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Title Successful Project Management Scheduling outcomes: A Theoretical Comparative Analysis of networking techniques between Event, Chain with other traditional methodologies Research Question Why it is important to conduct a comparative analysis of Event, Chain with other traditional methodologies and investigate how it contributes in being Successful scheduling techniques in Project Management discipline? Introduction to Dissertation Nowadays, Project scheduling plays lot of benefactor in executing any type of project in allotted time and cost.
Project scheduling is a vital stage in project development phase due to technological advancement in information technology where lot of IT projects have led different way of direction to prepare a project schedule involving all possible resources and risk factors are also prepared to so that project does not crash. The purpose of this research thesis is to comparatively analyse the various networking scheduling techniques that constitute to a successful project management outcome. There are lot of software’s have come in the market to prepare project schedule, but lacks theoretical aspect.
Project management professionals experts like project managers have the idea about what is all about, so the author decides to study the various networking scheduling techniques with the scope of risk management. Kerzner (2001) states, “management is continually selling now and better control techniques to cope with the complexities, masses of data and tight deadlines that are characteristics of many industries and their highly competitive environments todays, as well as seeking better methods for presenting technical and cost data to customer” The most common scheduling techniques are: Gantt or bar charts Milestone charts
Line of balance Network schedules: a. Program Evaluation review technique (PERT) b. Critical Path Method (CPM) c. Precedence diagram method (PDM) d. Graphical Evaluation and review technique (GERT) (pp. 671) & CCPM (Critical Chain Project management) Lewis (2001) studies that, until about 1960, the way projects were scheduled was to use bar charts. Henry gantt worked out a system of notation for creating such charts and using them to report progress, so they are commonly called Gantt charts. Later after 1950’s the relationships among tasks that came in existence and they were developed in two forms called CPM and PERT.
The difference between the two systems was that PERT makes use of a calculated task duration and allows us to estimate probabilities of completing work, whereas CPM just makes use of estimated task durations with no regard for probabilities. Brief Literature Review Project schedule is necessary to reduce the project duration and it is also necessary to elaborate the implications of variable activity times and uncertainties. According to Nicholas and Steyn (2008), CPM is a systematic approach for allocating resources among activities to achieve the greatest reduction in project duration with less cost.
It was developed in 1957 by DuPont Company, Remington rand and mauchy associates in an industrial setting. It includes a mathematical procedure for estimating the trade-off between project duration and project cost. Nicholas and Steyn (2008) studies PERT that it was a method which was explicitly developed for the application in projects where the activity durations are uncertain. It originated during the US navy’s polaris missile system program, the perfect example of a complex research and development program with uncertainty.
The duration of the project is uncertain and there is great risk where the project will overrun the target completion time. Ronen (2005), studies Critical chain defines the length of the project as the largest series of task and resource dependant activities, performing levelling prior to identification of the critical chain, although they have the same general objective, CCPM levelling differs from the traditional CPM method of performing resource levelling on a critical path schedule. CCPM methodology tackles resource contention before the project begins, aggregate the safety in specified locations (buffers) rather then leaving it.
The critical chain path typically is not the same as the traditional critical path. CCPM is not merely a scheduling technique. The CCPM methodology explicitly states that without the necessary changes in the scheduling rules will not only fail to achieve improvement but may actually degrade performance. Event chain methodology, a new way of scheduling is an uncertainty modeling and schedule network analysis technique that is focused on identifying and managing events and event chains that affect project schedules.
Event chain methodology helps to mitigate the negative impact of psychological heuristics and biases, as well as to allow for easy modeling of uncertainties in the project schedules. Event Chain Methodology Objectives: 1. Mitigate effect motivational and cognitive biases in estimating and scheduling. In many cases, project managers intentionally or unintentionally create project schedules that are impossible to implement. 2. Simplify the process of defining risks and uncertainties in project schedules, particularly improve the ability to provide reality checks and visualize multiple events. 3.
