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Discussion Topic 3:

After you have completed the unit (reading assignments including the handout and creation of your WBS), discuss the methodologies and strategies that you used to create your Work Breakdown Structure. Your post should include how you made decisions on phases and the appropriate level of detail for your decomposition. Also, discuss the part of the process that you found to be the most challenging.

After reviewing your peers' postings regarding the creation of their Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), raise questions and offer comments and suggestions about their process. Including information on how you handled the challenges that they described in their posting.

Writing Requirements

· Initial Post Length minimum of 150 words

· Replies: minimum of 100 words per post (respond to at least two classmates, please select classmates that you have not yet replied to

Please find the attached WBS and write the initial post based on it.

Reply1:

Nupour Desai:

Firstly, I would like to admit that I felt extremely overwhelmed while building WBS. Since my project is to launch a marketing test campaign for a new product, I had to breakdown many different tasks and then distill it further into sub tasks.

For this assignment, I used the tops-down approach and kept reminding myself why I am building the WBS. This helped me outline every level of tasks and subtasks that will require to be scheduled, executed and controlled. This thinking kept me sane and allowed me to write down every possible tasks and subtasks.

The most challenging part of the process [other than building the WBS itself] was identifying the tasks and work packages. Since my project involves many stakeholders, I found it challenging to not miss out any critical task that might affect the timelines or success of the project.

Also knowing that the fact that WBS is an evolving document, it led me to better think and write down all the possible tasks [mainly made an exhaustive list of tasks].

Reply 2: Rajat

 Hello Class,

As a mechanical engineering, I have chosen my project – To re-design two almost similar HVAC products into one product and consolidate the productions from two production plants into one production plant. The reason I have chosen this project because I am leading this project currently, which requires the deep level of planning and scheduling.

I decided to break down the WBS into 5 phases

1.      Define

2.      Plan

3.      Execute

4.      Improve and

5.      Control

Level 1 is further divided into Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 as per the requirements such as

Under Define phase

Level 2

Design concepts, high level of cost estimation and management approval to work on the project

Level 3

Preparation of the design, Design Analysis, cost of investment, cost of savings

Under Plan Phase

Level 2

Prototype, SKUs estimation, Cost estimations, Analyze issue and risk, Business case formation

Level 3

Build the prototype, test the prototype, number of Skus in Plant 1 and 2, Cost investment in machine, tools, racks and bins

Similarly,

Execution, Improve and Control phase are also broken down into level 2, 3 and 4, which helps to identify hierarchical structure of the project.

I personally believe by working on WBS, it helps me to identify all the tasks that are essentials to accomplish the project. This will also help me out to make the people accountable for the tasks and execute the project successfully. Thanks!

Forum Unit 4: Task Estimation

Discussion Topic 4:

After you have completed the task estimation process, post to this forum regarding the following:

Part A:You have used the three-point method to estimate the duration of a task that you know will be critical to the project. The estimate produces a very large difference between the optimistic and pessimistic estimates. What actions, if any, might you take regarding the task? What are some of the reasons that estimating the duration of tasks can be so difficult? What strategies have you used or did you use in your project to overcome these difficulties?

Part B: Provide examples from your own experience of estimation techniques which have worked well on the projects you support or have supported in the past. What made them work well? What other techniques have you seen which did not provide an accurate estimation? Why did they fail?

Replies:

After reviewing your peers' postings, comment on difficulties that they have in estimating tasks and the strategies that they use for overcoming those difficulties.

Writing Requirements:

· Initial Post Length: Minimum of 150 words

· Replies: Minimum of 100 words per post. Respond to at least two classmates. Try to select classmates that you have not replied to in previous units.

Reply 1: Kuan

I’d like to share the task estimation process I used for my assignment. 

Part A: 

The three-point method was used to estimate the duration of a task that is likely to happen by taking Optimistic duration, Pessimistic duration, and Most likely duration into account. I paired the three-point method with PERT to estimate the duration of the tasks required to complete my integrated marketing campaign. To overcome the time-estimate difficulties, I referenced the historical data from a similar project launched a year ago and combined it with my expert judgment in order to  predict a more realistic estimation for each task. 

Part B: 

Based on my experience, I believe the “reverse-engineering”  estimation is one of the effective techniques to estimate the duration of a task. Essentially, you start planning the project from the result and then outline the steps required to “go back” to the starting point. By doing so, you would be able to understand how many steps to required for the whole project and then calculate the time duration of each task.  However, the downside of the technique is that it requires historical data and expert knowledge that understand the project inside out. 

Based on my observation, a lot of projects managers failed to accurately estimate a project because one didn’t take lag time and buffer time into account.

Thank you.

Reply 2: Payal

PART A

The estimate produces a very large difference between the optimistic and pessimistic estimates. What actions, if any, might you take regarding the task?

