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Project management

Computing (Non-GCSE)

Y11 Computing (Non-GCSE)

Key Stage 4

Year 11

Non-Computer Science

THEME

UNIT

In this lesson, we will introduce the concept of project management. We will learn about the project management methods that can be used, and we will consider why it is important to employ effective project management strategies.

What is project management

﻿Welcome, my name is Steve and I'm your Computing Teacher. This Unit is called IT Project Management. And in Lesson One, we'll be answering the question what is project management? You'll need a notepad and something to write with to take some notes. It's also really good if you can remove all distractions, make sure you've got a drink. Make sure you're comfortable and ready to begin. So in this lesson, you will define the term project management. Identify why project management is important and select appropriate project management methodologies. Let's start with task one, Read the scenario on task one on the worksheets and decide how you would lead this project. Think carefully and there are some prompt questions on the worksheet for you. Pause this video and complete the task. So what would you do? Here's a possible solution, a possible idea for you. The three remaining members of the group first needs to be given some sort of job. I would probably give one person research. One person, graphic design. And one person, the opportunity to write a script, or possibly a musical school. A timeline for the completion of those tasks should also be produced. And then if it was me, I'd schedule some meetings then to make sure that everyone is meeting deadlines and hitting those milestones. The timeline could look something like this. So lesson one, you decide who is doing what and when for, you create a timeline and everyone starts their individual tasks. And lesson two, I'd probably start by assessing the progress. Identifying where the support is needed, and alter the plans to meet their needs. In lesson three, I'd have a good draught of the animation ready by now. Look for the issues and note down what is going well, but remember to act on the issues, don't just wait down, find solutions. And finally have the animation complete by lesson four, and by the end of that lesson, you also want to have received feedback and started to make some key improvements. So, important question, what is project management? Well, project management is knowing what your goals are. It's knowing what the skills are in your team and how's best use your team. Is knowing what timescale is involved with the completion of the project, how long it's going to take you, what's your deadline? It's all about allocating tasks and deadlines to the right members of your team. If you've got someone in your team who's got a skill in this particular place, use that skill. So if there's a fly, flying might pass me. Monitoring the completion of different tasks is also really important and managing your resources. Let's have a look at different methods though. The first method is the waterfall methods. In the waterfall method, a project will flow from start to finish in one direction only. So it needs a lot of planning in the early stages. There was a sort of process. You start by analysing and identifying the user requirements. What does the user actually want from you? Then you sit and you design, you plan. Once you've got the planning in place, you implement your plan and you execute the task itself. Then, once the task is complete, you begin to test it, does what you've created actually work. And finally you evaluate it by seeking feedback from people, feedback from the user and that gives you an opportunity to learn and grow and change again. If the requirements of the project are really clear at the start, and it's not likely to need any changes, this is the method most people follow. This method of project planning began in software development. For example, antivirus software, you know, you need to get rid of the virus. You know, you've got to identify certain viruses, the actual individual parts of antivirus software, very clear, or the outcomes are going to be. Similarly payment, gateways, online shopping platforms, both of those things, absolutely perfect examples. There are some key advantages. For example, each state must be perfected before moving on. The structure of the project is really easy to follow. This results in a much better end products, there's no confusion. And because there's lots of planning at the start it's document heavy, which means new workers can easily be bought in to complete it. However, they've also disadvantages as well, for example, it lacks flexibility. If something changes, if one of the requirements change, you do need to start again from the very beginning. And because of that, the project might not be completed on time. It really relies heavily on those initial stages, the planning stages and identifying these user requirements being correct and accurate. It's note-taking time. Complete task two on the worksheet to make notes about the waterfall method, by filling in the gaps, answering questions and competing a table of advantages and disadvantages. Pause the video and return when you finish. Method two is the agile method. In the agile methods of project management, we have the opposite of waterfall methods. In this one, you can get started with your project really quickly, making regular adjustments when requirements change. The way it works is that you complete small parts of the project in priority order before quickly moving on to the next one. And each part of the project is referred to you as a sprint. It's best use when the end outcome is fixed, but how you get there is not fixed. And just like the waterfall method, the end outcome is based on the user needs and requirements. This approach also started in software development. So when is it used? We plan and design a roadmap map is created a features that make up the finished product. One of the features has been released as a sprint for the project team to deliver before the next feature is released. Each team member is then allocated a components of a sprint to compete. This is visualised so that all team members understand what the others are doing. One of the possible disadvantages here is they have to be short daily meetings to discuss where each team member is with that task and what we are going to do next. Because it's not so straightforward, you have to go from start to finish with waterfall, but this one for agile, you can't just go from start to finish. It does depend on where everyone is and you do need to communicate really well. The last step normally of each sprint is a test, you test and you share it with the client. The client will then provide you some feedback. You might get some notes about changes, and then you keep going round and round until each sprint fully meets what the client requires. Then you start the next sprint and the cycle starts again. So advantages, there are no fixed stages or focus on requirements, which means there was plenty of scope of flexibility and creativity. There was less risk of project failure. After a lot of opportunities to get feedback from the clients, and there's greater freedom to be creative. However, the lack of a fixed plan does make resource management tricky and resources include your team members. Because of this, you do require more meetings and like I mentioned, these meeting can take up valuable time. For this particular method with each sprint, the client is involved. So the client does need to be, and willing to be involved, willing to be closely included in what's going on, which means they need to have the time to do that. Let's do some more note-taking. Kindly, complete tasks three on the worksheet to make some notes about the agile methods. Answer the questions, complete the table