Week 4: BUS 4017 Project Management Lecture Summary

This week we finalize the Definition phase of the project cycle. The Quiz that you were given in Wk.3 reviews many of the developments of this stage. The Quiz answers provided in Wk. 4 should help you understand the step by step progression of making sure that as much input that you can gather, and a thorough analysis of that input is fundamental to success of the project. If you layout all the steps in a Flow Chart format you will have a good source of reference when considering future projects.

Various management techniques can be used to gather and evaluate the information. You could add some additional ones that we haven't covered in class. Each organization or group might modify some of the techniques based on their approach. Needs assessments, Cost benefit analysis, Decision Matrix's are the more common methods. The IT industry would include a Requirements Analysis. I have added separate notes of this topic via this link. IT at Definition stage.

The MS Project handout provided in class shows the flowchart as a GANTT chart. If you access MS Project software in the Labs or Library you will be able to view my version of the flowchart and also read all the notes attached - which are the details needed at each step. There is no absolutely correct answer of how to lay out the sequence of steps or whether you would need all the steps. Remember Definition and Planning are "iterative" processes, which means you put forward a suggestion, review it and then revise it again, and maybe again, until it is finally approved.

So now have thoroughly evaluated which project we are going to do we move to the Planning stage. Now remember the Definition Stage is hi-level planning, big picture. Now we need to have detailed plans of, what are the risks, who does what specific tasks, how long will each task take (schedule) , how much budget will we need (estimates) for individual items. we use new tools and methods for these tasks. We have provided a quickmover view of them for you. Risk management strategy, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and Schedules using Network Diagrams, Critical Paths and GANTT charts.