Critically appraise the role and scope of scientifically based methods in the

management of large complete project.

Introduction

Project management is the discipline of planning, organize, and managing resource to

bring out the successful completion of specific goals and objective on one-time effort

such as, contract a building or other project activities that need to use a scientifically

based method implementations.

This project management basically include the developing project plan, defining project

goals and objective, specifying task or how goals will be archive, know the resource that

will be used and need, and associating the budget and determine the time duration for the

project to be completed. It also includes implementing the project plan, along with

careful controls to stay on the "critical path", that is, to ensure the plan is being managed

according to plan. (Free Management Library)

A scientifically based method is one of the methods that had use to mange the large

complete project. There are some scientifically methods that had been used in project

management to ensure the project are directly based on the plan to be completed. To

manage the large complete project, the scientifically based method in the project

management also had been used in terms to make sure the project had been complete

according to the plan. The method are such as, Gantt chart, Activity On Arrow (AOA),

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Activity On Node (AON), Program evaluation and review technique (PERT), resource

leveling, and Project time reduction and cost minimization. This scientifically method

was useful to help the manager to ensure the objective and goals by knowing the role of

each of these methods, and know what will be the advantage and disadvantage of each of

the scientifically method, in terms of that, it’s also will help the project manager to get

more information that will be need to used in completing the project.

Gantt chart

Gantt chart is an important tool that will help the manager to plan and manage the

complex project. Where it’s basically help the project manager to work out the order of

task which it should be done first and allows to identify the resource that be needed to

complete the project.

In Gantt chart, it will be provide the graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan,

coordinate and track specific task in a project. Where it display task as time bars

positioned along a horizontal time scale and one that indicates to project milestones with

the help of indicators.

There are several advantage to the use of Gantt chart, the Gantt chart may contains a

great deal of information, they are easily understood, while it do require frequent

updating, easy to maintain as long as task requirements are not change or major

alterations of the schedule are not made. Other than that it also provide a clear picture of

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the current state of a project and usually give the earliest completion date on the project

and also provide a schedule of earliest possible start and finish time of activities and

useful for monitoring its progress. Where, by doing the Gantt chart the project manager

can know which activity should be done first and what will be the resource should be

used in the activity or can immediately see what should have been achieved at a

particular point in time, and can therefore take remedial action to bring the project back

on course if needed. This can be essential for the successful and profitable

implementation of the large scale project.

The disadvantage on this scientifically method was, the Gantt chart only give the earliest

or latest possible schedule, where it does not show whatever the project is behind the

schedule and does not clarify the effect of delays in one activity on the start of another

activity, thus the project completion time.

Activity on Arrow (AOA) and Activity on Node (AON)

Activity on arrow (AOA) was know as arrow-diagram, deploys arcs for tow distinct

purpose. That is, the arcs of the project network represent both the activities and the

precedence relations between activities. This AOA are more complicated to draw, its must

avoid the activity crossover and must used the dummy activities to avoid crossover

among the activity level.

Activity on node (AON) one of two alternative conventions for the visual representation

of network diagrams, used to plan and analysis project using the rectangles (nodes) to

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represent the activities. AON are easier to draw and create, where is not necessary to used

dummy in activity and allows crossover among the activities.

Both of this activity have a same role in determine the project activity of completion,

where, it display the logical relationship among various activity in project and it let the

project manager to see how the various activity flow towards completion in chronological

orders. Other than that, both of these project also have a role to provides how resources

are utilized in a project for a given time period which could help the manager to perform

resource leveling if necessary.

Other than the advantage, this method also have some disadvantage on it’s usage on the

project scale, where both of this method do not clearly show a time line for a project on

the network diagram. For a large networks it still need to require dedicated maintenance

and analysis, where the networks diagram are not lend themselves to easy reproduction or

distribution. The tools and system under this method can be expensive to acquire and

maintain.

Under this AOA and AON method, there are two scientifically methods that will be used

to get the project done in an appropriate way. The two methods were; time analysis and

critical path methods (CPM). Time analysis is used to determined the expected time

durations to complete the project, where the project manager have to consider the

durations of times in each activity level by adding the time durations to get the expected

time or day to complete one project. The critical path methods are used to determine the

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critical path on the project and design for construction project and had been generally

embraced by the construction industries, where it used to formulate a time frame for a

project in order to determine where potential delays are most likely to occur.

Both of this methods share a same role, where it’s helpful for scheduling, monitoring and

controlling the projects, the activities and the outcome can be shown as a network, and

cab define the critical path on the project. The roles on this method can help the project

manager to easily determine the critical path of the project and know what will be the

expected day for the completion of the project. In terms of completing the large project,

the project manager should know how to use the AOA and AON scientifically methods,

both of this methods are important because it help to analyze the expected time to

complete the project and help to determine the critical path on the project.

Other than the advantage of the both method role, this scientifically method also have

some disadvantage, where both of this method can be complicated and have complexity

increase for large project. Both of this method also does not handle the scheduling of

personnel or the allocation of resource and estimating activity completion times can be

difficult.

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) are designed to analysis the task

involve in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task,

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and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total project. PERT was

developed primarily to simplify the planning and scheduling of large and complex

projects. It was able to incorporate uncertainty by making it possible to schedule a project

while not knowing precisely the details and durations of all the activities. It is more of an

event-oriented technique rather than start- and completion-oriented, and is used more in

R&D-type projects where time, rather than cost, is the major factor.

