ProjectLibre Tutorial - Steel City Robotics Alliance
Contents
1. Wrap up At this point your screen should look like this zooming out a bit Name Duration Start Finish Prede pu 2014 aug 2014 r la li hs hz ho ha Tie ls 31 03 109 109 l2 llo 19 e4 je f Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1j14 5 00 PM Consider designs 9 6 days 7 2 14 8 00 AM 7 17 14 1 48 PM 1 d Identify common design feat 1 day 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 10 14 5 00 PM 29545 days Decide final design 1 day 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 10 14 5 00 PM Build common features 15 days 7 14 14 8 00 4M 8 7 14 5 00 PM 3 Build design specific Features 20 days 7 14 14 8 00 AM 8 18 14 5 00 PM 4 Programming 15 days 7 23 14 8 00 AM 8 18 14 5 00 PM 6554 5 days Testing and rework 10 days 8 6 14 8 00 AM 8 21 14 5 00 PM 5FS 7 days 6F5 7 Practice 10 days 8 13 14 8 00 AM 8 28 14 5 00 PM 855 4 days 0 o 0 QNM If it does congratulations You probably now know all you need to know about project planning tools to apply it to a project of the size of the robot build If your screen doesn t look like this go back and review the steps with a particular eye to the calendar dates being entered If you are still having problems or just feel that I explained something in a confusing way feel free to send me a question at cyankes msa com and to help me more easily see your question amongst my emails please put ProjectLibre somewhere in the subject field Deferred Topics Creating a Project with Forward versus Backwards Scheduled Tasks Back2. Se project planning tutorial a FOREX __ e v 1 r2 project planning tutorial 1 ProjectLibre OPEN PROJ File Task Resource view o bet Open 9 Close Print Y Information Save Baseline 9 New OL Preview Calendar Clear Baseline Save P Save as gt PDF Projects Projects Dialog Update File Print Project 13 Jul 14 za Jul 14 Finish Duration Start 1 Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM If this is not what you have verify that you correctly did the steps in the previous paragraph and make sure that when you started this project that you specified the start date as being July 1 2014 so that our displays will match On the lines below the Kickoff line which now has a 1 in the leftmost column showing this is task number 1 enter the eight remaining hypothetical task names and durations from our example Once done with this your screen skipping the header section from here on should look like this rue Il Print Jl Project Name Duration Start Finish 1 Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM 2 Consider designs 8 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 10 14 5 00 PM 3 Identify common design feat 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM 4 Decide Final desian 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM 5 Build common features 15 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 21 14 5 00 PM 6 Build design specific Features 20 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 28 14 5 00 PM 7 Programming 15 days 7
3. and then update the project for all remaining work to begin after July 9 2014 Other than task 2 having a full horizontal black bar in it and the green checkmark appearing nothing else happened The easiest way of getting task 4 decide final design to show as being start able on July 10 is to remove task 4 s predecessor dependency on task 2 and hit tab This will cause task 4 to be moved back to the beginning of the entire project and then do the update outlined above to have all remaining work starting after today i e July 9 2014 That makes task 4 s start date be July 10 2014 and adjusts the rest of the schedule accordingly The downside of breaking these predecessors to account for tasks completed early is that you won t have them on the schedule to act as next year s template If you double click in the status column for the task the column that has the green checkmarks for tasks 1 and 2 at this point the Task Information box has a Notes tab at the far right If you select that can you can make a note to yourself that this task used to i suspect its definition of remaining work means what should have been done but hasn t yet been done from the start of the project to today Future items aren t yet late and thus must not count as remaining E 13 have another task as a predecessor This would make it easier to reuse this project as a template next year