of advantages and disadvantages, and then return here. Pause the video, I'll be here when you get back. Method three, the hybrid method. This method combines the best of the waterfall and the best of the agile methods. It starts like the waterfall method by analysing the requirements of the project, but then uses the flexibility of the agile methods. And it focuses on sprints until the project is complete. Is normally used to medium sized projects with a fixed budget. But start of the project is carried out to plenty of detail, just like the waterfall projects. You gather, the project resources and you select your team with necessary skills so that you know you can complete this project successfully. It's really good for projects that do need some flexibility. Planning will be more detailed at the early stage, and there will be a detailed timeline for the complexion of activities but the activities can be prioritised in a sort of logical order and sectioned off as sprints. Sometimes the client wants to be involved, but maybe they haven't got as much spare time as you want them to have. that this, it could be that more than one sprint has completed before your client sees what's going on. The hybrid approach means you can continue without the client's involvement after each sprint. Testing may take place only on the completion of the projects. Or it can take place at different stages of sprint completion too. If the client does have notes, you can repeat the cycle, missing out that first stage of detailed planning. Again, this particular method started out as a software development management system. It does have some really good advantages, structured planning at the start means that you can easily manage your resources. There is also a lot more flexibility past that planning stage, which does allow for creativity when the waterfall method doesn't. Subtle changes can be made without impacts on the initial requirements. However, any changes you do make must still comply with that plan's timetable. It can be difficult to track the progress of deliverables when everyone's working in different sections, which means often you have more paperwork involved so that people can communicate. Paperwork and meetings often take valuable time away from the actual task in hand. People mostly get very frustrated with paperwork and really frustrated with meetings, so this method it's worth bearing that in mind. Time for note-taking. Complete task four on the worksheet to make notes about the hybrid methods and answer the questions. Complete the table of advantages and disadvantages. Pause the video and come back when you're ready. Our last method today is the critical path method. This method involves identifying the component parts of a project, assigning a priority to each part. In other words, what parts have to be completed before you can move on, and which ones don't have to be completed before you can move on. You then structure the order the project takes place by looking at those parts. Sometimes there were some bits that can happen alongside others, which makes you more efficient. You allocate a timeframe for each part of the project so that you know when you hit your target. Now, unlike the previous three methods, this particular method was originated in skyscraper development, not software development. It is more likely to be used when a project has essential components that must be completed with other parts that can run alongside. The advantage of this is efficiency, the requirements of mapping out the time at which an activity will take place does mean you can really effectively deploy all your resources. Because you're identifying critical and non-critical activities. Your schedule is much tighter. And if activity C has to be completed before activity F priority can be given through activity C. And that means activities D and E can run alongside. For example, let's just say you want to make an omelette. If we follow the moose along the top of the screen, that route is the essential part, the critical path. If we follow the top route, we beat some eggs. We heat the pan, adding butter or oil when it gets hot. And then we pour in the beaten eggs and cook for five minutes. At the end, you get to eat your omelette. The bottom line, are the things that are not essential to making an omelette, but they can happen alongside. So adding a seasoning is really important, but if you do add some seasoning into the beaten eggs, its also a good idea, it improves it. You might want to fry some onions up or some peppers, into the pan so that the flavour goes into the oil. And when you pour the eggs into the next step, it pours over the veg and it tastes really nice. This could become ideally a smith moment now. Next, you might want to put some cheese on top of the beaten eggs, once they've started solidifying, stick it onto a grill maybe and really heat it up. Maybe put some spring onions on top and a sprinkle or something. It just makes it much more interesting and much more delicious. And at the end of course, you still got to eat the omelette. If I follow the non-critical path, I don't get an omelette. Seasoning, veg and cheese doesn't make an omelette. The critical path is at the top of the page. It does have some disadvantages. It is really important to have a project management experience, to really successful implement critical path management. The time taken to perform activities can sometimes be longer than expected, which can derail the project. Let's say that you're heating the pan with butter and oil. You add some vegetables in, and then you pour in the beaten eggs. Maybe those vegetables weren't fully cooked. Maybe the peppers that you put in were from the freezer. And that means the eggs take a little bit longer to cook. Your omelette might be a bit late, meaning you're late for an evening meeting or going out or something or late for lunch. It can derail things very quickly. It's important to manage your time. It's also less flexible because there are key things and you can't move on. It's a bit like the waterfall methods, just slightly more efficient in your use of time with the secondary activities. It's note-taking time. Complete task five on the worksheet to make notes about the critical path methods, defining critical path in your own words, making a simple diagram and then completing the table of advantage and disadvantages. Pause the video and come back when you're ready. Finally, what is project management? Well, a quick question, just to give you an idea, we've got the waterfall method, the one that flows from the start to the finish, we have the agile method where you can begin with any part of the project. We have the hybrid method, which is a combination of the other two. And the critical path method will be organised tasks into critical and non-critical separate paths. But which one of these did not originate from software development? You might remember that one of them had a skyscraper link. I'll give you a few seconds. Now the answer. If you chose critical path method, you are absolutely correct. The critical path method was the one that originated from skyscrapers development, not software development. Well done for remembering that key fact, if you didn't don't panic, jot it down now. All will be well. It will be really good before next session to research a few more, really good management methods that we haven't had time to cover today. Scrum, critical chain project management and integrated project management, and the last one, PRiSM. I'll let you work out what those letters stand for yourself in your research. See if you can spot what the similarities are and the differences. And if you can work out what some of the advantages are and the disadvantages. And don't forget, share your work with Oak National, make sure you ask permission first. Use the hashtag #LearnwithOak or tagging @OakNational. I'll see you in Lesson Two.

