|
Milestone (project Management)
Milestones are tools used in project management to mark specific points along a project timeline. These points may signal anchors such as a project start and end date, or a need for external review or input and budget checks. Some contracts for products include a "milestone fee" that may be paid out when certain points are achieved. In many instances, milestones do not impact project duration. Instead, they focus on major progress points that must be reached to achieve success. Using milestones in scheduling Milestones can add significant value to project scheduling. When combined with a scheduling methodology such as Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) or the Critical Path Method (CPM), milestones allow project managers to much more accurately determine whether or not the project is on schedule. By constraining the dates associated with milestones, the critical path can be determined for major schedule intervals in addition to the entire project. Slack/float can a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Management
Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. The primary constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and apply them to meet pre-defined objectives. The objective of project management is to produce a complete project which complies with the client's objectives. In many cases, the objective of project management is also to shape or reform the client's brief to feasibly address the client's objectives. Once the client's objectives are clearly established, they should influence all decisions made by other people involved in the project – for example, project managers, designers, contractors, and subcontractors. Ill-defined or too tightly prescribed project management objectives are detrimental to decision-m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timeline
A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events. Timelines can use any suitable scale representing time, suiting the subject and data; many use a linear scale, in which a unit of distance is equal to a set amount of time. This timescale is dependent on the events in the timeline. A timeline of evolution can be over millions of years, whereas a timeline for the day of the September 11 attacks can take place over minutes, and that of an explosion over milliseconds. While many timelines use a linear timescale—especially where very large or small timespans are relevant -- logarithmic timelines entail a logarithmic scale of time; some "hurry up and wait" chronologies are depicted with zoom lens metaphors. History Time and space, particularly the line, are intertwined concepts in human thought. The line is ubiquitous in clocks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duration (project Management)
Duration of a project's terminal element is the number of calendar periods it takes from the time the execution of element starts to the moment it is completed. Duration should not be confused with work. E.g. it takes three days for a snail-mail letter to arrive at point B from point A, whereas the work put into mailing it may be 0.5 hours. Strictly speaking, the phrase ''Duration of terminal element X is 5 days'' is incomplete. It fails to specify the following: * the probability with which the completion is expected in the time allotted (since any estimate is only a prediction about the uncertain future, see critical chain Critical chain project management (CCPM) is a method of planning and managing projects that emphasizes the resources (people, equipment, physical space) required to execute project tasks. It was developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. It differs from ...) * the resources to be used (sometimes using more resources or different resources speeds things up) * th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schedule (project Management)
In project management, a schedule is a listing of a project's milestones, activities, and deliverables. Usually dependencies and resources are defined for each task, then start and finish dates are estimated from the resource allocation, budget, task duration, and scheduled events. A schedule is commonly used in the project planning and project portfolio management parts of project management. Elements on a schedule may be closely related to the work breakdown structure (WBS) terminal elements, the Statement of work, or a Contract Data Requirements List. Overview In many industries, such as engineering and construction, the development and maintenance of the project schedule is the responsibility of a full-time scheduler or team of schedulers, depending on the size and the scope of the project. The techniques of scheduling are well developed but inconsistently applied throughout industry. Standardization and promotion of scheduling best practices are being pursued by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Program Evaluation And Review Technique
The program evaluation and review technique (PERT) is a statistical tool used in project management, which was designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project. First developed by the United States Navy in 1958, it is commonly used in conjunction with the critical path method (CPM) that was introduced in 1957. Overview PERT is a method of analyzing the tasks involved in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and to identify the minimum time needed to complete the total project. It incorporates uncertainty by making it possible to schedule a project while not knowing precisely the details and durations of all the activities. It is more of an event-oriented technique rather than start- and completion-oriented, and is used more in those projects where time is the major factor rather than cost. It is applied on very large-scale, one-time, complex, non-routine infrastructure and on Research and Developme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Float (project Management)
In project management, float or slack is the amount of time that a task in a project network can be delayed without causing a delay to: * subsequent tasks ("''free float''") * project completion date ("''total float''"). ''Total float'' is associated with the path. If a project network chart/diagram has 4 non-critical paths then that project would have 4 ''total float'' values. The ''total float'' of a path is the combined ''free float'' values of all activities in a path. The ''total float'' represents the schedule flexibility and can also be measured by subtracting early start dates from late start dates of path completion. Float is core to critical path method, with the total floats of noncritical activities key to computing the critical path drag of an activity, i.e., the amount of time it is adding to the project's duration.* Example Consider the process of replacing a broken pane of glass in the window of your home. There are various component activities involved in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Resource (project Management)
In project management, resources are required to carry out the project tasks. These can be people, equipment, facilities, funding, or anything else capable of definition (usually other than labour) required for the completion of a project activity. The lack of a resource will therefore be a constraint on the completion of the project activity. Resources may be storable or non storable. Storable resources remain available unless depleted by usage, and may be replenished by project tasks which produce them. Non-storable resources must be renewed for each time period, even if not used in previous time periods. Resource scheduling, availability and optimisation are considered key to successful project management. Allocation of limited resources is based on the priority given to each of the project activities. Their priority is calculated using the Critical path method and heuristic analysis. For a case with a constraint on the number of resources, the objective is to create the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. Benchmarking is used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure) resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others. Also referred to as "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking", this process is used in management in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best-practice companies' processes, usually within a peer group defined for the purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adapt specific best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deliverable
A deliverable is a tangible or intangible good or service produced as a result of a project that is intended to be delivered to a customer (either internal or external). A deliverable could be a report, a document, a software product, a server upgrade or any other building block of an overall project.Cutting, Thomas.Deliverable-based Project Schedules: Part 1. PMHut.com (Last accessed 8 November 2009). A deliverable may be composed of multiple smaller deliverables. It may be either an outcome to be achieved (as in "The corporation says that becoming profitable this year is a deliverable") or an output to be provided (as in "The deliverable for the completed project consists of a special-purpose electronic device and its controlling software"). Some deliverables are dependent on other deliverables being completed first; this is common in projects with multiple successive milestones. In this way many time-savings are possible, shortening greatly the whole project final supply term. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
