project planning example

I find that i'm messed up not by the interrelation between tasks, nor by
working around long-lead procurement, but by what project analysts call
'resource ;loading', meaning that all the tasks depend on one resource, ME. In
truth, all the tasks with ME in 'em could be critical path if i don't get to
'em.
I don't need PM tools, just more competent help.

Glenn Ashmore wrote:

 > William R. Watt wrote:
  > > I loaded a copy of MS Project onto my computer, input some tasks for a
  > > small boatbuilding project, captured some screen images, and put them in
  > > files on my website as an illustration of what a project managment program
  > > does. The files show the list of tasks and the critical path network
  > > diagram as they would appear on the screen. If anyone would like to take a
  > > look go to my website (address below) and click on Boats, Boatbuilding,
  > > Project Planning.
 >
 > I did the same thing before starting Rutu. Scared the hell out of me.
 > Fortunately, the schedule part had little to do with reality but the
 > critical path analysis has helped keep me on track.
 >
 > --
 > Glenn Ashmore
 >
 > I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
<font color=purple> > there of) at: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.rutuonline.com</font" target="_blank">http://www.rutuonline.com</font</a>>
<font color=purple> > Shameless Commercial Division: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.spade-anchor-us.com</font" target="_blank">http://www.spade-anchor-us.com</font</a>><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: project planning example 

the hardest part to deal with in these programs is the work day. they
vsvally assvme an 8 hovr day. with sophisticated programs yov can tailor
the costs (overtime rates, holidays, etc) and schedvle to the labovr vnion
contracts. bvt then yov plan for everyone working a 40 hovr week and they
end vp working 60 hovr weeks. throws the plan off.

for a one person project its better jvst to calcvlate the total amovnt of
hovrs and forget the schedvling part of the program. I got MS Project to
do it by vsing hovrs as the time vnit and setting the work day to 24
hovrs. the program is designed to display a wall calendar with the tasks
on it, and a bar chart of the tasks laid over a date grid which is almost
the same thing. I covldn't get them to display properly with my time
vnits. maybe if I spent more time trying things. there are actvally very
simple "shareware" programs written by stvdents and amatevr compvter
programmers which are better for one-man projects. they even rvn on old DOS
compvters withovt colovr graphics.

Its the exercise of dividing the work vp into separate tasks, estimating
how long they shovld take, and figvring ovt what order they have to be
done in that helps the most. that's why I only pvt screen shots of the
task list and paths (critical path diagram) on my website. that
information wovld be helpfvl inclvded in boat plans people sell. The part
abovt assigning people to each task and laying the project ovt on a
calendar aren't very relevant for the amatevr boatbvilder. Planners do
that on big boatbvlding projects like svbmarines and crvise liners. They
vpdate the data as the project progresses and compare the work to the
plan. That saves them a lot of time and money.


Jim Conlin (conlin@comcast.net) writes:
 > I find that i'm messed vp not by the interrelation between tasks, nor by
 > working arovnd long-lead procvrement, bvt by what project analysts call
 > 'resovrce ;loading', meaning that all the tasks depend on one resovrce, ME. In
 > trvth, all the tasks with ME in 'em covld be critical path if i don't get to
 > 'em.
 > I don't need PM tools, jvst more competent help.

"The Mythical Man Month" described how, on the IBM OS/360 opertating system
project in the 1960's, adding more people made the project take longer and
cost more.

 >
 > Glenn Ashmore wrote:
 >
  >> William R. Watt wrote:
   >> > I loaded a copy of MS Project onto my compvter, inpvt some tasks for a
   >> > small boatbvilding project, captvred some screen images, and pvt them in
   >> > files on my website as an illvstration of what a project managment program
   >> > does. The files show the list of tasks and the critical path network
   >> > diagram as they wovld appear on the screen. If anyone wovld like to take a
   >> > look go to my website (address below) and click on Boats, Boatbvilding,
   >> > Project Planning.
  >>
  >> I did the same thing before starting Rvtv. Scared the hell ovt of me.
  >> Fortvnately, the schedvle part had little to do with reality bvt the
  >> critical path analysis has helped keep me on track.
  >>
  >> --
  >> Glenn Ashmore
  >>
  >> I'm bvilding a 45' cvtter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
<font color=green>  >> there of) at: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.rvtvonline.com</font" target="_blank">http://www.rvtvonline.com</font</a>>
<font color=green>  >> Shameless Commercial Division: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.spade-anchor-vs.com</font" target="_blank">http://www.spade-anchor-vs.com</font</a>>
 >