In this lesson, we will learn that project management methods follow a project life cycle that includes four or more stages including initiation, planning, execution, and evaluation. In this lesson, and over the next few lessons, we will complete the 'Delicious Desserts' project brief to practise each stage of the project management cycle. We will also learn about the critical parth method and practise using it.

Initiate a project

﻿Welcome. My name is Steve and I'm your computing teacher. In this unit, we're looking at IT project management. And this is lesson two, initiate a project. Make sure you've got something to write with and something to write on, and your notes from the last session as well. It's also good to make sure there are no distractions nearby so that you can focus completely on this lesson. Amazing. Let's go. In this unit, we are analysing a project brief, identifying the user requirements of a project and evaluating the constraints of a project. Now at the end of the last session, we asked you to look into four other forms of project management. Let's have a look at those now. The first one was Scrum. Scrum is an approach to the agile project management method. It is team focused, which means it doesn't necessarily need a team leader. There is a sense of doing sprints together still. It's still sprint focus. The second method we asked you to look at was the critical chain project management method. This method was a newer form of critical path project management. This time you work backwards from the end goal to identify the things that you can deliver. Past experience allows for an improved efficiency when mapping tasks. And resources are focused on the task at hand, rather than multitasking. The third method was the integrated project management method. This is commonly used in creative industries. There is an emphasis on standardising and sharing processes. Project managers have a better insight into the whole creative projects, and it normally works best for large complex projects. And finally, we asked you to look at PRiSM. This is project integrating sustainable methods. Focus is on the impacts to the environment of the end product and how to minimise it. The entire life cycle of the project is accounted for including post-production. All team members need to be on board with the concept of sustainable project delivery. So what four things do all those project management methods have to do? All of them need an initiation, all of them need planning, all of them need to be executed, and all of them need to be evaluated. This is known as a project life cycle. We're going to start today by analysing the project brief. This is the initiation stage, the first stage of any project. It is essential that you understand what the product is about before anything else happens. If you're not quite sure of something you might misunderstand. And misunderstandings can waste time further down the line. But what does analyse actually mean? The online Cambridge Dictionary gives this definition, "To study or examine something in detail, in order to discover more about it." How can we apply this? Well, over the next few lessons, we'll going to be looking at a project for an imaginary business called Delicious Desserts. I want you to imagine that they have a small and very popular shop, and they would like to extend their service to offer an online ordering and delivery service. In this instance, we have a written for you a project brief for you to analyse. So, here's some techniques that you can use to identify key aspects of the brief. One thing you could do is make a list of key points as you are reading. You might also like to highlight key parts of the text whilst you are reading. So, we are going to ask you to read through the project brief for task one. Again, just to give you an idea, you could look through that second paragraph as an example, read through it carefully, and then highlight key phrases. They clearly want an integrated system. Highlight other phrases like this one, stock control and sales to calculate any profit made in a week, a month and a year. So there are three different ways they want to calculate the max in their spreadsheet and their solution, Or you might make a list. integrated system, which is something we highlighted. Control stock and calculate profit and loss in those three ways. Again, in a moment, look at task one, read through the brief and analyse it, either highlighting it or writing a list of the key elements. Pause the video now and complete the task. So, what are the user requirements? These are the things that project brief is asking you to do. It means identifying specifically what the user wants to see as the outcomes of the project. If we have a look at the highlighted list you completed, the first thing that we can say that is of a user requirement, is that they want an integrated system. But what does integrated system actually mean? Let's look at the current situation to help you decide. At the moment they've got two separate spreadsheets for pricing and stock control. At the moment, pricing is not really accurate, as the running costs aren't actually included. And sometimes unfortunately they run out of ingredients. The user wants these separate sheets combined, creating an