Linear Programming for Project Management Professionals

Explore Concepts, Techniques, and Tools to Achieve Project Management Objectives

Partha Majumdar

• Publisher: BPB Publications
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9789355511164
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Entreprise Applications
• Index: Computer Science

Learn techniques of project scheduling using MS Excel and Solver.

Key Features
? Covers methods to streamlining project completion and optimising budgets.
? Includes techniques for resolving business problems and optimising EVM.
? Examines project crashing strategies, linear programming solutions, and the Solver tool.

Description
This book assists project management professionals in resolving project crashing situations through linear programming. It demonstrates how the PM team can help streamline the project's on-time completion and cost optimization.The book begins with understanding project management processes and frameworks such as WBS, PDM, and EVM. The book helps build familiarity with the PM team's procedures to monitor a project. It helps investigate linear programming problems (LPPs) and the mathematical foundations for their formulation. It covers various approaches to solving the LPP, including graphical methods, their limitations, and the necessity of tools such as MS Excel's Solver. It also covers how the PM team can solve LPP with the help of Solver.This book covers various business and technical scenarios for crashing a project. It teaches how to formulate the problem of optimizing a project for time and cost using LPP. This book then discusses how LPP can be solved using Solver and more complex issues. It also explores the relationship between earned value management and crashing a project.

What you will learn
? Learn the process of developing the Work Breakdown Structure.
? Prepare a project schedule with all contingencies in consideration.
? Recognize the circumstances that necessitate considering crashing a project.
? Utilize linear programming to formulate and resolve project scheduling issues.
? Develop strong proficiency in using MS Excel for Project Management activities.

Who this book is for
This book is intended for project management professionals at all levels, including project coordinators, operations analysts, quality analysts, and all stakeholders in a running project. Although not mandatory, some background in project management and familiarity with Microsoft Excel would be an advantage.

Table of Contents
1. Project Scheduling
2. Earned Value Method
3. Linear Programming Problems
4. Crashing a Project
5. Using LPP to Crash a Project
6. More Complex Problems
7. Linking EVM and LPP
8. Annexure I: Microsoft Excel Basics
9. Annexure II: Advanced Methods of Crashing a Project

CHAPTER 1

Project Scheduling

Welcome to this book!!!

This book aims to help readers create optimized project schedules from the perspective of both time and cost. So, we will start with the nuances of creating a project schedule.

We need to have a project before we can discuss the project schedule. I will state an imaginary project with all the real elements that a project needs to have. Using this as an example, we will break down the scope of the project into several components and organize these components to create the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Once we have the WBS, we can start our discussion on scheduling the project.

We will use the Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) for scheduling the project. We will discuss the different elements of PDM in this chapter. And we will put all these elements together to arrive at the project schedule at the end.

Let’s drive the discussion through an example. Then, you can replace the example with your real case and arrive at the desired project schedule for your project.

The techniques discussed in this book can be applied to any project in any industry, but we shall take up examples from software engineering projects.

Structure

We will discuss the following topics in this chapter:

• Our project
• Section 1: Project Scheduling theory
  • Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
    • One method of creating the WBS
    • Planting the WBS on Microsoft Excel
  • Estimating the duration for each task in the WBS
  • Sequencing the tasks in the WBS
    • Relationship between the tasks
    • Lags between the tasks
    • Creating the task sequence
  • Creating the project network
  • Calculating the project duration
    • Conducting the forward pass
    • Conducting the backward pass
  • Calculating slack for each task
  • Determining the critical path
• Section 2: Excel Implementation
  • Calculating ES, EF, LS, and LF using Microsoft Excel
    • Conducting the forward pass
    • Conducting the backward pass
    • Calculating the Slack for each task

Objectives

After going through this chapter, you should be able to create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for a project and estimate the duration for each task in the WBS.

You will understand the relationships between the tasks. You will learn what Lag is, how to create the project network using Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM), and how to calculate the project duration. You will also understand early start, early finish, late start, late finish, critical path, and what slack is.

Implementing a project on new library management system

To start the discussion, let’s take up a project. Using this project as our example, we will see how we can arrive at a schedule for a project.

Let’s consider that we have a project for implementing a new library management system for a university.

Once the project is assigned to a project manager, the project manager’s first task is to understand the various elements. They must get a firm idea of the scope of the project, the budget, and the time to complete it. Cost, scope, and schedule are the three pillars of any project. The project manager should manage these three pillars to ensure that the project delivers the product with the desired quality. These pillars undergo changes while the project is in execution, but a project manager should maintain a balance between them so that the project progresses toward creating a quality product.

This book focuses on the schedule aspect of the project, but it will become increasingly clear as we progress that we cannot discuss schedules in isolation. We will have to discuss cost and scope as well. For now, we will assume that the scope of the project remains constant (though this is never the case in a real-life situation). As far as the cost is concerned, we cannot isolate it under any circumstances as schedule and cost go hand in hand. As they say, time is money.

We generally have a high-level understanding of the scope at the start of any project. Sales teams aim to make the scope as tight as possible before the contract is signed. However, it is almost always the case that new activities surface once project execution starts. This is not due to the sales team’s lack of skills but because of changes in the project parameters over time. Some of the assumptions become invalid and new realities emerge, so a different set of skills are needed to manage the scope of the project.

Let’s assume that the scope is as follows for our project to implement a new library management system:

• We need to buy the required hardware to implement the software
• We need to buy the software that will be implemented
• We need to customize the software so that all the needs of the university are fulfilled
• Once the software is ready, we need to migrate the data from the existing system to the new system
• And lastly, we need to roll out the new software

Section - I

Project Scheduling Theory

Let us first go through the theory related to project scheduling. Once we have understood the theory, we will implement the calculations in Microsoft Excel in the section 2.

Work breakdown structure

Once the scope of the project is clear, we need to identify all the tasks that are to be conducted to complete the project. The process of identifying all the tasks for a project and arranging them systematically is known as the process of creating the WBS.

There are several ways to build the WBS, but all the methods can be classified into two approaches to create the WBS, i.e., we either ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• About the Author
• About the Reviewers
• Acknowledgement
• Preface
• Errata
• 1. Project Scheduling
• 2. Earned Value Method
• 3. Linear Programing Problems
• 4. Crashing a Project
• 5. Using LPP to Crash a Project
• 6. More Complex Problems
• 7. Linking EVM and LPP
• Annexure 1
• Annexure 2
• Index