Question1 Why is project management so critical during the design phase?

What tools can a project manager use during the design phase?

Project management is critical during the design phase because project management deals with three factors: time, cost and performance. Projects are successful if they are completed on time, within budget, and to performance requirements and the design phase needs all the factors to achieve its objective, that is: Design and integrate the network Design the application network Design the user interfaces Design and integrate the database Prototype for design details Design and integrate the system controls

In order to bring the many components of a large project into control there is a large toolkit of techniques, methodologies, and tools in the design phase. These techniques provide the tools for managing different components involved in a project: planning and scheduling, developing a product, managing financial and capital resources, and monitoring progress. However the success of a project will always rest on the abilities of a project manager and the team members in selection the appropriate tools during the design phase. Some of the tools used during the design phase are:

GANTT CHARTS Developed by Harry Gantt in 1916, these charts give a timeline for each activity. They are used for planning, scheduling and then recording progress against these schedules. Basically there are two basic types of Gantt Charts: Load Charts and Project Planning Charts.

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* Load Charts: This type of chart is useful for manufacturing projects during peak or heavy load periods. The format of the Gantt Load Chart is very similar to the Gantt Project Planning Chart but, in this case, uses time as well as departments, machines or employees that have been scheduled. * Project Planning Chart It addresses the time of individual work elements giving a time line for each activity of a project. This type of chart is the predecessor of the following tool: PERT. As it can be seen in the figure, it is really easy to understand the graph, but in developing it you need to take into consideration certain precedence relationships between the different activities of the project. On the chart, everyone is able to see when each activity starts and finishes but there is no possibility to determine when each activity may start or if we can start a particular activity before finishing the immediate predecessor activity. Therefore, we need somehow know the precedence relationships between activities. This is the main reason for using the following tools instead of using exclusively Gantt Charts.

PERT/CPM (Critical path Method) Both methods show precedence relationships explicitly. Although the two methods were developed independently during the fifties, they are surprisingly similar. Both methods, PERT and CPM, use a graphic representation of a project that it is called "Project Network" or "CPM diagram", and it is used to portray graphically the interrelationships of the elements of a project and to show the order in which the activities must be performed. In order to represent a project network, two basic elements are used:

A cycle, called "node", represents an event. An event describes a checkpoint. It does not symbolize the performance of work, but it represents the point in time in which the event is accomplished.

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An arrow, called "arc", represents an activity. The network will try to reflect all the relationships between the activities. Two simple rules govern the construction of a project network: A. Each activity must be represented by only one directed arc or arrow. B. No two activities can begin and end on the same two nodes or cycles.

Question 2. UML has become the de facto standard for modeling object oriented software. Write briefly on each of the three important types of UML model. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a graphical language for visualizing, specifying, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of a softwareintensive system. The UML offers a standard way to write systems blueprints, including conceptual things such as programming language statements, database

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schemas, and reusable software components.

There are three different aspects of the modeled system which are handled by UML. These three modeling aspects are the Functional Structural model, Object model Behavioral and Dynamic or Architectural model. The structural or functional model is concerned with how the system functions from the users point of view. This model includes use case diagrams. Use case diagrams are used to obtain system requirements from a users perspective. The use case diagram can be thought of as an interaction that a user has with a system to achieve a goal. The behavioral or object model deals with the structure and substructure of the system using objects, operations, associations, and attributes. This model includes class diagrams. Class diagrams represent static structure of the classes and their relationships in a system The architectural or dynamic model contains both structural and behavioral elements of the system and can be defined as the blue print of the entire system. It deals with the internal behavior of the system. This model includes sequence diagrams, activity diagrams and state chart diagrams. A sequence diagram is typically used to show object interactions in a single use case and Activity diagrams show behavior with control structure. This can be used to show behaviors over many use cases, model business workflows, or describe complicated methods.

REFERENCE: http://www.pmi.org/education Wednesday 23rd February 2011.

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http://TutorialsPoint.com System Analysis and Design

Wednesday 23rd February 2011. By: Mr. Obeng

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