integrated and all in one system. This all in one system would combine the stock control and pricing spreadsheets. It would prevent running out of stock by using a colour to indicate when stock is running low. And as we've mentioned, it would calculate profits and loss daily, weekly and annually. This is just one of those requirements, but else does the project brief say the wants? They also require a digital interactive dessert selector using a tablet. And they've requested two posters to advertise. Firstly, the online ordering and delivery service and secondly, the interactive dessert selector. So, what have we got so far? Hopefully you now have a highlighted text or a list of key requirements. Is this list an effective way of presenting your thoughts and ideas to your manager? We're now going to explore your next step, the feasibility report. This is a document used in project management that assesses whether a project can be completed successfully. It considers technical, legal, time, resource and financial aspects. All of these are crucial in identifying whether a project is actually feasible. So, here's the task. We would like you to create your own report. Can you use the template provided to start your feasibility report by filling in the first two sections, the introduction and the use of requirements. At this point, you do not need to complete the what needs to be done column. You can leave that for later. So for the introduction, look carefully the brief, what does it tell you about the company? You could start your introduction by saying something like this, Delicious Desserts own a small shop where they sell desserts based on waffles, cookie dough and cheesecakes. What else could you include? For the ideas as well, what they want to offer customers. Maybe online ordering and delivery, maybe you want to mention that there's an interactive system for customers to help them choose a dessert. Maybe you want to mention what they want for the business, improve stock control and pricing. And it's probably worth mentioning the timeframe in which the project needs to be completed. So pause the video and complete the task. Over to you. So, constraints. These are the things that might hold us back. It's useful to have a prior awareness of things that might go wrong in a project. By identifying these things early, steps can be put in place to help prevent things going wrong. The project could be delayed. Incomplete analysis of the brief could lead to a user requirement being misinterpreted. Or a lack of skills within the team might mean that some training is required before you start. The technical term for things that could prevent the success of a project is constraints. Constraints and the things that can be done to prevent them happening, can be presented in a risk assessment table. So, here's some constraints for Delicious Desserts. Maybe your team's forgotten how to use spreadsheets effectively. Maybe somebody becomes ill so they're time off the project, and that means there's delays to the project. Maybe the images you're using might break copyright law. And maybe the user might phone up and say, "Can there be a change?" How easy will it be to instigate that change? How can we prevent these things from happening? Well, maybe reviewing your spreadsheet skills before a project starts would prevent that being a problem. In terms of a illness, maybe make sure there's some buffer time planned, so if something goes wrong, you've got some spare time to catch up. With regards to the changes to the project, getting feedback from the client early on might make sure that those changes aren't impacting later on in the project. And when it comes to breaking copyright law, it's always going to use copyright free images or take your own photographs. Now these constraints to a project needs to be identified and allocated a risk level, linked to the likelihood of the event occurring. It can be high, medium or low. These are then presented in a table, with the things that you're going to do to try and minimise or prevent the risk. For example, the risk with a limited resource skills using spreadsheets. The level of that risk is medium. What are we going to do to mitigate that risk? We're going to review prior learning and access some training. Task three, complete the feasibility report. Complete the constraints table and the conclusion on your feasibility report, to complete this aspect of initiating a project. Over to you. Pause the video while you complete your task. Task four, the task list. Using the worksheet, create a list of tasks that need to be carried out to complete Delicious Desserts project. These tasks will be formed from the user of requirements you have identified today. Again, pause the video to complete your task. Make sure you share your work with Oak National, tagging @OakNational or #LearnwithOak and make sure you get your permission from parents or carers before you do that. I'll see you in the next lesson.

In this lesson, we will discuss the creation of SMART goals (objectives). We will also introduce the concept of integration and iteration of stages within a project. Iteration of stages is particularly relevant if the agile or hybrid method is used, as the success of these methods relies on stages being repeated.