The role of PERT was, used to determine the expected project completion time, where it

shows the probability of completion before a specified date. Project manager can easily

know what will be the specified date to complete the project by using the PERT method

to analysis the critical path on the project because, the critical path activities are directly

impact the completion time. To complete a large project the project manager should

consider which activities that will provide the critical path and should know how the

critical path will directly impact on the completion time of the project.

The disadvantage on this scientifically method was, the activity times estimates are

somewhat subjective and more depend on the project manager own judgment. Even the

activity times are well-estimated, PERT assume a beta distribution for these time

estimates, but the actual distribution may be different.

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Resource leveling

This methods are used to minimize the cost and main power resourcing, the role of this

methods is used to supervise and monitoring the necessity of labor usage at the specific

task. In this way, the project manager somehow will manage to reduce the cost of main

power.

Other than that, there still have several advantage to smoother the resource range, where

it much less hand-on management is require if use of a given resource is nearly constant

over its period of use. The project manager can arrange to have the resource available

when needed, where they can have the supplier furnish constant amounts, and can

arrange for a back up supplier if available.

If resource usage is within the level, the project manager may be able to use a “just-in

time” inventory policy without much worry that the quality delivered will be wrong. If

the resource being leveled is people, leveling improves morale and result in fewer

problems in the personnel and payroll office because of increasing and decreasing labor

level.

In terms of managerial implications to resource leveling, its also important to cost

implications. When resource are leveled, the associated cost also tend to be leveled, “if

resource use increase as time goes by, and if resource are shifted closer to the present by

leveling, cost will be shifted in the same way” (Jack R. Merdith, 2005)

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Disadvantage for this method was, it is hard to minimize the cost and main power for a

large scale of project in one time, where the project manager need to look into some

factors that will influence the project completion time and need to analysis the needed

main power on the project and have to know that the supplier are being well the needed

resource on the project.

Project Time Reduction and Cost minimization

It used to reducing the total project time that will be considered as the reduction of

critical activity durations by increasing resources. The role of this method was to

minimize the total project cost and to reduce the durations of a critical path in the project.

In term of completing the large project, this method can help the project manger to reduce

the time of completing the project by do reduction on the critical path activity durations

by increasing the resource and minimize the project total cost, to make sure the project

are making profit and zero loss.

Even this method have several advantage, this method also provide disadvantage on its

usage where there will be a new critical path on the project to be appear when the project

completion time had been reduce and need to give concern on the new critical area to

keep on reducing the cost.

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Qualitative skill

Even there is more scientific method to be used in the project; we still need to concern

about the project manager qualitative skill. Where in this qualitative skill involve an in-

depth understanding on human behaviors, management skill and the reasons that govern

human behaviors. This qualitative have a large different between the scientifically

method because it involve more management skill.

In this qualitative skill, there are several characteristic that the project manager should

have, the firs characteristic was interpersonal skill, where they should responsible to

coordinating the effort of the technical staff assigned to the project, by choosing the right

persons to do the project.

Secondly, they should have organizational skill, where the project manager should know

how to manage and organized the project to keep the project done according to the

schedule and within the budget.

Third, they should have a communication skill and problem solving skill; both of these

skills are important characteristic for being a project manger, where the project manager

should have a good communication skill so they can easily negotiate with the suppliers in

terms of to find a resource for the project, and willing to communicate with the workers

to make the project go smoothly. In-terms of that they must be able to effectively handle

the situations to make sure they are not out of control on the problem.

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Forth, the project manager should have a team building spirit; they should have a skill to

creating a team atmosphere where the team believes that “we are all in this together” and

this will lead to the project success because without the team cooperation and support it

will be not easy to complete the project on time.

The fifth characteristic was flexibility and creativity, to get done the project the project

manager should be mo flexible and creative to find a easy way to get the job done or they

can using the “project manager toolbox” effectively will assist in delivering a successful

project.

Other than that, a project manager should knowledgeable, have a leadership skill, and

trustworthiness. Where the project manager must have more knowledge not just on the

project process and resource suppliers, but they should have other knowledge such as

law, legal systems, labor law and human behaviors and other aspect that will give them

advantage to be a perfect project manager. In leadership the project manager should have

a great ability to be a good leader that people can trust and relay or depend on and should

have a great trust amongst the stakeholders and shareholders that involve in the project.

All of the characteristic that had been given are important, where it can lead to the

success of the project other than applying the scientifically method on the project.

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Conclusion

As a conclusion, the usage of scientifically method such as Gantt chart, AOA, AON,

PERT, and Project time reduction and cost minimization are compulsory in order to get

the large project completed timely. Cost factor is another agenda that needs to be

highlighted and it is need to be tackle thoroughly in order to reduce the unnecessary cost

incurs.

the qualitative skill amongst the project manager also need to be concern, because

without the qualitative skills the project manager will not successfully manage the project

based on the scientifically method.

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Reference:

1. Free Management Library, Project Management, available:

http://www.managementhelp.org/plan_dec/project/project.htm

2. Mind Tools, Project management Tools, Gantt chart. Available:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/article/newMN_PPM.htm

3. ibid (PERT)

4. Harvey Maylor,(2001)Project Management, third edition, Prentice

Hill, financial Times.

5. Jack R. Merdith,(2005) Project Management, A Marginal Approach.

John Wiley & Sons.

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