Answer Question 6 on Part 2
Project Plan (Team project) Project Plan Fall 2021 Page 1 of 6 Overview The purpose of this Team assignment is to: • Extend the team's Project WBS. • Enter sub-task durations. • Create dependencies (predecessor & successor links) between sub-tasks. • Produce an interim Project Plan. There are two parts to this assignment. Part 1 - Build out the WBS into a Project Plan in Microsoft Project Getting Ready Read the following: • "Lecture - Resources and Costs in Microsoft Project" • "Project Tutorials" (Course Resources → Microsoft Project) o Project Configuration Settings o Setting the Project Start Date o Changing a Task Duration o Inserting Columns o Linking Tasks o Recurring Project Tasks Be sure to update your Team's Project WBS file using the instructor feedback. Before entering durations, set the Project Start date. Do not use an arbitrary date! Logically, this project cannot start until the customer signs-off on the proposal your team is going to present in Week 7. That means Project Start will be the day after the due date of the Week 7 assignment. Duration Estimates Working as a team, come up with duration estimates for the sub-tasks (but NOT the Summary Tasks), and enter them into the Project WBS. Do not use 0 for duration - this signifies a milestone task, which has a special purpose in project scheduling. IMPORTANT: There are two exceptions to the above rule: 1. The first task in the project should be Project Start and it must have duration of 0. 2. The final task in the project should be Project Finish and it must have duration of 0. Try to avoid overly small (micromanaged) or overly large durations (which bite off more than you can chew). Keep the durations reasonable and realistic. A best scheduling practice is to keep duration for a sub-task to no more than 80 hours (10 business days). Be careful not to interfere with Project's scheduling engine. There are several ways that you can inadvertently do this. Microsoft Project has several columns that will indicate scheduling problems: • Indicators • Task Mode • Constraint Type • Constraint Date Project Plan (Team project) Project Plan Fall 2021 Page 2 of 6 Here are some common mistakes that schedulers make. Be sure to avoid them! Only enter activity durations and let Microsoft Project's scheduling engine handle all the date calculations. Manually Changing Duration, Start, or Finish for a Summary Task Overwriting Project's calculated value changes Task Mode from automatically scheduled (good) to manually scheduled (not good). Manually Changing Start or Finish for a Sub-Task Overwriting Project's calculated value changes Constraint Type from As Soon As Possible (good) to Start No Earlier Than (or other types) and imposes Constraint Dates (not good). Dependencies Next, the team will link all sub-tasks in the Project Plan. Every sub-task should be linked to a predecessor sub-task (which comes before) and a successor sub-task (which comes after). IMPORTANT: There are two exceptions to the above rule: 1. The first task in the project should be Project Start and it must have no predecessors 2. The final task in the project should be Project Complete and it must have no successors. The default link in MS-Project is a "finish-to-start" relationship (task A must be completed before task B can start). There are other relationships that can be used, but that is an advanced topic that will not be covered in this class. REMINDER: Do not apply predecessors or successors to recurring tasks because that will confound the critical path. Recurring tasks just happen at points in time. In fact, MS-Project will set up recurring tasks using constraint dates. If you then apply any dependency links, you are defeating the MS-Project scheduling engine. Project Plan (Team project) Project Plan Fall 2021 Page 3 of 6 Each member of the team should now take part in reviewing the project plan. Take a look at the Network View in Microsoft Project. There may be multiple paths and the paths should flow generally from left to right. The Gantt Chart View and the Network View should not necessarily look like waterfalls, where each sub-task has only one predecessor and only one successor. Most projects do not look like that, as sub-tasks can have multiple successors and/or predecessors. On the other hand, do not over-engineer the dependency links. Here is an example: Notice sub-tasks 42 through 46 all have sub-task 48 as a successor. The project manager's thought here is, "All five of those sub-tasks have to finish before sub-task 48 can begin". There is no need to over- engineer the links to do that. Here is the correct arrangement: Figure 1: Tasks Linked Correctly As you can see, removing unnecessary links to sub-task 48 did not change any start/finish dates. NOTE: The project should be scoped so that it will take 3 to 6 months to complete. If it is less than this, then you have scoped it too small; if it is more than that, then you have scoped it too large. As a final step, baseline