Initiate and plan a project

﻿Welcome, and my name is Steve, and I'm your computing teacher. This unit is IT project management. And in lesson three, we're looking at initiating and planning a project. You'll need your notes from the last couple of sessions on delicious desserts. And if there's anything that might distract you, make sure you remove it now. In today's lesson, we are going to be identifying objects relating to a project. We're going to be developing objectives into smart goals, and we're going to be defining iteration and interaction. Task one, let's get straight in there. Use the following words to fill in the blanks on your worksheet. Pause the video and complete your task. So let's get started with the task list. Why create a task list? At the end of lesson two, you were asked to produce a task list for the delicious desserts project brief. By creating a list of tasks that will meet the requirements of the project brief, you can begin to develop objectives that will support planning for the project. But what are objectives? Objectives are sub-parts of the aims we have identified as the user requirements. So, our aims are to have an integrated system, an interactive dessert selection tool and some advertising posters. Why do we set objectives though? So far we've considered the aims, the requirements of the project. We know what needs to be achieved, but we don't know how we're going to achieve it. To be successful, we need to have more specific tasks to complete. We set objectives to ensure all the elements needed to complete the task successfully are planned for. So we're going to look at the first aim, an integrated system. How? Well, we could use Google Sheets to create a workbook. What? To collate all finance into one workbook. And why are we doing it? To make the system efficient and generate effective pricing. So let's have a look at the how in more detail. We're going to create a workbook using Google Sheets that has a home page. We've linked to things like the stock in store, reordering prompts on the same page. Maybe some running costs, dessert costs and those vital daily, monthly and annual profits and loss things that the client has asked for. So let's have a look at task two, some aims and objectives. We would like you to complete the aims and objectives worksheet you've been given for the following aims. Interactive dessert selection tool and the advertising posters. Pause the video to complete your task. So we're going to set some smart goals. You may have heard of these before. Smart goals are specific, they are measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Why are they important though? The quality of the goals of objective set will determine the success or failure of a project. Week goals will affect the planning process. And this in turn will impact upon the execution of your task. If your goals weren't in good enough, the final product may not meet the user requirements, meaning the project has failed. Let's have a look at each one, specific goals. I mean, that the end product will meet the clearly defined requirements of the clients. This is also used to monitor the progress of the project. What have you done so far that relates to the specific goals? Well, you have already completed the aims and objective worksheet, which gives specific tasks that need to be completed. Make sure you have that to hand. Measurable. If goals and objectives are not measurable, how will you know if the project has been completed successfully? Well, each sheet in the workbook must be tested to check for any formula work. That's really important. You need to know that the resources you have, including the people, people are also resources, can complete the tasks assigned to them. What parts of this project can cause you an issue? Creating that workbook might be a challenge. It might need skills that you're not quite confident with yet. Realistic. It is important to set challenging goals and objectives, but not ones that are so hard that they cannot be completed. Without support from worksheets and guides, would this project be realistic for you to complete in a set time? Well, possibly unrealistic as the time available for this project is limited to lesson times. And finally, timely. Each task of a project must have a start and end date or time allocated to it to ensure the project is completed within the given timescale provided in the project brief. So what timescale have you been given in this brief? Yeah, the project brief says eight weeks. So smart goals interact and interlink. When you write smart goals, you will find that they cover more than one of the smart targets. For example, having one hour to enter data into recipe cost sheet. One hour is our time. What we're doing in that hour is specific to this particular task. So task three, we're going to ask you to create some smart goals. Use the worksheet provided and your objective sheet. You need to identify which aspects of SMART are met by the goals you set. So for example, using the ingredients listed on the project, we've created a stock control sheet for the workbook. This target is both S, M, A and R. There's no actual mention of time in there, so we can't write the letter T. Pause the video to complete your task. What did you come up with? Here were three of ours. Use conditional formatting to indicate if the stock is running low and an if statement, indicating stock needs to be reordered. Again, no time mentioned, it's S, M, A and R. Use the sample data from the brief to create a running cost sheet. Same again, and finally, design the layout of the interactive presentation using a diagram to show links between slides. You might want to add to and improve your own SMART goals based on these examples. Let's move on to planning and designing. This feels like planning now. The reason it feels like planning is because defining SMART goals is the final elements of the initiation stage. The end of the initiation stage interacts with the planning phase. Once the feasibility report is shared with the clients, the initiation stage may start again. This is iteration. Let's focus on interaction first. Interaction in the project lifecycle occurs between initiation and planning, planning and execution, execution and evaluation. If a stage must be repeated due to user feedback, we call this process iteration. This is usually found in project management methods such as agile and hybrid. Remember, with the waterfall method, we go from start to finish. There isn't normally feedback in the middle of a project and therefore, iteration isn't normally found in the waterfall method. Now, we have already performed some iteration during our development of smart goal buy going back, checking through them. Are you ready to start planning? Now that we have a set of SMART goals, we can start the planning stage. Planning uses a variety of tools that can allocate your tasks and resources, identify milestones, which are setting out when each task must be completed by, and creating a visual depiction of the end product. You are going to do this last bit today, creating that visual depiction of the end product. So, task four, use the poster designs worksheet to plan the design of the two posters for delicious desserts. Think carefully about who the target audience is, what is being advertised, the layout of the poster and what colour scheme you will use. We refer to this colour scheme as the house style. We'll look at this more soon. Pause the video to complete your task. Well done. Make sure you share your work with Oak National by tagging @OakNational or #LearnwithOak. Do ask your parents permission to that first before you do that. We'll see you in the next lesson.

In this lesson, we will begin to understand the different methods used for planning a project, as well as focusing on digitally available tools and analysing their advantages and disadvantages.