4. 1 14 8 00 AM 7 21 14 5 00 PM 8 Testing and rework 10 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM 9 Practice 10 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM Notice that the Build design specific features line is the only red line As a reminder the norm for Gantt charts the right side of the display is for the red line to represent the critical path meaning that this set of tasks although just a single task in the example for now represents the tasks that will ultimately determine when the project will end Right now since all of these tasks are scheduled to begin on the same day it is not hard to see that the longest running task 20 days long will determine when the project will finish It is not of course realistic for all of these to start on the same day so in the next section we ll add some dependencies between these tasks Adding Dependencies In project planning a dependency simply means that something must happen before something else can happen If you are going to a store alone by driving it is intuitive that you must complete the task walk to the car before you can begin the task of drive to the store We would then say that drive to the eee e 6 store is dependent upon the completion of walk to the car As described in the Project Planning slides task dependencies aren t just of the start this when that finishes form but can also be start this when that starts or even start this X number of days
5. 5 days after Build design specific features has started Before showing you what my screen now looks like for comparison notice that the project has grown in length and now exceeds what likely conveniently fits in the Gantt chart section on the right You can zoom in and zoom out on the schedule by pressing Views Zoom In and Views Zoom Out respectively Zoom out one level and see if your screen now looks like this pul 2014 laug 2014 T1 Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors if les pi l lr ho hs he The ps i ds bs hz ls Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM Consider designs 8 days 7 2 14 8 00 AM 7 11 14 5 00 PM 1 Identify common design feat 1 day 7 9 14 8 00 AM 7 9114 5 00 PM 25545 days Decide final design 1 day 7 14 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM 2 Build common features 15 days 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 30 14 5 00 PM 3 Build design specific Features 20 days 7 15 14 8 00 AM 8 11 14 5 00 PM 4 Programming 15 days 7 22 14 8 00 AM 8 11 14 5 00 PM 655 5 days Testing and rework 10 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM Practice 10 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM o o0meumw Note that I ve grabbed the line between the data and the Gantt chart sections and moved it to the right to show more data columns You can do this by left clicking on the vertical line between these sections and sliding it right or left The reason I had you stop at Programming was that this task and all t
6. What project planning tools give you is an easy of saying that any work not yet done should start on a certain day This lets us take the remaining 70 in this task and shift it to the right timewise to begin today Since this is a project wide setting it isn t under the task tab in ProjectLibre but rather is at File Project Update Click on this The Update Project box appears WARNING this box has what I believe to be an unusual default namely adjusting every task to whatever percent completion they should be at the start of tomorrow morning s work day For projects with a small number of tasks being active simultaneously such as the robot build I suggest talking to the team to find out each tasks real percentage completion instead of using this default setting 12 To adjust the schedule for tasks that are late select the Reschedule remaining work after button and set the appropriate date Now a note about the appropriate date The date is likely one different from what you might expect Read the wording of that button we selected carefully and note the work after part If you put in today s date it will reschedule the remaining work to begin tomorrow which makes sense if your team reviews the schedule at the end of the day s build activity However if your team reviews the schedule at the start of the day s activities you ll have to put in yesterday s date to have the remaining work start today on the schedule
7. You ll get the hang of it quickly On more warning Save your project file File File Save before adjusting the remaining work to start on a certain day Sometimes most notably if you are trying to undo a gap created by a bad date I ve seen the program apparently not display the proper task relationships Save your work before you do the update task in the next paragraph And of course as with any program saving your work often is good It is just good to do it before this function in particular Going back to the tutorial example we will presume the team reviews the schedule at the start of the day and that today is the 9 so set the date to July 8 2014 and press OK You ll now see this gap in the Gantt chart for task 2 Name Duration Start 1 y Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM Fiat 2 Consider designs 9 6 days 7 2 14 8 00 AM 7 174 3 Identify common design Feat 1 day 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 104 4 Decide final design 1 day 7 17 14 1 48 PM 7 225 5 Build common features 15 days 7 14 14 8 00 AM Sri Build Hasian enacifie Fa ab wae dave 71002114 1 40 MA oci Additionally you ll see that the project has now slipped out by a few days since task 2 was on the critical path thus making it longer makes the entire project longer Oddly the adjustment feature does not also work the other way Imagine that the team worked hard on this consider designs task on Wednesday the 9 and completed it Set its completion status to 100
