
project manager to see that their team or contractors deliver a result that meets the
specified functions and features.

In the PMBOK, scope management has six processes:

1. Plan Scope Management: Planning the process, and creating a scope management plan.
2. Collect Requirements: Defining and documenting the stakeholder’s needs.
3. Define Scope: Developing a detailed project scope statement.
4. Create WBS: Subdividing project deliverables into smaller work units.
5. Validate Scope: Formalizing the acceptance of the deliverables.
6. Control Scope: The ongoing process of monitoring and managing changes to the project
scope.
 Supplementary July 2017

Q1
Project scope is the part of project planning that involves determining and documenting a
list of specific project goals, deliverables, features, functions, tasks, deadlines, and
ultimately costs. In other words, it is what needs to be achieved and the work that must be
done to deliver a project.
Steps:-

 Plan Your Scope. In the planning phase, you want to gather input from all of
the project stakeholders. ...
 Collect Requirements. ...
 Define Your Scope. ...
 Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) ...
 Validate Your Scope. ...
 Control Your Scope.

Q2

In project management, float or slack is the amount of time that a task in a project network
can be delayed without causing a delay to: subsequent tasks
("free float") projectcompletion date ("total float").

In project management, float or slack is the amount of time that a task in a project network can
be delayed without causing a delay to:

 subsequent tasks ("free float")

 Project completion date ("total float").
Total float is associated with the path. If a project network chart/diagram has 4 non-critical paths
then that project would have 4 total float values. The total float of a path is the combined free
float values of all activities in a path.
The total float represents the schedule flexibility and can also be measured by subtracting early
start dates from late start dates of path completion.[1] Float is core to critical path method, with the
total floats of noncritical activities key to computing the critical path drag of an activity, i.e., the
amount of time it is adding to the project's duration.[
 1) Total float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying
the project completion date. On a critical path, the total float is zero.

Total float is often known as the slack.

You can calculate the total float by subtracting the Early Start date of activity from its
Late Start date (Late Start date – Early Start date), or Early Finish date from its Late
Finish date (Late Finish date – Early Finish date)

2) Free float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying
the Early Start of its successor activity.

You can calculate the free float by subtracting the Early Finish date of the activity
from the Early Start date of the next activity (ES of next Activity – EF of current
Activity).

3) Independent float is that portion of the total float within which an activity can
be delayed for start without affecting the float of the preceding activities. It is
computed for an activity by subtracting the tail event slack from its total float.

Thus, independent float can be calculated as under:

Independent Float = Total Float – Tail Event Slack

4) Interfering float

The interfering float is the time available to delay an activity without delaying the
project’s estimated completion time, but delaying an activity into interfering float will
delay the start of one or more following non-critical activities.

Interfering float n = late finish n – Smallest early start of succeeding activity

The aggregate of free float and interfering float is equal to the total float.

Total float n = Free float n + interfering float n