O TEMPO DE PROJETO

Family Name: Rocha Camargo

Name: Lais

Student ID: S40060552                                                              Course: Diploma of Project Management

Subject: Project Time

1. Outline the time management tools and techniques that you would need to use.

Some techniques that can be used for project scheduling are:

∙ Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a visual presentation used in project management to show overview of timeline for project activities and their interdependence. Each project task or activity is represented with a bar chart displaying start and end date. The length of the bar shows the duration required for a task to be completed. This way, multiple tasks, when displayed as bar charts, show the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) on a timeline. Essentially, Gantt chart shows when an activity starts, is completed, how long it will take to be completed and the overall project.

∙ Critical Path Diagram

 The critical path of a project is a specific sequence of tasks that are interdependent and must be completed on time in order for the project to meet its deadline. Each task on the critical path can only begin after the previous task on the critical path is complete.

∙ PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique)

Chart the PERT chart is used to calculate the amount of time it will take to realistically finish a project. PERT is similar to critical path as both are used to visualise the work that must be done and the time. However, with PERT, three different estimates are created: the shortest possible amount of time for each task, the most likely one, and the longest one, if things do not go as planned. PERT is calculated backward from a fixed end date since contractor deadlines typically cannot be moved.

∙ Software Tools

Project management software tools can help a project manager be more methodical and better organised when it comes to planning, scheduling, tracking progress, maintaining documentation, allocating resources, and controlling risks and changes. There are literally hundreds of software tools available and a good tool is another useful weapon to add to the project arsenal. It, clearly, cannot replace real-world experience and professional training but a software tool can enable the project manager to gain a better understanding of things on projects.

∙ Use of Personal and/or Expert Experience

Another project-scheduling technique that can be used to identify schedule impact on project time management, resource requirements, costs and risks is using your own personal experience. Perhaps you have worked on many projects in the past and can use this experience to assist you identifying the schedule impact within your current project. Also, subject matter experts can be helpful when trying to identify schedule impact. If you are working on your first project, you may not be comfortable; that is where a subject matter expert can be helpful.

2. How will you apply these tools and techniques? What outcomes do you expect?

To have a successful project is necessary to consider important tools and techniques. The list of tools and techniques mentioned before, they will help to optimize the time and to finish in the time demanded with the best quality.

To Do List: a list of tasks that need to be completed, typically organized in order of priority.

Weekly review: is the best way to control your time and actualise the task in the To Do List.

Time Blocking: there are some activities that need to be done in a specific time. The time blocking is a technique to apply when something must to be done.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): it will help to have the detail of all the activities in the project since the bigger task until the smaller one, in order to schedule the time of the project.

Gantt chart: is a tool and helps to visualise the information related to the chronogram.

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Critical path diagrams: A network analysis technique of the schedule used to determine the level of flexibility of the schedules on several logical network routes of the project schedule network and to determine the minimum total duration of the project.

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3. Discuss any limitations of the tools and techniques you have mentioned.

One of the limitations in the to do list is that it doesn’t show the dependencies.

• Risk Management - the To Do list doesn't capture uncertainties. There is no way for management to plan based on a to do list. Management can't plan alternatives, and can't assess the impact of your suddenly contracting appendicitis and being unavailable.

• Work authorization – to do lists don't provide a consistent, easy way to schedule work (beyond "next in queue").
  Cooperation - if the To do requires multiple people, there is no meaningful way to coordinate to do lists.
• Lessons learned - unless you're implementing something far beyond the typical to do list, there is no ex post facto capture. Once you've completed the task and crossed it off the list, everything you learned vanishes.

• Gantt Chart: They can become extraordinarily complex. With the exception of the simplest projects, in general, you can add a large number of tasks to perform and multiple resources to deal with in an efficient manner. The length of the bars does not indicate the amount of work, but only the timing. The bars of the Gantt chart show the period of time during which a set of specific tasks will be completed, but without information about the amount of resources that is necessary. For example, a short bar can represent more hours of work, that is, more resources, than a longer bar: it can happen that a task must be completed in less days, but that requires more workload per day.

A constant update is required. During the development of a project, the conditions and situations of the variant in relation to the initial forecast. If a Gantt chart is used, it is necessary to be able to modify it easily and frequently. If this is not done, we will not be useful. At this point, software tools are a great help, especially for less experienced project managers.

Difficult to capture on a single sheet of paper. In general, the diagrams made by computer are designed to be displayed on the screen, divided into segments that come together for the entire project. To print the graph on paper, it should be done for parts to then join them together. If you want to expose the diagram in a visible place to everyone and stay updated, this fact can be an inadequate inconvenience for the workload that it entails.

• Any minimal change could affect the critical path. This would require re-planning the entire project and recalculating the CPM.

• More work during the stage of planning and dependence of specialists.
• Review and constant evaluation of planning.
• There is no culture of use of the management tool in the world of construction.
• Full confidence in this method is needed.

• When blocking off time to complete your tasks, make sure to leave openings in your calendar to handle unexpected interruptions such as those urgent tasks that come up or when a team member stops by to discuss the project with you.

4. Outline how you would use estimation techniques to determine task duration and resource effort.