Time Management

Introduction:
Time is a terrible resource to waste. This is the most valuable resource in a project.
Every delivery that you are supposed to make is time-bound. Therefore, without proper time
management, a project can head towards a disaster.
When it comes to project time management, it is not just the time of the project manager, but it
is the time management of the project team.
Scheduling is the easiest way of managing project time. In this approach, the activities of the
project are estimated and the durations are determined based on the resource utilization for
each activity.
In addition to the estimate and resource allocation, cost always plays a vital role in time
management. This is due to the fact that schedule over-runs are quite expensive.

The Steps of the Time Management Process:

Following are the main steps in the project time management process. Each addresses a distinct
area of time management in a project.

1. Defining Activities
When it comes to a project, there are a few levels for identifying activities. First of all, the highlevel requirements are broken down into high-level tasks or deliverables.
Then, based on the task granularity, the high-level tasks / deliverables are broken down into
activities and presented in the form of WBS (Work Breakdown Structure).

2. Sequencing Activities
In order to manage the project time, it is critical to identify the activity sequence. The activities
identified in the previous step should be sequenced based on the execution order.
When sequencing, the activity interdependencies should be considered.

3. Resource Estimating for Activities

The estimation of amount and the types of resources required for activities is done in this step.
Depending on the number of resources allocated for an activity, its duration varies.
Therefore, the project management team should have a clear understanding about the resources
allocation in order to accurately manage the project time.

4. Duration and Effort Estimation

This is one of the key steps in the project planning process. Since estimates are all about the
time (duration), this step should be completed with a higher accuracy.
For this step, there are many estimation mechanisms in place, so your project should select an
appropriate one.
Most of the companies follow either WBS based estimating or Function Points based estimates in
this step.
Once the activity estimates are completed, critical path of the project should be identified in
order to determine the total project duration. This is one of the key inputs for the project time
management.

5. Development of the Schedule

In order to create an accurate schedule, a few parameters from the previous steps are required.
Activity sequence, duration of each activity, and the resource requirements / allocation for each
activity are the most important factors.
In case if you perform this step manually, you may end up wasting a lot of valuable project
planning time. There are many software packages, such as Microsoft Project, that will assist you
to develop and reliable and accurate project schedule.
As a part of the schedule, you will develop a Gantt chart in order to visually monitor the activities
and the milestones.

6. Schedule Control
No project in the practical world can be executed without changes to the original schedule.
Therefore, it is essential for you to update your project schedule with ongoing changes.
Project Workforce Management
Introduction:
There are many logistic elements in a project. Different team members are responsible for managing each
element and sometimes, the organization may have a mechanism to manage some logistic areas as well.
When it comes to project workforce management, it is all about managing all the logistic aspects of a project
or an organization through a software application. Usually, this software has a workflow engine defined in
them. So, all the logistic processes take place in the workflow engine.
Following are the regular and most common types of tasks handled by project workforce management
software or a similar workflow engine.
1.
2.

Planning and monitoring the project schedules and milestones.

Tracking the cost and revenue aspects of projects.

3.

Resource utilization and monitoring.

4.

Other management aspects of the project management.

Due to the software use, all of the project workflow management tasks can be fully automated with leaving
much for the project managers. This returns high efficiency to the project management when it comes to
project tracking purposes.
In addition to different tracking mechanisms, project workforce management software also offer a
dashboard for the project team. Through the dashboard, the project team has a glance view of the overall
progress of the project elements.
The dashboard is also a great place for the upper management to track the progress of each project during
executive meetings.
Most of the times, project workforce management software can work with the existing legacy software
systems such as ERP systems. This easy integration allows the organization use a combination of software
systems for management purposes.

Traditional Management Vs Project Workforce Management:

The traditional management and the project workflow management have significant differences. There are
at least three main differences when it comes to operations and management. Following are the three main
differences.

1. A graphical workflow:
The management of the all the processes are done through a graphical workflow engine. In this, the users
can design, control, and audit the different processes involved in the project.
The graphical workflow is quite attractive for the users of the system and allows the users to have a clear
idea of the workflow engine.

2. Work breakdown structures and organization:

Project workforce management provides the facility for work breakdown structure and organization of the
same. The users can create, manage, edit, and report work breakdown structures.
These work breakdown structures are done in different abstraction levels, so the information related to such
can be tracked at any level.
Usually, project workforce management has approval hierarchies. Therefore, each workflow created will go
through several verifications before it becomes an organizational or project standard. This helps the
organization to reduce the inefficiencies of the process, as it is audited by many stakeholders.

3. Connected financial, workforce, and project processes:

In project workforce management software, everything is neatly connected. Once workforce and billing
management software are integrated, it provides the organization all the necessary information and
management facilities.
Due to the integrated nature of all these processes, the management and tracking functions are centralized.
This allows the higher management to have a unified view of the project activities.