Perform more accurate quantitative analysis while taking to an account such factors as relationship between different events and actual moment of the events. Intaver Institute (N. D) Virine and Trumper (2007) studies that, the elegance of event chain methodology is that it includes as well defined mathematical model of uncertain projects that is available in software application. Event chain methodology defines the project risks and uncertainties (pp. 224) Aim: To conduct a comparative analysis of event, chain with other traditional networking techniques in Project management Scheduling phase and learning its successful outcomes
Objectives: 1. To do a secondary research on why it is important to conduct a comparative analysis of Event, Chain with other traditional methodologies 2. To carry out a primary research and examine sample elements to investigate how it contributes in being Successful scheduling techniques in Project Management discipline 3. To relate the primary research findings with secondary data, and examine the relationship between the two which shall consequently help in answering the research question, give recommendation and find scope for future research
Research Method: Explanatory research design would be employed in this research thesis. It is basically testing the hypothesis and theories that explain how and why a phenomenon operates. Since the author have the theory and needs testing of those hypotheses i. e. comparatively analysing the various networking technique methods in project management scheduling phase. The author’s approach in this thesis is inductive, as Gray (2004) studies about the inductive approach and mentions that it is concerned with the context where the aspect does exist.
According to Saunders et al. (2005) in inductive approach theories flow automatically when conducting the data analysis. Data’s could be collected from both primary and secondary data sources with sample elements which are best suited for the author to significantly produce the desired and comparative result. The author then shall illustrate the qualitative and quantitative research methods and gives out reason out why the author has chosen the particular method. Limitations of research: The major limitation of the research is generalisability, whether the key findings be equally applicable in other areas of project management than project scheduling in networking analysis * Have to deal with experts and the suggestion cannot be dealt with common people * The comparative analysis is done only between event chain methodology, PERT, CPM and CCPM Secondary Data Source: (Data Analysis) Any data which is collected by someone else for a research aim which is different from the research purpose of the project in hand but used for the project is called secondary data (Morris, 2003; pp. 6). It is the information which is in published form or in not published form. The author use only published data and information collected from books and journal articles. Primary Data Source: (Data Analysis) Would be collected through observation, can be obtained by conducting interviews and by questionnaire methods. Method of Data Analysis: Data can be analysed through quantitative and qualitative methods. In qualitative method it can be analysed through semi structured interviews with the high level managers in Project management discipline and take uggestions from the experts from the industry sector through focus groups and compared data’s are presented. Quantitative approach can be analysed through questionnaire methods, where the questions are designed in different scales like likert scale, rate order scales. Questions vary from open to closed end questions based on author’s point of view Benefits of the Study 1. Project managers can refer this study to understand the networking analysis in Project scheduling 2. This research helps the project management professionals to understand the various aspects in developing a project schedule . This study also serves the benefit to analyse the uncertainty and risks involved during the scheduling process 4. This research gives an insight of project activity (task), which shows a way to prepare project schedule of any size. 5. This research studies the next advance new project scheduling beyond CPM, PERT and CCPM known as Event chain methodology Dissertation Time Plan (what are the key times) S. No. ActivityAugust 2008September 2008October 2008 1Rationale for the Study? 2Literature review? 3Research design? 4Choice of methodology? Data sources? 6Data collection? 7Data analysis? 8Writing up draft? 9Editing? 10Final document? 11Binding of document? REFERENCES Kerzner, H. (2001) Project Management ??? A Systems approach to planning, scheduling and controlling, 7th Edition, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Lewis, J. P. (2001) Project Planning Scheduling & Control ??? A Hands- on Guide to Bringing projects in on time and on budget, 3rd Edition, New York: McGraw Hill Nicholas, J. M. & Steyn, H. (2008) Project Management for business, Engineering and Technology, Butterworth-Heinemann
Ronen (2005) The Theory of constraints, IOS Press Virine, L. & Trumper, M. (2007) Project decisions: The art and Science, Management concepts Gray, D. E. (2004) Doing Research in Real World, London, SAGE Publications Cohen, L. , Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2005) Research Methods in Education, 5th Edition, London: RouHedgeFalmer Morris; C. (2003) “Quantitative Approaches in Business Studies”, Sixth Edition, page 42, Pitman Publishing Intraver Institute (N. D) Event Chain Methodology Overview [online] from http://www. Intaver. com/