Tools for planning

﻿Welcome, my name is Steve, and I'm your computing teacher. In this unit, we're looking at IT project management, and this is Lesson 4: Tools for Planning. Make sure you have the work we've done from previous lessons. Pause the video quickly if you haven't got that and get them ready. You will need it today. Also, make sure that you've got nothing to distract you so that you can stay fully focused on the tasks we're doing. Let's go. In this lesson, you are going to create a Gantt chart and a PERT chart. I'll explain what those are later on. And you're going to be using some evaluating tools for planning. So this is all about planning for time. Why do we incorporate time in planning tools? We have seen that time is a part of SMART goals, and if it missed out, the project is likely to fail. Most projects have a team that will work on it and a clear start and end date with date and time milestones. With this in mind, having time linked to tasks mapped out over the course of a project means that the project manager can keep track of the progress of a project. It also means that team members have a clear understanding of how long they have to complete the task. And when some tasks can be carried out at the same time as others. There are lots of digital tools we can use, but we're going to focus on two: Gantt and PERT charts. There are websites that you can use to produce these charts with templates provided. Let's focus on Gantt charts first. A Gantt chart presents each task as a block of time. It shows how much time it will take to complete a task. A Gantt chart shows which tasks are dependent on another one being completed before they can begin. It also shows which tasks can be completed at the same time as others, in other words, concurrently. A Gantt chart also shows the buffer or contingency time. Extra time should be included in every project just in case. It highlights key aspects of the project that needs to be completed at a specific time, the milestones. So here is a Gantt chart that has been started for you. In that first column is the work breakdown structure, the WBS. In the second column is the task breakdown linked to the SMART goals. If you look in that first column, Project initiation has been labelled as section 1, and then the project initiation has been split into separate tasks, each with a numbered code, the work breakdown structure number. In the next column along, we then got the task owner, a start time, a due time, and a duration. And the last bit is calculated using functions, a PCT, the percentage of the task that is complete. So that section would be automated in some way based on the information you've put in on your start time and due time. The last section is the lessons time broken into 10-minutes slots, presuming we didn't forget that we have four lessons to complete the task in. As you can see, the green squares are spread out to demonstrate where and when each of those things will be completed. If you were working on a team, you would name the person responsible for the task in the Task Owner column. In the example, the tasks for the initiation stage have been broken into 10-minute slots. The start time for each consecutive task is the same as the due time of the previous task. The duration of the task is labelled very clearly, and that duration section is calculated automatically based on the start and due time you've put in. Let's have a look at PERT chart as an alternative. PERT stands for Project Evaluation Review Technique. This one uses rectangles or circles to represent tasks, and these are called nodes. They are numbered according to the task number. These shapes then link using arrows. The arrows indicate the path and the order in which tasks should be completed. They also indicate the time to be taken between tasks. It identifies dependent tasks. In this example, task 5 cannot start until both tasks 3 and 4 are complete. It also represents tasks that can run concurrently. So for example, 3 and 4 can run at the same time. Here's our example. For number one, we analyse the brief. Step two, identify the user requirements. Step three and four can happen at the same time, identifying user constraints and creating the feasibility report. Step five, create those SMART goals. And step six, we deliver to the team. Here's an example in a bit more detail. We have a numbered task list. We have clear nodes indicating what those tasks are and arrows with time on them to show how long each task will take. In reality, the initiation stage is normally much longer than this, but this is an example. Task 1, create a PERT chart. Create your own PERT chart for the Delicious Desserts project. You will need to create a numbered task list, format your chart to meet the house style you identified in the planning task in Lesson 3. Remember, the house style are the colours and fonts that you would use. And allocate sufficient time to complete the tasks. Pause the video now to complete your task. Gantt versus PERT. The advantages of a Gantt chart are that they help you organise your thoughts. Comments can be added during the run of the project, and it has the potential to set realistic timeframes. The project tasks are shown against time in blocks, and it is highly visible to everyone in a team. The advantages of a PERT chart, however, are that they are useful for planning large projects. They support activity analysis, breaking down activities into much smaller components, and they answer the what if questions. It is easy to identify which tasks are dependent and which are concurrent, and timescales can be planned accurately. However, disadvantages of a Gantt chart include as the task time is estimated, the plan may be unrealistic. The size of the bar per task does not indicate the amount of work needed. A Gantt chart can be difficult to see on one sheet of paper, and it can be difficult to see the dependencies. Meanwhile, with a PERT chart, it can take a lot of time to develop an accurate PERT chart. And if you lack experience in creating one, you might end up with an overly complex chart with inaccurate timings, which means it has the potential to become incredibly confusing. So, Task 2, choose a project planning tool. Which tool for project planning would you prefer to use? I want you to explain why and use the worksheet provided to record your thoughts. Pause the video to complete your task. Well done, make sure you share your work with Oak National if your parents give you permission, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. See you in Lesson 5.

In this lesson, we will complete the execution stage of the project life cycle. The activities to be completed will be the visual components requested in the project brief. These are the digital dessert selection tool and the two advertising posters.