Project Management Softwares

Introduction:
Since the project management is one of the core functions of a business organization, the project
management function should be supported by software. Before software was born, project management was
fully done through papers. This eventually produced a lot of paper documents and searching through them
for information was not a pleasant experience.
Once software came available for an affordable cost for the business organizations, software development
companies started developing project management software. This became quite popular among all the
industries and these software were quickly adopted by the project management community.

Types of Project Management Software:

Desktop:
There are two types of project management software available for project managers. The first category of
such software is the desktop software. Microsoft Project is a good example for this type. You can manage
your entire project using MS Project, but you need to share the electronic documents with others, when
collaboration is required.
All the updates should be done to the same document by relevant parties time to time. Therefore, such
desktop project management software has limitations when it should be updated and maintained by more
than one person.

Web Based:
As a solution for the above issue, the web based project management software was introduced. With this
type, the users can access the web application and read, write, or change the project management related
activities.
This was a good solution for distributed projects, across departments and geographies. This way, all the
stakeholders of the project have access to project details at any given time. Specially, this model is the best
for virtual teams that operate on the Internet.

Characteristics of Project Management Software:

When it comes to choosing project management software, there are many things to consider. Not all the
projects may utilize all the features offered by project management software.
Therefore, you should have a good understanding of your project requirements before attempting to select
one for you. Following are the most important aspects of project management software.

Collaboration:
The project management software should facilitate the team collaboration. This means that the relevant
stakeholders of the project should be able to access and update the project documents whenever they want
to.
Therefore, the project management software should have access control and authentication management in
order to grand access levels to the project stakeholders.

Scheduling:

Scheduling is one of the main features that should be provided by project management software. Usually,
modern project management software provides the ability to draw Gantt charts when it comes to activity
scheduling.
In addition to this, activity dependencies can also be added to the schedules, so such software will show you
the project critical path and later changes to the critical path automatically.
Baselining is also a useful feature offered by project management software. Usually, a project is basedlined
when the requirements are finalized.
When requirements are changed and new requirements are added to the project later, project management
team can compare the new schedule with the baseline schedule automatically to understand the project
scope and cost deviations.

Issue Tracking:
During the project lifecycle, there can be many issues related to project that need constant tracking and
monitoring. Software defects is one of the good examples for this.
Therefore, the project management software should have features to track and monitor the issues reported
by various stakeholders of the project.

Project Portfolio Management:

Project portfolio management is one of the key aspects when an organization has engaged in more than one
project. The organization should be able measure and monitor multiple projects, so the organization knows
how the projects progress overall.
If you are a small company with only a couple of projects, you may not want this feature. In such case, you
should select project management software without project portfolio management; as such features could
be quite expensive for you.

Document Management:
A project has many documents in use. Most of these documents should be accessible to the stakeholders of
the project. Therefore, the project management software should have a document management facility with
correct access control system.
In addition to this, documents need to be versioned whenever they are updated. Therefore, the document
management feature should support document versioning as well.

Resource Management:
Resource management of the project is one of the key expectations from project management software.
This includes both human resources and other types.
The project management software should show the utilization of each resource throughout the entire project
lifecycles.

Introduction:
Resource leveling is a technique in project management that overlooks resource allocation and resolves
possible conflict arising from over allocation. When project managers undertake a project, they need to plan
their resources accordingly.

This will benefit the organization without having the face conflicts and not being able to deliver on time.
Resource leveling is considered one of the key elements to resource management in the organization.
An organization starts to face problems if resources are not allocated properly i.e. some resource may be
over allocated whilst others will be under allocated. Both will bring about a financial risk to the organization.

The Two Key Elements of Resource Leveling:

As the main aim of resource leveling is to allocate resource efficiently, so that the project can be completed
in the given time period. Hence, resource leveling can be broken down into two main areas; projects that
can be completed by using up all resources which are available and projects that can be completed with
limited resources.
Projects which use limited resources can be extended for over a period of time until the resources required
are available. If then again, the number of projects that an organization undertakes exceeds the resources
available. Then it's wiser to postpone the project for a later date.

Structure of Resource Leveling:

Many organizations have a structured hierarchy of resource leveling. A work based structure is as follows.

Stage

Task/ Deliverable

Phase

All of the above mentioned layers will determine the scope of the project and find ways to organize tasks
across the team. This will make it easier for the project team to complete the tasks.
In addition, depending on the three parameters above, the level of the resources required (seniority,
experience, skills, etc.) may be different. Therefore, the resource requirement for a project is always a
variable which is corresponding to the above structure.

Establishing Dependencies:
The main reason for a project manager to establish dependencies is to ensure that tasks get executed
properly. By identifying correct dependencies from that of incorrect dependencies allows the project to be
completed within the set time-frame.
Here are some of the constraints that a project manager will come across during the project execution cycle.
The constrains a project manager will face can be categorized into three categories.

