<p> Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>Running Head: UNIT 3: SCOPE, TIME, AND COST MANAGEMENT</p><p>Unit 3: Scope, Time, and Cost Management</p><p>Dale Henderson</p><p>Kaplan University</p><p>Professor Chad McAllister</p><p>IT511: Information Systems Project Management</p><p>June 24, 2013 Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>Unit 3: Scope, Time, and Cost Management</p><p>1. Explain project scope management in terms of its processes.</p><p>Project scope management is the work that is or is not going to be done, it gives the </p><p> team and stakeholders understanding what products that will be produced and the processes</p><p> the project team will use to produce them, it is what defines and control the project </p><p> knowing what work is to be done and what work will not be done (Schwalbe, 2011).</p><p>There are five processes that work with the project scope management and they are: </p><p>(1) Collecting requirement which defines and documents and the tasks of which products </p><p> are produced within the project as well as the many processes used in creating them. (2) </p><p>Defining the scope which requires examining the project charter, requirements documents, </p><p> and organizational process assets to produce a scope statement, adding more information as</p><p> requirements are produced and change request are approved. (3) Creating the WBS is </p><p> subdividing the deliverables into smaller chunks that are more manageable components. (4)</p><p>Verifying scope is the formalizing acceptance of the deliverables within the project. </p><p>Stakeholders, such as customer and sponsors for the project, inspect and accept the </p><p> deliverables during this process. If the deliverables are not accepted, the customers or </p><p> sponsor usually request changes. (5) Controlling the changes to the project within the entire</p><p> life of the project, these scope changes are a challenge for information technology because </p><p> they influence the team the ability to meet project time and cost goals, so project managers </p><p> must make sure they weigh the costs and benefits of scope changes (Schwalbe, 2011).</p><p>2. Compare and contrast the five approaches for creating work breakdown structures.</p><p>The five approaches of creating a WBS are: Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>1. Using guidelines: It is very important to follow guidelines if they exist because, many </p><p> organizations have their own guidelines so it is important to see if the organization you </p><p> are working for have their own guidelines and many organization use the U.S </p><p>Department of Defense (DOD) for example (Schwalbe, 2011).</p><p>Many organizations will have their own guidelines in creating a WBS through </p><p> guidelines and templates develop through Microsoft Project 2007 or whatever of </p><p> version they might be using at their organization, so again check with the organization </p><p> to see what guidelines they are using.</p><p>2. The analogy approach: In this approach you are using a similar project’s WBS as a </p><p> starting point. This similar WBS will give a starting point for defining the scope for the </p><p> new projects and developing costs estimates, some organizations will keep and archive </p><p> repository of WBS and other project documentation on file to help people working on </p><p> projects. Microsoft Project and many other software tools include sample files to assist </p><p> in creating WBS’s and Gantt charts, examining these files will help people understand </p><p> different ways to create a WBS.</p><p>3. The top-down approach: A conventional approaches that for a construction of a WBS. </p><p>Starting with the largest items and is than broken down into lower items, this process </p><p> refines the work into greater and greater levels of detail. After the process is finished, </p><p> all resources should be assigned at the work package level. This approach is best suited </p><p> to project managers who have vast technical awareness and a big picture perspective</p><p>4. The bottom-down approach: This approach as many specific tasks are identified by </p><p> team members related to the project as possible. The members than aggregate the tasks </p><p> and organize them into summary activities, or higher levels in the WBS. Instead of Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p> using guidelines for creating a WBS or viewing similar projects, they could and more </p><p> than likely will by listing detailed tasks they think will need in order to create the </p><p> application after that has been completed they will put these detailed task in categories, </p><p> then they group these categories into higher level categories. Some people have found it</p><p> helpful that writing all possible tasks down on notes and placing them on a wall will </p><p> help them see all the work required for the project and develop logical groupings for </p><p> performing the work. This approach can be time consuming, but it will be an effective </p><p> way to create a WBS. This approach is used a lot by project managers for projects that </p><p> represent entirely new systems or approaches to doing a job, or to help create buy-in </p><p> and synergy with a project team (Schwalbe, 2011).</p><p>5. The mind-mapping approach: This is a technique that uses branches radiating out from </p><p> a core idea to structure thoughts and ideas. Instead of writing tasks down in a list or </p><p> immediately trying to create a structure for tasks, mind-mapping allows people to write </p><p> and even draw pictures of ideas in a nonlinear format. This gives a more visual, less-</p><p> structured approach to defining and then grouping task can unlock creativity among </p><p> individuals and increase participation and morale among teams. Mind-mapping is </p><p> popular among project managers and can be used in WBS s using the top-down or </p><p> bottom-up approach (Schwalbe, 2011).</p><p>3. Explain project time management in terms of its processes.</p><p>Project time management is defined and in simplest terms that involves the process to </p><p> ensure timely completion of a project and probably one of the most important aspects of a </p><p> project. Seams simple? But in fact it is not as simple as it seems, there are six main </p><p> processes involved to in the project management plan and they are: Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>1. Defining activities: The activities that are identified that must be performed by team </p><p> members and stakeholders to produce the project deliverables. An activity or task is an </p><p> element of work normally found on the WBS that has an expected duration, a cost and </p><p> resource requirements. The main outputs are activity list, activity attributes, and </p><p> milestone list.</p><p>2. Sequencing activities: Identifying and documenting the relationships between project </p><p> activities. The main outputs include project schedule network diagrams and project </p><p> document updates.