It is called 3 point estimating because the team member provides their pessimistic, optimistic and best guess estimates for their deliverable. It is also called PERT which stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique. This estimating technique is a best practice because it gives project managers three benefits:.

1. Increased accuracy over one-point estimates

2. Better commitment from the project team members because the estimate considers the risk in the assignment

3. Useful information on the risks of each task.

By having the discussion about the risks in the task, you give the team member an opportunity for input into the estimating process. Also, go way beyond the game-playing that typically surrounds making an estimate using a single number. Typically, team members are thinking about that single number and padding it as much as they possibly can. They know from experience that the project manager will probably cut it arbitrarily. That’s clearly not the way to get good estimates.

What are some of the reasons that estimating the duration of tasks can be so difficult?

· Too many moving pieces

· Lack of understanding of project

· lack of commitment in team members

· inexperience Project manager

What strategies have you used, or did you use in your project to overcome these difficulties?

· use lesson learned from other teams

· keep buffer for tasks

· motivate team members

· take help when needed

Part B: 

For clinical trials, we have software in the company which automatically populate the timelines. most team member s= know about timeline between the task but all trials are different and come with its own complexity which sometimes delays everything. Being proactive and working on multiple tasks at the same time has helped in the past. Many projects failed too just because f budget or vendor contracting delays which cannot be estimated and they are third party and risk was not elevated properly 

Discussion Topic 5:

After you have completed your assignment by adding dependencies and constraints to your project file, post to this forum and discuss the impact that setting dependencies, constraints, deadlines and task calendars had on your project schedule. Were you surprised by the finish date that was determined by Microsoft Project? Are there any concerns that you have that you didn’t think about before you entered this information into Microsoft Project?

Replies:

After reviewing your peers' postings, comment on the impact that dependencies, constraints, deadlines and task calendars had on their project schedule. Offer suggestions to your classmates on strategies that you used when developing your own project schedule.

Writing Requirements:

· Initial Post Length: Minimum of 150 words

· Replies: Minimum of 100 words per post. Respond to at least two classmates. Try to select classmates that you have not replied to in previous units.

Reply1: Thomas:

· Impact that setting dependencies, constraints, deadlines and task calendars had on your project schedule.

· Hi Class,

· My project for this class is the launch of an app for international students to help them familiarize themselves with the University of Richmond and the application process. I had thought abstractly about the inter-dependencies of this project before carrying out the project schedule. After actually following through with the assignment it was interesting to see how it all shaped. It should be noted nevertheless that despite all the inter-dependencies, given the scope of work is quite large for this project, many tasks are still independent of each other because they are to be performed by separate teams unrelated to the design or engineer team for instance. Inputting constraints and deadlines complicated the schedule because all of the sudden there was a rush to complete assignments and our flow chart became less and less obvious. 

· Were you surprised by the finish date that was determined by Microsoft Project?

· To be honest, I wasn't greatly surprised with the finish date provided my Project. Given that this was the first time I ever organized and executed a project of this nature, I was unsure how long it would initially take. I had made a rough estimate at the very beginning of the project, but when inputting the tasks onto project, I quickly realized that my estimate was going to fall well short. It would be interesting to discover how long typically projects of this nature last. 

· Are there any concerns that you have that you didn’t think about before you entered this information into Microsoft Project?

· There are definitely concerns that came to mind. Constraints being one of them. I do not know about others in the class, but when I was in the process of completing this assignment, I had visualized the whole schedule in my head. I had a rough idea of how things would be mapped and what I needed to do to complete the assignment. Obviously Project puts the whole project into better perspective and organizes it a lot better but it makes you think of things you wouldn't necessarily do. One of these is looking at interdependent relationships and how they affect other processes. 

Reply 2: Mehak

Discuss the impact that setting dependencies, constraints, deadlines and task calendars had on your project schedule.

As the nature of my project (migrating the marketing process and methods to SAP Marketing Cloud), there were a few dependencies between discrete activities. I made use of Start-to-Start (SS) in which two tasks were starting at the same time. I even added a lag time so that activities can run in parallel. I had to spend a great deal of time to figure out whether the tasks can be run in parallel or are dependent on the output of the other tasks. Accordingly, I assigned the predecessors and successors. 

Were you surprised by the finish date that was determined by Microsoft Project?

When I was done entering my constraints, dependencies, lag time, I was surprised to see my finish date. It was 6 months more than I initially thought. I had a rough estimation at the start as this is the first time I was executing a project and defining the constraints and dependencies. 

Are there any concerns that you have that you didn’t think about before you entered this information into Microsoft Project?

I think I am still not sure about the deadline and constraints. I have most of the tasks falling one after another, which made my project timeline 6 months longer. If I run some of the tasks parallelly, it would increase my lag time, and I would need more resources. So, I am not sure what's the best way to strike a balance between both.