the Project Plan. Formatting Your Project Plan Use the Insert Column function so the Project Plan shows the following columns (in this order): • Indicators (column shows ) • Task Mode • Constraint Type • Constraint Date • Outline Level • WBS • Task Name • Duration • Start • Finish • Predecessors • Successors • Type Project Plan (Team project) Project Plan Fall 2021 Page 4 of 6 Submit this assignment in your Team Assignments folder. IMPORTANT: The submission file should be named as "Group" "Team Name" "Deliverable for" "Assignment Name", such as - Group A Projecteers Project File for Project Plan.mpp Part 2. Answers to Questions in Microsoft Word Read and think through the options and alternatives suggested by these questions before building the Project Plan. When the Project Plan is completed, answer the following questions, and submit them as a Microsoft Word document. "Yes" or "No" answers with no explanations or discussions are not appropriate answers. 1. What are the names for the first and last tasks in the Project Plan? What are their durations? 2. Was the team able to view the Project Plan's critical path? Explain what it showed. 3. Do any Summary Tasks or Sub-tasks show as manually scheduled ( in the Task Mode column)? If yes, list the task ids and explain what caused that. If no, explain how that was avoided. 4. Do any Summary Tasks or Sub-tasks show as constrained? (Name of the constraint in the Constraint Type column, or date in the Constraint Date column)? If yes, list the task ids and explain what caused that. If no, explain how that was avoided. 5. Did the team approach the WBS graphically (like an organization chart) or tabularly (like a list or table), or something else? Why? 6. Was the team able to find any external reference that disagreed with these assignment instructions? Explain. • Do not over-engineer dependency links • Constraint Dates are not a good thing • Manually scheduled tasks are not a good thing Formatting Your Questions Document • Create an APA format title page that includes: The title of report (Questions for Project Plan), your name, Course and Section number and date (use assignment due date); do not include graphics or themes. • No running header required for this document. • The body of the paper should be double spaced (or 1.5"), and no longer than 5 pages. • Tables should be single-spaced, and use no shading. • Copy and paste the list of questions (above) into your document. • Answers should be formatted as normal sentences (no numbering, not a run-on sentence as part of the question, no indenting). • Use 1" margins on all sides. • Font should be 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode, 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or 10-point Computer Modern. • Font should remain consistent throughout the paper, i.e., not changing from one font to another. Project Plan (Team project) Project Plan Fall 2021 Page 5 of 6 • Use at least one external reference and one from the course content (from the class reading content, not the assignment instructions or case study itself) with APA formatted citation and reference. For information on general APA format and specifics related to citing from the class content, refer to Content → Course Resources → Writing Resources. Resources must not use Wikipedia, general information sites, blogs, or discussion groups. • The list of References must be its own page at the end of the document and it must be in APA format, i.e., double spaced, .5" hanging indent. No more than 10% of the paper may be in the form of a direct citation from an external source. All in-text citations must appear in the References list and all entries in the References list must be used as in-text citations. • Run Microsoft Word's grammar/spell checker; there should be no errors in grammar, verb tenses, pronouns, spelling, punctuation, first person usage, or contractions. • Submit your paper as a Word document, or a document that can be read in Word. Submit this assignment in your Team Assignments folder. IMPORTANT: The submission file should be named as "Group" "Team Name" "Questions for" "Assignment Name", such as - Group A Projecteers Questions for Project Plan.docx Project Plan (Team project) Project Plan Fall 2021 Page 6 of 6 Grading Rubric Criteria 90-100% Far Above Standards 80-89% Above Standards 70-79% Meets Standards 60-69% Below Standards< 60% well below standards possible points configuration settings needed for producing consistent results in the project plan, includes project start date, updated project plan. 5 points all configuration settings correct, project start date is set to day 60%="" well="" below="" standards="" possible="" points="" configuration="" settings="" needed="" for="" producing="" consistent="" results="" in="" the="" project="" plan,="" includes="" project="" start="" date,="" updated="" project="" plan.="" 5="" points="" all="" configuration="" settings="" correct,="" project="" start="" date="" is="" set="" to="">