8. and explore what happens when you assign people to the various tasks The ProjectLibre books on Amazon are very good resources to help you understand dealing with resources 16 Appendix 1 2013 Team 3511 Task List As mentioned above Team 3511 used an Excel spreadsheet for the 2013 build to track their progress Jim Broker of that team has graciously allowed the spreadsheet to be included in this Tutorial as it might help you break down the robot build into tasks Since subsequent competitions won t be throwing Frisbees your team s details will be different but this is a good example of a task level that worked for a team WO Ch Un Js wre Bumper Design Prototype A EEEE E EHEJ R N o E o Ris Tu y W X Y Z AA ae A WORK DAY Finish Day Hard Stop Date Mechanical Work Complete Ho School OPTIONAL DAY S M T W R T Ww R M T Ww R M T wW R LASTEN TOR M F Ww R F M T WEEK 1 5 3 7 1 8 1 3 1 10 1 15 1 16 1 17 1 21 1 22 1 23 1 24 1 28 1 29 1 30 1 31 2 4 2 5 2 6 2 7 2 11 2 12 2 13 2 14 2 15 2 18 2 19 Kickoff Brainstorming Top 10 designs Evaluate Eliminate designs Test Kit and Data Collection Design Related Component Strategy Related Component Human Play of game Design Finalized Drive Order Build Drive Primary Drive Prototyping Primary Drive Disk Thrower Prototype Disk Thrower Disk Feeder System Prototype Disk Feeder System Lift System Prototype Lift Mechanism System Bumper Assembl
9. at the beginning of this tutorial when you were creating the project I asked you to leave the Forward scheduled box selected and to enter July 1 2014 in the Start Date field I mentioned that I d explain what this forward scheduling means later on The reason I did this was it might have been confusing to describe the forward and backward options before you had some experience working with tasks Throughout this tutorial we ve used what is called forward scheduling which is another way of saying if the project starts on this date and has these tasks when will the project be done When we added tasks or adjusted durations therefore we weren t changing when the project was starting but rather we were changing when the project would end Backward scheduling is the opposite and essentially asks the question when do we have to start this project with these tasks if it has to be done on a certain day In backwards scheduling if you add tasks to the critical path or increase their duration the mandatory project finish date remains fixed but the start date will move earlier on the calendar o O 14 Both of these styles have environments in which they make sense Forward scheduling is quite common on projects with definite starts dates but indefinite end dates and is often used to give upper management an idea of when the project might finish and thus an estimate of its costs Backwards scheduling is often us
10. before or after that starts or finishes Let s consider the dependency between our first two tasks kickoff and consider designs Since it is at the kickoff that the teams learn about that year s competition it is reasonable to say that the team can t start considering designs until the kickoff is over To enter this into ProjectLibre scroll the left half of the screen to the right so that you see the Predecessors column We want to say that the second task cannot start until the first task has completed so just enter 1 under Predecessors for line 2 Observe that the first part of the display has now changed to Name Duration Start Finish Pro 22 2un 14 5 dul 14 13 Jul sls mi iwi Ei mi wit El m Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 114 5 00 PM 2 Consider designs 8 days 7 2 14 8 00 AM 7 11 14 5 00 PM 1 a ees ea in Note the changes The Gantt chart line for the second task has shifted to the right by one day there is now an arrow pointing from the first line to the second and that the second task s Start date has changed This is the result of telling ProjectLibre that the second task can t begin until the first task has completed In this hypothetical example the team is going to identify the common design features among all their design options so that they can start building those common elements early Since we have 8 days for considering designs let s say that these common design features will be ide
11. date to July 1 2014 As with the other date fields you can set this value by either just typing 7 1 14 in the box or you can click the down arrow on the right side of the box which will cause a calendar to appear where you can navigate to the desired month and just click on the desired date Whichever way you chose set it to July 1 2014 and click ok Normal Display What you now see is the normal task list Gantt chart display screen where you will spend most of your time Since you haven t defined any tasks yet both the task list on the left and the Gantt chart on the right are empty Before we add any tasks let me warn you that it is easy to get to other screens where it isn t obvious how to get back to the normal display For example in the upper left section you currently see various file options save open etc print options and project options Click on Projects in the Project section You will see one line for your sample project It is not obvious how to get back to the normal display right Even the back arrow to the right of the ProjectLibre logo does not get you back Getting o 4 back to the normal display is easy once you know how to do it Click the View tab and on the far left you ll see the Gantt icon and word Click on that and you are back to the currently blank normal display for your work Without clicking on anything other than the toolbar tabs File Task Resource and View
12. for the task as you ll see if you click through the various tabs Nearly all of which I suggest ignoring for your first use of the tool on a project as straightforward from a project management perspective as building the robot ll briefly explain resources later on Returning back to the General tab enter 100 in the Percent Complete box and press close Note the green checkmark on the Kickoff line This shows that the task on that line is complete Now while it is hard to see since the Kickoff task is only one day long if you zoom in a bit on the Gantt chart you can see a black horizontal line through that task s red box As you ll see in this next step the black line represents the percent completion and doesn t only appear when the task is done To see this set the consider designs task to be 3096 done The black line for that task goes into Monday July 7 as seen here 7 Helmuth von Moltke the Elder the Prussian Army Chief of Staff for many years in the late 1800s is credited with saying no plan survives first contact with the enemy While he was describing military war plans project planning has the same attribute that reality rarely if ever goes exactly as planned so don t fear changes ener m 11 Name Duration Start Finish 22240 14 6 Jul 14 13 Jul 14 2 Nssimi wi T Eli twit Te Is Is Iw ir iili f 1 v Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM 2 Consider designs 8 days 7 2 14 8 00
13. 014 a ana amp li l lr ho hs he ho 5 Lbs bs Ds ke hz s 1 Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM 2 Consider designs 8 days 7 2 14 8 00 AM 7 11 14 5 00 PM i 3 Identify common design feat 1 day 7 9 14 8 00 AM 7 9 14 5 00 PM 255 5 days 4 Decide final design 1 day 7 14 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM 2 5 Build common features 15 days 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 30 14 5 00 PM B 6 Build design specific Features 20 days 7 15 14 8 00 AM 8 11 14 5 00 PM 4 7 Programming 15 days 7 22 14 8 00 AM 8 11 14 5 00 PM 65545 days 8 Testing and rework 10 days 8 1 14 8 00 AM 8 14 14 5 00 PM SFS 7 days 6FS 7 days 7FS 7 days 9 Practice 10 days 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM See the multiple arrows that now feed into the start of the Testing box This shows that the timing of when this task can begin is gated by multiple tasks Now why go through the hassle of defining three tasks as predecessors for the testing task when we can obviously sic see that just having testing start seven days before the programming ends will give us the same date Be careful not to fall into this trap Just because at project planning time it is obvious when things end at the same time the reality of the project can delay tasks For example what happens if programming goes well and finishes early while the build design specific features task takes three days longer than expected If you just have this generic testin
14. 9 H2 lis le 4 1 Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM 2 Consider designs 8 days 7 2 14 8 00 AM 7 11 14 5 00 PM 1 3 Identify common design Feat 1 day 7 9 14 8 00 AM 7 9 14 5 00 PM 255 5 days 4 Decide final design 1 day 7 14 14 8 00 AM 7 14 14 5 00 PM 2 5 Build common features 15 days 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 30 14 5 00 PM 3 6 Build design specific features 20 days 7 15 14 8 00 AM 8 11 14 5 00 PM 4 T Programming 15 days 7 22 14 8 00 AM 8 11 14 5 00 PM 655 5 days 8 Testing and rework 10 days 8 1 14 8 00 AM 8 14 14 5 00 PM SFS 7 days 6F5 7 day 9 Practice 10 days 8 7 14 8 00 AM 8 20 14 5 00 PM 855 4 days Setting Work Days As mentioned earlier most project planning tools default to the normal workweek Let s say that your team works on the robot Monday through Thursday of each week and so we want Fridays to not be counted as a workday Adjusting the schedule of workdays is easy Click on Task Calendar and the Change Working Calendar box will appear Scroll to the July 2014 month calendar and click on the F in the day of week line See that all the Fridays have been highlighted on this and all the other _ o 9 calendar pages whether shown or not On the left side click Non working time and then OK at the bottom Take a look at the ending date of the project Now instead of it ending at the end of the week of August 18 the project will now extend into September and if you zoom in Views Zoom In you ll see that Friday Sat
15. AM 7 15 14 5 00 PM 3 Identify common design feat 1 day 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 10 14 5 00 PM 4 Decide final design 1 day 7 16 14 8 00 AM 7 16 14 5 00 PM l If we re not yet at July 7 congratulations this task is ahead of schedule but what happens if today is Wednesday July 9 where this task now appears to be over a day behind schedule This is the topic of the next section Before we move into the next topic however I will reinforce and explain here the message on the slides that smaller tasks are better than larger tasks The benefit of smaller tasks is that it is easier to see if they are fully done or not Let s use an example of opposite ends of the spectrum where one project has 10 three day tasks and another project has a single 30 day task doing the same total work After nine days it is easy for the first project s team to know if the first three tasks are done or not since they are separately defined tasks After nine days how easy is it for the second team to estimate their percent completion of the one large task In general the larger the task the harder it is to easily and accurately track its progress and errors can be major Smaller tasks naturally lend themselves to a more definite understanding of what is and what isn t yet done and errors are less significant Estimating the completion percentage wrong by 1046 on a 30 day task is a large schedule swing when it is discovered but misestimating a 3 day task by 10 is hardl
16. FRC ProjectLibre Tutorial Using ProjectLibre for Your Robot Build Craig Yankes Western PA FIRST Regional Planning Committee cyankes msa com a ProjectLibre is a trademark of Marc O Brien and Laurent Chrettieneau o 1 Contents MVE O DUCE OM RD R 3 cresce E 3 SCODESOF CNIS TUTON A ences let 3 Resources for more Information or HEIP cc cccccccecssssssssececccscesseseeececeeseseeaeseceeesessseseaaeseeeesceeseeaeeeeeens 3 Getting Started eee eot tees a pues dextutv estes in Seis caa dene in r nur tret ER 4 Creating ai Proj Ct ives oet ert docete nee eera eet wash v one pedea uec ea uev Ru a tutu Dee sev eue ee pod O ou gcn 4 Nonmial Dis play PE 4 Navigating in this TUtorial ccccccccccccecessesensececeeeceeseeseceeecesseseaaeseceeseseesesaaeseceeseussesaaaeeeseeseesnaeaeesenees 5 Defining Your Projected ecouter een esurire tus ode aee seasons dd ecageated desatessaseadenedeawsoeneeleseeas 5 Adding Tasks eaer EE Edu ER M Veit ete sa soe ecsase a NM EIE EE 5 Adding Dependencies orte ete en ect ee EVI e En En Re REIR NE cbtecvedeadicasachecedesbescedesededvenets 6 Setting WOrK DE V AE E R E E E lr tee E Eee en ete IE 9 Using Critical Paths oce caca de erede caos NE e oce dE dese equ xor re ueque sese E ER an RR ES 10 Urea 11 Task Completion Percentage ccssssccccccecesssssssesecececesseaeaeeeecesseeaaeaeeeeesessesse
17. anual a tutorial and other resources These books will teach you areas likely beyond what you ll need for the robot build As I suggested in the Workshop given the size of the build teams and the length of the tasks you can probably skip the added complexity of the resources concept of assigning individuals to tasks Getting Started ProjectLibre was so simple to install on my machine that I will presume that you have done that and are ready to run it When you first run it you will see a license popup While this is not a recommendation either way I will presume that you have accepted the license and want to continue with the tutorial Creating a Project Closing the tip of the day popup will bring you to another popup asking if you would like to open an existing project or create a new project Select Create Project The New Project box is straightforward You can name the project anything you would like and sample project works well for this tutorial Note that if you later merely save the project the filename will default to your project s name with a pod extension You can of course save as to give the project file a specific name The manager and notes fields are optional and P11 explain the forward scheduled option later but for now just leave it selected The project s start date field will default to today s date but to allow your sample project to follow this tutorial exactly change the start