Carry out a project

﻿Welcome, my name is Steve. And I'm your competing teacher. This is IT project management. And in today's lesson, we're going to be carrying out a sample project. Make sure you've got your resources from the past few lessons with you, and also make sure that you remove all distractions so that you can focus on today's lesson fully. Let's get going. In this lesson, we're going to be defining some key terms, following a design plan, creating some visual media and then assessing the effectiveness of the visual elements. Let's get started by matching the definition, task one. Go to the worksheet and complete task one, matching the definitions to the key terms. Pause the video to complete your task. Let's see how you got on. Audience should have matched to a group of people for whom the prepared media is intended. Your audience are the people who are going to be looking at what you're doing. The user isn't necessarily the audience, the customer might be the audience. So getting the audience right is really important. The purpose, this is what the media is being created for. For example, is it there entertain? Is it there to access something really easily? What is it actually being used for? Interactive, this is defined as allowing a two way flow of information between a user and a computer. If I'm watching something, that's a passive activity, I want an active activity to be doing something, but also to interact, to go one step further and to be able to choose what's going on and to have responses come back to me. Dependent task, a dependent task is one that relies on the previous task being completed before it can begin. It's really important to get the previous task done before you start the next one. A concurrent task however, is a task that is being completed at the same time as another one. That means that two tasks can happen at the same time. Multitasking, something that I've got to admit, I'm not that good at myself. And the house style, this is the company's preferred manner of presentation. For example, in the bottom of each of the screens that you see on the Oak National Academy is a small graphic. That is on every single one. There's consistency in the fonts, consistency in the style, there is consistency in the approach that we're using the entire time and the colours that you see, that is the Oak National Academy house style. Let's follow a design plan. So we're going to be creating the visual products for Delicious Desserts, starting with the interactive dessert selector. We're going to be talking through the idea of this today, rather than actually creating the real thing, to give an example and a feel for how running a project might look. We're going to have hyperlinked slides that will take customers to a final dessert option, based on their answers to questions about their preferences. For example, do you prefer chocolate or fruit? By answering the question, it will lead the customer to the next stage of their choices. Although I've got to be honest, the perfect answer to do you prefer chocolate or fruit is both, and eat a chocolate raisin. So here's an example of a path. At the top, do you prefer chocolate or fruit? If they choose fruit, you follow down that path. Do you prefer cheesecake or waffles? Follow down the waffle path. And then recommend a strawberry waffle at the end. It's looked at what the customer would like, and it's given a recommendation. So before you start building the dessert selector, you would need to plan the structure of the slides and you would do this by completing a hierarchy diagram, Like the one which I showed on the screen. These boxes represent the first screen the customer will see, followed by the first option box. As you can see, an extra box is now at the top. That is your first screen. The remaining boxes have more either or questions that continue until the suggested dessert is presented. Before you build your dessert selector tool, you need to plan the questions you will ask as the customer moves through, this task two. Your first question could ask the client when they need help choosing their dessert. To complete this task, use the template in task two. Here's some ideas to keep you going. Your questions should each have only two possible answers. For example, do you need help? Yes or no. Do you prefer chocolate or strawberries? It's one or the other. And do you prefer cheesecake or waffles? Again, it's one or the other, these are closed questions. Pause the video to complete your task. Brilliant, let's apply the house style. We are going to build or create a hypothetical slides document. Each slide needs to have consistency in the design. We need to ensure that the colours, font style and sizes that are chosen remain consistent. You may have noticed that all the slides in the National Academy follow their own house style, even down to the logo in the bottom corner. This screen, the front screen asks the customer if they need help choosing a dessert. Graphics and colours show consistency. Can you support something that doesn't look right? Hint, something's been reversed. Yeah, if you spotted it, top corner, if you look at the graphic, the question marks are now the wrong way round. The graphic has been flipped, in evaluations stage, you might argue that that needs to be corrected. That the individual question marks should be corrected, else it looks a little bit odd on the screen. What about setting up the buttons? So if we were going to set up this software, we would click on the button we were going to link. We make sure we selected from the slide from this presentation, finding the correct number, and that creates the hyperlink. Then we would test the links. It's really important that we always check that links work as intended. And even if it's frustrating, we need to follow every single possible path to ensure that there are no glitches. We have to check that the graphics stay in the same place. If on a different slide all of a sudden, one picture has moved slightly to the right or moved slightly to the left, even if it's only by one pixel, it shows up when you change slides. Consistency is incredibly important. People notice small details. So it'd be great if you could share your work from today with Oak National, by tagging @OakNational or #LearnWithOak, make sure you ask your parent or carer first.

In this lesson, we evaluate the success of a project. We will recall the project life cycle, use SMART goals to evaluate success, use testing to evaluate success, and then use feedback to evaluate success.