Mandatory: These constraints arise due to physical limitations such as experiments.

External: Often based on needs or desires involving a third party.

Discretionary: These are constraints based on preferences or decisions taken by teams.

The Process of Assigning Resources:

For resource leveling to take place, resources are delegated with tasks (deliverables) which needs execution.
During the starting phase of a project, idealistically the roles are assigned to resources (human resources)
at which point the resources are not identified.

Later these roles are assigned to specific tasks which require specialization.

Leveling of Resources
Resource leveling helps an organization to make use of the available resources to the maximum. The idea
behind resource leveling is to reduce wastage of resources i.e. to stop over allocation of resources.
Project manager will identify time that is unused by a resource and will take measures to prevent it or
making an advantage out of it.
By resource conflicts, there are numerous disadvantages suffered by the organization, such as:

Delay in certain tasks being completed

Unable to change task dependencies

To remove certain tasks

To add more tasks

Overall delays and budget overruns of projects

Difficulty in assigning a different resource

Resource leveling Techniques:

Critical path is a common type of technique used by project managers when it comes to resource leveling.
The critical path represents for both the longest and shortest time duration path in the network diagram to
complete the project.
However apart from the widely used critical path concept, project manager's use fast tracking and crashing
if things get out of hand.

Fast tracking: This performs critical path tasks. This buys time. The prominent feature of this
technique is that although the work is completed for the moment, possibility of rework is higher.
Crashing: This refers to assigning resources in addition to existing resources to get work done
faster. Associate with additional cost such as labor, equipment etc.

Critical Chain Scheduling

Introduction:
When it comes to a project, it has a lower limit of possible lead time. This basically determines the cost
associated with the project.
The critical chain of a project is the dependent tasks that define the lower limit of possible lead time.
Therefore, it is safe to assume that the critical chain is made of sequenced dependent tasks. In critical chain
scheduling (CCS), these dependent tasks are scheduled in the most effective and beneficial way.
When it comes to critical chain scheduling, dependencies are used to determine the critical chain. In this
case, two types of dependencies are used; hands-off dependencies and resource dependencies.

Hands-off dependencies:
This simply means that output of one task is the input for another. Therefore, the latter task cannot be
started until the first task is completed.

Resource dependencies:
In this case, one task is utilizing a resource, so the other task cannot be started until the first task is
completed and the resource is freed.
In simple, using traditional project management terminology, the critical chain can be explained as the
"resource constrained critical path".

CCS and Project Management

Critical chain scheduling appreciates the "mpact of variation" of a project. Usually, in project management,
the impact of variation is found using statistical models such as PERT or Mote Carlo analysis. Critical chain
scheduling does complement the impact of variance with a concept called the "buffer".
We will discuss more about the buffer later. The buffer basically protects the critical chain from variations in
other non-critical chains, making sure critical chain the indeed critical.

What is a Buffer?

Buffer is one of the most interesting concepts in critical chain scheduling. The buffers are constructed and
applied to a project in order to make sure the success of the project. The buffer protects the due delivery
dates from variations to the critical chain.
With a "feeding buffer" of a proper size, the dependent tasks in the critical chain that dependent on the
output of the non-critical chain tasks have a great opportunity to start the task as soon as its predecessor
dependent task in the critical chain is finished. Therefore, with the feeding buffer, the dependent tasks in the
critical chain do not have to wait for non-critical chain tasks to complete.
This makes sure that the critical chain moves faster towards the project completion.
When there are multiple projects running in an organization, critical chain scheduling employs something
called "capacity buffers". These buffers are used to isolate key resource performance variances in one
project impacting another project.
Resource buffers are the other type of buffer employed for projects in order to manage the impact by the
resources to the project progress.

Critical Chain Vs Critical Path

Usually, the critical path goes from start of the project to the end of the project. Instead, the critical chain
ends at the start of the buffer assigned to the project. This buffer is called "project buffer". This is the
fundamental difference between the critical path and the critical chain. When it comes to critical path,
activity sequencing is performed. But with critical chain, critical chain scheduling is performed.
When it comes to the project schedule, the critical path is more subjective towards the milestones and
deadlines. In critical path, not much of emphasis is given to resource utilization. Therefore, many experts
believe that the critical path is what you get before you level the resources of the project. One other reason
for this is, in critical path, hands-off dependencies are given the precedence.
When it comes to critical chain, it is more defined as a resourced-levelled set of project tasks.

Software for Critical Chain Scheduling:

Same as for critical path methodology, there is software for critical chain scheduling. This software can be
categorized into "standalone" and "client-server" categories. This software support multi-project
environments by default. Therefore, this software is useful when it comes to managing a large project
portfolio of a large organization.