</p><p>3. Estimating activity: Is the process of estimating how many resources people, </p><p> equipment, and materials a project team should use to perform activities. The main </p><p> outputs are activity resource requirements, resource breakdown structure, and project </p><p> document updates.</p><p>4. Estimating activity durations: Is the process of estimating the number of work periods </p><p> that are needed to complete individual activities. The outputs are activity duration </p><p> estimates and project document updates.</p><p>5. Developing the schedule: The process of analyzing activity sequences, activity resource</p><p> estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule. The outputs are</p><p> project schedule, a schedule baseline, schedule data, and project document updates.</p><p>6. Controlling the schedule: This process controls and manages changes to the project </p><p> schedule. Outputs include work performance measurements, organizational process </p><p> assets updates, change requests, project management plan updates, and project </p><p> document updates. Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>4. Formulate the steps for creating a critical path analysis.</p><p>Many projects fail because they do not meet the schedule expectations in the Critical </p><p>Path Analysis, which is a network diagramming technique used to predict total project </p><p> duration. The critical path is a series of activities that determine the earliest time by which </p><p> the project can be completed. It is the longest path through the network diagram and has the</p><p> least amount of slack and float. Slack or float is the amount of time an activity may be </p><p> delayed without delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date (Schwalbe, 2011).</p><p>The first step that must be done is to develop a network diagram, which in turn </p><p> requires a good activity list based on the WBS, these will include all the tasks within </p><p> included in the project and estimates on the duration of each task</p><p>The next step is to know what order these task will be accomplished. Task </p><p> dependencies is how this is done there are four dependencies and they are as listed below</p><p>Dependency Description Finish-to-start (FS) A relationship where the “from” activity must finish before the “to” activity or successor can start. Start-to-start (SS) A relationship in which “from” activity cannot start until the “to” or successor is started. Finish-to-finish (FF) A relationship where the “from” activity must be finished before the “to” activity or successor can be finished. One task cannot finish before another finishes. Start-to-finish (SF) A relationship where the “from” activity must start before the “to” activity can be finished. This type of relationship is rarely used. Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>Next the task or drawn out on some form of paper, whiteboard or anything else that is </p><p> available at that time, usually paper though. The project manager will usually be the one </p><p> doing this he or she will make sure it goes by. The diagram will have the entire task </p><p> required on it for the project and this drawing will have arrows which are connected to </p><p> nodes to illustrate the sequence of activities, a node is the starting and ending point of an </p><p> activity. All that is drawn is put into the network diagram and is all the work that must be </p><p> performed to complete the project.</p><p>Next step is to make sure the tasks that are being performed are assigned to member of </p><p> the team who can perform and complete the task they are assigned to. The longest path or </p><p> path containing the critical tasks is what is driving the completion date for the project. </p><p>Slack time can be assigned to people with less experience. Slack time is the amount of time</p><p> an activity can be delayed without delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date. </p><p>The critical path is the shortest path to complete a task and projects are always changing </p><p> and that means critical paths can change also, so it is always important to monitor it at all </p><p> times.</p><p>5. Explain project cost management in terms of its processes.</p><p>Project cost management is basically to complete the project with in the budget that </p><p> has been agreed on. Many projects fail because the client or organization ran out of money </p><p> and it is the responsibility of the project manager that it is under the budget and there are </p><p> three processes and they are:</p><p>1. Estimating costs: The process of coming up with an approximation or estimate of </p><p> the costs of resources needed to complete the project. Outputs are activity cost </p><p> estimates, basis of estimates, and project document updates. Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>2. Determining the budget: The process allocating the overall estimate to individual </p><p> work items to establish a baseline for measuring performance. The outputs are </p><p> cost performance baseline, project funding requirements and project document </p><p> updates.</p><p>3. Controlling costs: The process of controlling changes to the project budget. The </p><p> main outputs are work performance measurements, budget forecasts, </p><p> organizational process asset updates, change requests, project management plan </p><p> updates, and project document updates.</p><p>6. Compare and contrast the three basic types of cost estimating using the dimensions of </p><p> accuracy, speed, and purpose. </p><p>Type of Cost Estimate Accuracy Speed Purpose Rough order of magnitude -50 percent to +100. Not a The estimate time range can 3 Provides an estimate of what </p><p>(ROM) very accurate estimate a very or more years prior to project the project will cost.</p><p> wide open range completion Budgetary estimate -10 to +25 percent more Completed 1 to 2 years prior Is used to allocate money into </p><p> accurate than an ROM to project completion an organization budget.</p><p> estimate. Definite Estimate -5 to +10 percent. The most Completed 1 year or less prior An accurate estimate of project</p><p> accurate of the 3. to project completion. costs. Much more detailed </p><p> budget.</p><p>References: Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>Schwalbe, K. (2011). Information Technology Project Management (6 ed.). Boston: Cengage </p><p>Learning.</p><p>Reference The Project Management Hut. (2013). Retrieved June 24, 2013, from WBS Training - What art </p><p> the project management benefits?: http://www.pmhut.com/wbs-training-what-are-the-</p><p> project-management-benefits Unit 3:Scope, Time, and Cost Management 9</p><p>Sap Help Portal. (n.d.). Retrieved June 24, 2013, from What is a Work Breakdown Structure?: </p><p> http://help.sap.com/saphelp_45b/helpdata/en/4c/225bd746e611d189470000e829fbbd/c</p><p> ontent.htm</p><p>Schwalbe, K. (2011). Information Technology Project Management (6 ed.). Boston: Cengage </p><p>Learning.</p>