Evaluate a project

﻿Welcome. My name is Steve and I'm your Computing teacher. This unit is IT Project Management. And in this lesson, we're going to be looking at how to evaluate a project. Make sure you get your resources from previous lessons to look at alongside your notes and make sure you've removed all distractions, so that you can fully focus on the lesson. Let's go. In today's lesson we're going to start off by recalling the project life cycle and then we're going to be evaluating success using three different methods. Our SMART goals, testing, and feedback. But first let's be recall the product cycle. There were five questions here which are going to displayed on the screen in a moment as well. I would like you to answer each of those questions. Pause the video and complete your task. Let's look at some answers. The four stages of the project life cycle. Initiate, plan, execute and evaluate and it's evaluate that we're looking at today. Question two, the tools that we can use are the Gantt chart, and the PERT chart which we spoke about in previous sessions. Sketches and mood boards, which you may have seen in artists' areas. Which stage are SMART goals set? The initiation stage at the very beginning. Very early on, we set those goals so that we know how to evaluate what we're doing. In a feasibility report, I would expect to see an analysis of the brief, some user requirements, constraints, risk assessments and those SMART goals. What does integration between stages mean? It means when one part of a stage flows into the next for example, the SMART goals we create in initiation stage lead into the planning stage. The two things are connected. They are integrated. Let's look at those SMART goals now to evaluate success. How would you know whether you've been successful in meeting your use requirements outlined in the feasibility report you created in the initiation stage? Well, you created measurable SMART goals. These should have been included in your time-focused plan using either a Gantt or PERT chart. For example, using the ingredients listed on the product brief, create a stock control sheet for the workbook. Time allowed, 10 minutes. Now, if you have created a stock control sheet for the workbook and it includes, the ingredients listed on the project brief, you can tick yes, done. You would need to indicate on your plan a task has been completed. This will help you decide how well you have met your SMART goals. We can also use testing to evaluate success. If we had developed the integrated system, we would have needed to check whether the formulas and functions that were applied worked as intended. We could have added sample data to see what happens. We could have changed the day number or week number to see if the outputs were correct. We could have put in erroneous data, data that made no sense to make sure the software that we've developed, the system that we've created responded in an appropriate way. A testing table is a valuable tool for this. It includes: the test type, the expected results, the actual outcome, and the changes that were made as a result of that. So for example, checking that the hyperlink from the front sheet take the user to the correct sheet in the workbook. I might start off by clicking on stock if I appear in sales, clearly that we had a problem that needs to be remedied. So, we will click on that hyperlink to see what happens. The test shows that the hyperlink works as intended and so no changes need to be made this time. What about feedback to evaluate our success? Many advertising products and tools that require user input, often get outside feedback to ensure they are fit for purpose. This is often called Beta testing. Software developers often bring in people to test out software. Beta software is software that they know may have problems, but they want people to test it to see if they can find those problems and to see what happens. Beta testing is a key part of feedback. Good feedback uses positive language like, I like this because, this could be improved if... Good feedback is also helpful and it doesn't make the other person feel bad. It shows like the apprentice they often receive feedback on a regular basis. And sometimes the people leading the projects will listen to the feedback and think, "I'm going to ignore all of it but it doesn't align to what I think." Nine times out of 10 when they reach the boardroom, that feedback really should have been listened to. That says, you also have to evaluate the feedback and make sure it's worth it. Some feedback isn't relevant. Is it possible to change at this stage or is there a common thread in your feedback? Is that feedback which just isn't practical? Requests for things are impossible to produce. Does it actually work from a technological viewpoint? Always consider the changes that you're going to make as a result of that feedback. Listen carefully, but also be realistic. The final evaluation is a summary of each stage of the project life cycle. It starts by stating what the project was. So in this instance, Delicious Desserts was our scenario. It then looks at each stage and it goes through and identifies what went well, what could have been improved and how to implement these improvements. It's always an opportunity to learn from what we've experienced. Then there was a conclusion, stating whether or not the user requirements have been met and there will be recommendations to follow for future projects. So task one, evaluate a project. Using the prompts that we've provided, write the final evaluation for this product. The testing you have just done that will support what you write about in the execution stage section. I appreciate that we've done hypothetical testing, not actual testing. So presume that everything went well and report that using those prompts. Pause the video to complete your task. Winston Churchill famously said, "Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even though they rarely stick to their plan." Throughout this unit, we have stressed the importance of planning. When you are managing a project, an IT project especially, you need to be aware of the whole task, aware of your goals, aware of the user requirements. Evaluating each stage, communication with your team and managing that project, project. Those who plan do better than those who do not plan. It could be that what you are doing is you're building a scaffold on which to climb. At the top of that scaffold you put a diving board. It's not until you dive off into the water, that great things happen and things get exciting. Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even though they rarely stick to their plan. Share your work with Oak National. Always ask your parents or carer first and make sure you tag @OakNational or #LearnWithOak.

Unit Overview: Project management

Lessons: