Project management

Project management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, space, etc). Thus, it could be classified into several models: time, cost, scope, and intangibles.

Project management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced.
Compare a project to say, a manufacturing line, which is intended to be a continuous process without a planned end.
Typical projects might include the engineering and construction of a building, or the design, coding, testing and documentation of a computer software program, or development of the science and clinical testing of a new drug. The duration of a project is the time from its start to its completion, which can take days, weeks, months or even years.
In contrast to on-going, functional work, a project is "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result" (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide, Third Edition, Project Management Institute, 2004, p. 5). Projects are temporary because they have a definite beginning and a definite end. They are unique because the product or service they create is different in some distinguishing way from similar products or services.

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management)

Project Management

Project management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, space, etc). Thus, it could be classified into several models: time, cost, scope, and intangibles.

Project management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced.
Compare a project to say, a manufacturing line, which is intended to be a continuous process without a planned end.

Typical projects might include the engineering and construction of a building, or the design, coding, testing and documentation of a computer software program, or development of the science and clinical testing of a new drug. The duration of a project is the time from its start to its completion, which can take days, weeks, months or even years.
In contrast to on-going, functional work, a project is "a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result" (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide, Third Edition, Project Management Institute, 2004, p. 5). Projects are temporary because they have a definite beginning and a definite end. They are unique because the product or service they create is different in some distinguishing way from similar products or services.

CASE

Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) is the use of software tools to assist in the development and maintenance of software. Tools used to assist in this way are known as CASE Tools.
All aspects of the software development lifecycle can be supported by software tools, and so the use of tools from across the spectrum can, arguably, be described as CASE; from project management software through tools for business and functional analysis, system design, code storage, compilers, translation tools, test software, and so on.
However, it is the tools that are concerned with analysis and design, and with utilizing design information to create parts (or all) of the software product, that are most frequently thought of as CASE tools. Such tools arose out of developments such as Jackson Structured Programming and the software modelling techniques promoted by researchers such as Ed Yourdon, Chris Gane and Trish Sarson (see structured programming, SSADM). In this narrower range, CASE applied, for instance, to a database software product, might normally involve:
Modelling business / real world processes and data flow
Development of data models in the form of entity-relationship diagrams
Development of process and function descriptions
Production of database creation SQL and stored procedures
Some typical CASE tools are:
Code generation tools
UML editors and the like
Refactoring tools
Configuration management tools including revision control
CASE tools do not only output code. They also generate other output typical of various systems analysis and design methodolgies such as SSADM. E.g.
database schema
data flow diagrams
entity relationship diagrams
program specifications
user documentation
Sometimes CASE tools are separated in two groups:
Upper CASE: Tools for the analyse and design phase of the software development lifecycle (diagraming tools, report and form generators, analysis tools)
Lower CASE: Tools to support implementation, testing, configuration management

PERT Chart

PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) charts were first developed in the 1950s by the US Navy to help manage very large, complex projects (such as Polaris) with a high degree of intertask dependency. PERT charts often used in project management to identify the "critical chain", or the longest path through a project.

Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a popular type of bar chart, that aims to show the timing of tasks or activities as they occur over time. Although the Gantt chart did not initially indicate the relationships between activities this has become more common in current usage as both timing and interdependencies between tasks can be identified.
In project management, a Gantt chart can show when the project terminal elements start and finish, summary elements (shown) or terminal element dependencies (not shown). A terminal element is defined as the smallest task tracked as part of the project effort.
Since the initial introduction of Gantt charts, they have become an industry standard as a key project management tool for representing the phases, tasks and activities that are scheduled as part of a project Work Breakdown Structure or timeline of activities.

Critical Path Analysis (CPA)

For the project management sense of path analysis, see critical path and PERT.
In statistics, path analysis refers to a particular type of multiple regression.
In Internet website analytics, path analysis refers to a process of determining a sequence of pages visited in a visitor session prior to some desired event, such as the visitor purchasing an item or requesting a newsletter. The precise order of pages visited may or may not be important and may or may not be specified. In practice this analysis is done in aggregate, ranking the paths (sequences of pages) visited prior to the desired event, by descending frequency of use. The idea is to determine what features of the website encourage the desired result. "Fallout analysis," a subset of path analysis, would look at "black holes" on the site, or paths that lead to a dead end most frequently, paths or features that confuse or lose potential customers.

Work Breakdown Structure

In project management, a work breakdown structure (WBS) is an exhaustive, hierarchical (from general to specific) tree structure of deliverables and tasks that need to be performed to complete a project.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. Strengths and weaknesses are internal to an organization. Opportunities and threats originate from outside the organization. A SWOT analysis, usually performed early in the project development process, helps organizations evaluate the environmental factors and internal situation facing a project.
Strengths and weaknesses are attributes that measure the business's internal capability. Opportunities and threats refer to how the external environment affects the business's team/business/group.
Ideally a cross-functional team or a task force that represents a broad range of perspectives should carry out SWOT analyses. For example, a SWOT team may include an accountant, a salesperson, an executive manager, an engineer, and an ombudsman

Project management

Project management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, space, etc). Thus, it could be classified into several models: time, cost, scope, and intangibles.

Classifications of Subsystems

(1) Open vs closed systems
(2) Open loop vs closed loop systems
(3) Deterministic vs probabilistic systems
(4) Self-........?

System & Subsystem

A system consists of many subsystems integrated as a whole for a specific task. For example, VTC (our school, the Vocational Training Council, http://www.vtc.edu.hk) is a system of vocational training in Hong Kong, with many subsystems, say, IVE (Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education, SBI (the Business Institue), PEAK (for management studies).

SADM - Systems Analysis and Design

I am a lecturer of the Intstute of Vocational Education (IVE), Vocational Training Council (VTC), teaching the Business Administration Department (BA) Accounting Information Systems (AIS) 2nd year students SADM. This blogspot sets an example on how we teach and learn via a blog.