Reece McMillin

Project Planning

2022-02-23

Predictive Planning

Predictive planning is an option if:

  • requirements are well-understood and stable
  • a suitable software design has been identified and validated
  • programmers are comfortable with the implementation technologies
  • the team's productivity is estimable

Adaptive Planning is better suited to new product development and exploratory-type projects with uncertainty

Planning Horizon
The distance into the future in which work items are well-understood.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Creating a WBS is a systematic way of identifying the tasks needed to complete a project. It provides a hierarchical decomposition of the work, and can be presented in graphical or outline form.

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Creating a WBS is a systematic way of identifying the tasks needed to complete a project. It provides a hierarchical decomposition of the work, and can be presented in graphical or outline form.Creating a WBS is a systematic way of identifying the tasks needed to complete a project. It provides a hierarchical decomposition of the work, and can be presented in graphical or outline form.Creating a WBS is a systematic way of identifying the tasks needed to complete a project. It provides a hierarchical decomposition of the work, and can be presented in graphical or outline form.

Two types of tasks:

  • summary
  • detailed elemental tasks (aka work packages)
    • tasks description
    • owner
    • schedule start/stop dates
    • estimated effort
    • expected output/deliverable
      • optional completion/acceptance criteria
    • staff and material resources needed to complete the task

Task Dependencies

Before you can schedule tasks, you have to know the predecessor and successor relationships between tasks.

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  • Finish to Start
    • Task \(A\) must finish before task \(B\) can start.
  • Finish to Finish
    • Task \(A\) must finish before task \(B\) can finish.
    • Common with work that's largely sequential, but can also benefit from feedback fromd ownstream activities.
    • Examples:
      • requirements must be finished before project plan can be finished.
      • drywall must be complete before painting can finish.
  • Start to Start
    • Task \(B\) can't start until task \(A\) starts.

note

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Estimation

  • Effort and duration estimates are made for each task
  • After scheduling, these estimates are rolled up (bottom-up estimation) into overall estimates for project cost and duration
  • There are several estimation techniques that may be used
    • analogy
    • algorithm models
    • expert opinion

Continued here!