PMP PREPARATION : TIME

    I cleared my PMP on 26th may 2014. I have gone through all the three books PMBOK, RITA MULCAHY'S and HEAD FIRST. During preparation I made few notes. so the material has been picked up from all the three books and these are just the key points. 
 NOTE : IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT ONE SHOULD READ THESE POINTS IN DETAIL FROM THE BOOKS (which ever interests you more) AND ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE FINISHED A THOROUGH READING, YOU CAN GO THROUGH THESE POINTS FOR CONSOLIDATION.

TIME 

• DEFINE ACTIVITY : Decomposing work packages into activities

• ROLLING WAVE PLANNING : Form of progressive elaboration. plan for only the immediate work, rest of the planning as it comes

"plan activities to the detail needed to manage the work only when you start that 

phase "

• MILESTONES : Are not activities , have no duration.

• SEQUENCE ACTIVITY : Take the milestones and activities and sequence them - in order in which the work will be performed .... RESULT WILL BE A NETWORK DIAGRAM (it is not a PERT chart)

• very very important

SCHEDULE NETWORK DIAGRAM : Shows just the dependencies. LOGICAL RELATIONSHIP between activities.

If activity duration estimate is added to it --- it can show the CRITICAL PATH

If plotted against time ----it becomes a TIME SCALED SCHEDULE NETWORK DIAGRAM

be very very clear about these terms. many more to come. there should not be any confusion

• PDM (PRECEDENCE DIAGRAMMING METHOD) : Or AON (Activity On Node) : Method to draw a network diagram

it can have four types of logical relationships between activities  :-

1. finish to start (mostly used)
2. start to start
3. finish to finish
4. start to finish (rarely used)

its self explanatory. finish to start is one activity has to finish for other to start and so on. activity which comes before an activity is the precedence activity of that. and second activity is the successive activity of the first . makes sense :)

• SEQUENCE OF ACTIVITIES : based on their dependencies

1. Mandatory (HARD LOGIC) : inherent in the nature of work. e.g.sockets have to be installed before putting the bulbs. its mandatory.
2. Discretionary (SOFT LOGIC) : Preferred.  what you prefer you can choose. there are two activities and you do first what you prefer. ceiling painting or flooring. 
3. Internal
4. External

• PADDING : Extra time or cost added to an estimate because the estimator does not have enough information . then you guess and add some more time or cost . It is a wrong practice

   e. g. there is an activity you have very less knowledge or information about. so you guessed it will take 5 days. but just for precaution you added three more days. so you estimated 8 days for that activity. imagine if you have a large project and you have many activities in that and you do the same for many activities what will happen to your total time estimate for that project

solution of padding : the need for additional cost or time should be addressed with reserves through the risk management process. THE UNCERTAINTIES ARE TURNED INTO IDENTIFIABLE OPPORTUNITIES OR THREATS 

• HOW TO ESTIMATE : very important (used for cost and time both)

            1. ONE POINT ESTIMATION : Just one guess. e.g. the house painting will take around 1200$.

            2. ANALOGOUS ESTIMATION : TOP DOWN, Use expert judgement + historical                                      information, just pick up the cost or time estimate from a similar past project or ask the                            experts.

            3. PARAMETRIC ESTIMATION : It looks at the relationship between two variables of an                          activity to calculate
                      a. Regression Analysis : Scatter Diagram (will come ahead)
                      b. Learning Curve : e.g. the 100th room painted will take less time then the first room                                    because of the IMPROVED EFFICIENCY
                      c. Heuristics : Generally accepted rules like 80/20 Pareto rule
            4. THREE POINT ESTIMATION :  (P+M+O) / 6

            5. TRIANGULAR DISTRIBUTION (AVERAGE, SIMPLE, STRAIGHT) :(P+M+O) / 3

            6. BETA DISTRIBUTION : (WEIGHTED AVERAGE) : (P+4M+O) / 6
                        P=pessimist estimate, O= optimist estimate, M= most likely estimate
there will be simple and straight questions on this. just read the question carefully for what have been asked
remember the difference. you will see the historical information in both, the analogous and the parametric estimation. you use historical information to guess that is analogous (you just pick up the past project data) and if you are using historical information to calculate your project estimate that is parametric estimation. now you will know when you see a question.

• ACTIVITY STANDARD DEVIATION : (P-O) / 6

      The possible range for estimate. greater the range higher the risk
e.g. estimated range of an activity means this activity can take 5+_ 2 (five plus minus two)days means range is 7 to 3 days. you might have to calculate it in few questions.
HOW TO CALCULATE THE RANGE : You can calculate the range of an activity from the estimate using weighted (beta) averaging
EAD (Expected Activity Duration) = (P+4M+O) / 6
SD (Standard Deviation) = (P-O) / 6

                      RANGE = EAD + - SD (EAD plus minus SD)

if all this estimation thing confuses you, drop me specific question and i shall clear it. it is very simple

• HOW TO CREATE THE FINAL SCHEDULE : DEVELOP SCHEDULE METHODS

1. CRITICAL PATH METHOD : you will get few numerical on this for sure which are very easy.will explain in some other post 
      a. can be more then one, zero float (zero extra days to do the work. has to has to be done in the given time)
      b. can change with progress
2. CRITICAL CHAIN METHOD : add buffer, provide cushion for delays
      buffers are not padding
3. SCHEDULE COMPRESSION
      a. Fast tracking : doing activities in parallel
      b. Crashing : adding more resources
4. MODELING : Monte Carlo Analysis
5. RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION
      a. Resource Leveling : can not add resources, level the available one among activities
      b. Resource Smoothing : can add resources

• PROJECT SCHEDULE CAN BE SHOWN IN :  Important

      1. NETWORK DIAGRAM : To show interdependencies among activities
      2. MILESTONE CHART : To report to senior management 
      3. BAR CHARTS (GANTT CHART) : To take progress from the team and to report to the team.                         interdependencies and assigned resources are not shown

PREDECESSORS : Help you sequence your activities
      1. EXTERNAL PREDECESSOR 
      2. DISCRETIONARY PREDECESSORS : not necessary, just a matter of preference, best practice
      3. MANDATORY PREDECESSOR : the kind that have to exist 

• LEADS & LAGS : Sometime you have to give some extra time between activities. in some cases you have to have a gap and sometime you can do things in parallel. start a new activity before the one you are doing finishes. or sometime you have to leave few days blank between activity.

LAG : you purposefully put a delay between the predecessor and successor activity. making sure the one task waits a while before it gets started. its like one activity finishes....then a gap of few days ...and then the next activity starts...that is a gap 
LEAD : You let a task get started before its predecessor is finished. One activity is going on ... before it finishes ... you start the second activity... some overlapping ...that is a lead 

Note : please feel free to ask any question. If something confuses you or you need more explanation on the same, please let me know. if you find any point wrong please comment. I shall check it and amend