1.6 Summary

“activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something” (Merriam-Webster)

 

Work is driven by methodologies that aim to plan, organize, motivate and control resources from time to time to achieve the unique result. Actually, methodologies essentially built upon the following steps.

 

Initiation: a project is started. The three constraints are loosely connected here:

  • only a vision, high level business needs and high level objectives are given (scope)
  • with a high level budget (cost)
  • and with the final deadline with major milestones (time)

Planning: the aim of this phase is to make a tight connection between the three constraints through working out a project plan:

  • defining exact requirements (scope)
  • preparing a detailed schedule based on estimations (time)
  • and based on resource allocations (cost)

Execution: the aim of this phase is to execute the plan. Usually it has the following steps:

  • Design: based on the requirements develop a high level architecture and low level technical designs.
  • Build / Work: based on the design build scope (unique result).
  • Test: check whether the built result matches the requirements and the original needs.
  • Deploy: give and install the result for the user.

Monitoring and controlling: monitoring progress, detecting problems, testing, proactive and reactive actions to keep the project on track.

Closing: closing the contract, finalizing project's activities

Nevertheless methodologies define their own terms and processes, and emphasize certain parts better than others.

 

Figure 1.7: Project management basics overview

  

Detailed schedule usually visualized with Gantt Charts clearly shows: 

  • the start date and deadline of tasks
  • the milestones
  • different kind of dependencies (start to start, start to finish, finish to start, finish to finish) between tasks
  • a vertical “today line” to got a current picture about the project (progress)

 

Moreover, Gantt chart shows these according to the working breakdown structure. The following picture shows the previous data analysis example: 

Figure 1.8: Gantt chart example