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MS Project lives on my PCs at work. If I ever found a copy on my home PC I'd
yell a critical path of 4 letter words and toss the whole fricken thing out
into the snow . MyPlan ... February - get beer, get books, drink beer and
learn how to build a boat (planning), March - get Scotch, drink Scotch and
approve the project (approval), April - get a pencil and paper and do up the
requirements, functional spec, high level design, low level design, design,
blah blah blah (design), May - go get all stuff, June - build boat
(development), April - do the alpha (solo), beta (c'mon guys, look ... it
floats) testing, June- fire up the bbq, hold the lessons learned get
to-gether.


"William R. Watt" <ag384.DeleteThis@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:bui7sq$7d4$1@freenet9.carleton.ca...
 > I loaded a copy of MS Project onto my computer, input some tasks for a
 > small boatbuilding project, captured some screen images, and put them in
 > files on my website as an illustration of what a project managment program
 > does. The files show the list of tasks and the critical path network
 > diagram as they would appear on the screen. If anyone would like to take a
 > look go to my website (address below) and click on Boats, Boatbuilding,
 > Project Planning.
 >
 > --
 > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
 > William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community
network
<font color=purple> > homepage: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm</font" target="_blank">www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm</font</a>>
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 >> Stay informed about: project planning example 

This is an interesting approach to the organizing of tasks involved in
building a small boat. If efficiency is the main goal this approach
might prove useful in a purely practical or economic sense.

As a criticism though, I would suggest that the process considers tasks
only on a two dimensional overlapping linear configuration that fails to
take into consideration things like instinct, experience, enjoyment, and
emotion. This third dimension is always present but is difficult to
quantify. Yet it is a key component of the success of any project.

It might be possible to overlay this third dimension onto each task to
get a better picture of the real aspects of the tasks at hand and then
try to interpret how each task relates to another and the project as a
whole. For instance, quantifying a satisfaction quotient for each task
and then determining a human motivational factor for the task might
better represent the reality of performing the task and allow for
planning that reflects the human side of the equation rather than the
purely numerical one.

Failure to factor in these types of influences is the main weak point of
modern industrial time motion analyses, in my opinion.
STeveJ


William R. Watt wrote:
 > I loaded a copy of MS Project onto my computer, input some tasks for a
 > small boatbuilding project, captured some screen images, and put them in
 > files on my website as an illustration of what a project managment program
 > does. The files show the list of tasks and the critical path network
 > diagram as they would appear on the screen. If anyone would like to take a
 > look go to my website (address below) and click on Boats, Boatbuilding,
 > Project Planning.
 >
 > --
 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
 > homepage: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm" target="_blank">www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm</a>
 > warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: project planning example 

steveJ (vtboat@verizon.net) writes:

 > As a criticism though, I would suggest that the process considers tasks
 > only on a two dimensional overlapping linear configuration that fails to
 > take into consideration things like instinct, experience, enjoyment, and
 > emotion. This third dimension is always present but is difficult to
 > quantify. Yet it is a key component of the success of any project.

the programs don't even record monetary benefits, only costs, let alone
emotional benefits which are difficult to put a price on, or emotional
costs which can have monetary repurcusions, eg how much does the wife get
in the divorce? you could get creative and put in various emotional
restrictions as milestones (fixed dates) and resource limitations.
experience would show up in the estimates for task durations.

you might try putting benefits in as negative costs. In the early 90's I
wrote a prototype project management program (as an exercise in learning
object oriented programming) which had a layered task structure, included
benefits, and also interest on borrowed money to better plan and monitor
projects. It was just to try out some ideas. I never put a user interface
on it.

the available programs are pretty good for making up a list of tasks and
arranging them in order though. for the amateur builder with little
experience the exercise can provide insight and a pretty good plan. for
the designer selling boat plans to amateurs I think a project plan would
be a helpful thing to include as part of the boatbuilding plan.

