November 7

http://www.projects.uts.edu.au/images/diagram2.gif
University of Technology Sydney

Welcome back Year 11.  I hope you had a great break.

This class is going to be primarily for information purposes.

• Criterion A - Investigate
• Criterion B - Design - remember that ALL your designs must be "feasible" designs. That means that each of them must meet all of your design specifications.  This is easy to accomplish.
• Criterion C - Plan  - Project Management - You are to plan your work for your business card project using the tools and concepts from Project Management.
• Some go to terms are:
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) - a structural way of identifying the work to be done by breaking down work into Work Packages (WPs) (tasks to be done);
• Work Package Description (WPD) - a description of the Work Packages (tasks);
• Gantt Chart - a graphical way of displaying the work to be done (taken from the WBS).

Project Management

• What is Project Management?  According to Wikipedia, "Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, managing, leading, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables),^[1] undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives,^[2] typically to bring about beneficial change or added value." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management

• We are generally concerned with: 

  Planning and design

  After the initiation stage, the project is planned to an appropriate level of detail (see example of a flow-chart).^[24] The main purpose is to plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to effectively manage risk during project execution. As with the Initiation process group, a failure to adequately plan greatly reduces the project's chances of successfully accomplishing its goals.
  Project planning generally consists of^[26]
• determining how to plan (e.g. by level of detail or rolling wave);
• developing the scope statement;
• selecting the planning team;
• identifying deliverables and creating the work breakdown structure;
• identifying the activities needed to complete those deliverables and networking the activities in their logical sequence;
• estimating the resource requirements for the activities;
• estimating time and cost for activities;
• developing the schedule;
• developing the budget;
• risk planning;
• gaining formal approval to begin work.

• Why Project Planning is useful:
  A key to successful project scheduling is to break down the project goals into tasks BEFORE you consider delivery dates, resource constraints, specific named resources, or task dependencies. This helps you to objectively identify all of the work necessary without subconsciously leaving out real work in order to fit date constraints. 
  The WBS step helps accomplish the following key objectives:
  § Develops an objective, rational view of the amount of work required
  § Helps team grasp the skills required and amount of resources required for the project
  § Provides a clear framework for assigning to individuals a clear task definition and delegate the responsibility for completion
  § Lays a foundation for analyzing the task dependencies and for isolating and managing risks
  § Lays a foundation for developing a bottom-up estimate for the project schedule
  § Allows tradeoffs to be made consciously and with the proper consensus involved.

Links for you to check out to successfully execute your tasks.

• Glossary http://www.projects.uts.edu.au/pmuts/glossary.html
• Templates and Tools http://www.projects.uts.edu.au/resources/templates.html (A Gantt chart template can be found here)
• Work Breakdown Structure template https://www.box.com/s/g2td99ran3ltd1iv85yv
• Step by Step Guide http://www.projects.uts.edu.au/stepbystep/index.html
• Project Management Docs http://www.projectmanagementdocs.com/project-planning-templates/work-breakdown-structure-wbs.html

IB Learner Profile: Thinker

Learning objectives: 1. construct a plan to create the product/solution that has a series of logical steps, 
2. construct a plan to create the product/solution that makes effective use of resources and time, 
3. evaluate the plan and justify any modifications to the design.