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Ranting aside (one full day at the end of each month is spent reconciling on
average 6 plans to which I add my tasks), I have always enjoyed coming up
with the plan. For example, how's this for torture, after reading up on
Gantt a few years back I used a VAX text editor to create a plan, and
track progress through the good old histogram approach as in ...

Task1 (xxxxx)
Task2 (xxxxx)

Ok ... so, I recommend if you have MS Project, and you're like to give it a
try for scheduling something, hit the old F1 Help, and work your way through
the tutorial ... and when you're done, imo, you will have the big picture,
and by doing so, have found tasks you might well have not thought of ...
measure twice, cut once.

Ok, so on with the program ,,,

struct Boat {float well_duh; long about_32_ft; .... };






"William R. Watt" <ag384 DeleteThis @FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:bumrhp$m06$1@freenet9.carleton.ca...
 > steveJ (vtboat@verizon.net) writes:
 >
  > > As a criticism though, I would suggest that the process considers tasks
  > > only on a two dimensional overlapping linear configuration that fails to
  > > take into consideration things like instinct, experience, enjoyment, and
  > > emotion. This third dimension is always present but is difficult to
  > > quantify. Yet it is a key component of the success of any project.
 >
 > the programs don't even record monetary benefits, only costs, let alone
 > emotional benefits which are difficult to put a price on, or emotional
 > costs which can have monetary repurcusions, eg how much does the wife get
 > in the divorce? you could get creative and put in various emotional
 > restrictions as milestones (fixed dates) and resource limitations.
 > experience would show up in the estimates for task durations.
 >
 > you might try putting benefits in as negative costs. In the early 90's I
 > wrote a prototype project management program (as an exercise in learning
 > object oriented programming) which had a layered task structure, included

 > benefits, and also interest on borrowed money to better plan and monitor
 > projects. It was just to try out some ideas. I never put a user interface
 > on it.
 >
 > the available programs are pretty good for making up a list of tasks and
 > arranging them in order though. for the amateur builder with little
 > experience the exercise can provide insight and a pretty good plan. for
 > the designer selling boat plans to amateurs I think a project plan would
 > be a helpful thing to include as part of the boatbuilding plan.
 >
 > --
 > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
 > William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community
network
<font color=purple> > homepage: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm</font" target="_blank">www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm</font</a>>
 > warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: project planning example 

I wasn't so much thinking of those things as "benefits" as much as
FACTORS that will effect the task performance in a way that will effect
time, quality and value. One could perhaps ask the question..what
sequence of construction will be the MOST FUN to perform?...or...what
combination of tasks will be least boring to concentrate on. For
instance, would it be better to break up a long tedious process like
sanding into smaller chunks interspersed with other more interesting
tasks? Would the final project turn out higher quality or be completed
more quickly...or completed at all!
I agree that the program could be useful as an organizational tool for
writing sequential instructions.

William R. Watt wrote:
 > steveJ (vtboat@verizon.net) writes:
 >
 >
  >>As a criticism though, I would suggest that the process considers tasks
  >>only on a two dimensional overlapping linear configuration that fails to
  >>take into consideration things like instinct, experience, enjoyment, and
  >>emotion. This third dimension is always present but is difficult to
  >>quantify. Yet it is a key component of the success of any project.
 >
 >
 > the programs don't even record monetary benefits, only costs, let alone
 > emotional benefits which are difficult to put a price on, or emotional
 > costs which can have monetary repurcusions, eg how much does the wife get
 > in the divorce? you could get creative and put in various emotional
 > restrictions as milestones (fixed dates) and resource limitations.
 > experience would show up in the estimates for task durations.
 >
 > you might try putting benefits in as negative costs. In the early 90's I
 > wrote a prototype project management program (as an exercise in learning
 > object oriented programming) which had a layered task structure, included
 > benefits, and also interest on borrowed money to better plan and monitor
 > projects. It was just to try out some ideas. I never put a user interface
 > on it.
 >
 > the available programs are pretty good for making up a list of tasks and
 > arranging them in order though. for the amateur builder with little
 > experience the exercise can provide insight and a pretty good plan. for
 > the designer selling boat plans to amateurs I think a project plan would
 > be a helpful thing to include as part of the boatbuilding plan.
 >
 > --
 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 > William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
 > homepage: <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm" target="_blank">www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm</a>
 > warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: project planning example