18. d how the example project s end date changes Once you are done experimenting with how duration changes affects the critical path please Open the file you saved File File Open so that our displays are once again consistent Tracking the Project What we have done thus far in the tutorial is create a project estimating how long each task will take While it is important for planning to do this with the best estimates you can give the tasks the estimates will rarely turn out to be perfect Some tasks will complete faster than anticipated while others will take longer Dealing with this changing reality is one of the main benefits of using project planning software In this section we ll explore how to update the project s progress Task Completion Percentage While the project is ongoing you will gain much more insight into the project schedule if you periodically update ProjectLibre with the status of the current tasks You can assign a completion percentage of 0 to 100 to any task and the program will then use this information to help give you a better estimate of the remaining work and the anticipated project completion date Let s pretend in our example that the kickoff has completed The default column to the left of the Name column shows progress and if you double click on a position the Task Information box pops up for that task Go ahead and bring up this box for the Kickoff task There are many things that can be set
19. d on for at least 5 days Enter the dependency into line 3 As when we entered the dependency for task 2 the Gantt chart has shifted around to reflect the new timing of these tasks Notice one thing different in lines 1 through 3 though The arrow comes from the start of task 2 s box instead of out the end of task 1 s box This visually shows whether the dependency is Also as mentioned in the slides tasks can be set to finish based on when other tasks start or finish but this is an unusual way of viewing task dependencies and is likely not needed in something as straightforward as the robot build Therefore it won t be used in this introductory tutorial B MELLLE OMULALlg L L E A A IIRISLLIBSO L2 CEIE RECPPEQIIECESRPTPRC CTITIETTP LECLETELETLIEECLEEIEEEEECELELLEEEEEELELLEE ESESEAZ 7 a finish dependency such as from task 1 to task 2 with the arrow coming from the end of task 1 s box or whether it is a start dependency such as from task 2 to task 3 In either case the horizontal length of the arrow indicates how many days have to elapse before the next task can begin To give you some more practice at this enter the dependencies for the following tasks e Decide final design Requires consider designs to complete e Build common features Requires Identify common design features to complete e Build design specific features Requires Decide final design to complete e Programming Can be started
20. ed in environments where there are contractual completion dates and the company performing the work wants to know when the various parts of the project have to start in order to meet the contract Oddly the robotics build is both You have both a definite start date kickoff and a definite stop build date In this sense either forward or backwards scheduling can work for the robotics project In either case the quality of your schedule depends upon the team s ability to identify and estimate the duration of the tasks and in either case you have to adjust for tasks being ahead or behind schedule Therefore you can choose either method One important difference between these approaches though is the impact of a task taking longer than expected In backwards scheduling tasks are delayed as long as possible and are generally started at the last possible moment This works well if you have a solid understanding of how long something will take For example while constructing a building a general contractor with experience will likely know down to the day how long it will take the pour the concrete foundation If you do choose to use backwards scheduling I suggest that you start to work on tasks as early as you can anyway to allow for later schedule slips Personally I d use forward scheduling for the robot build Resources I mentioned several times above that there are aspects of project management tools that you are probably better off ignori
21. g task gated by the completion of the programming task the testing could end up starting too early compared to the hardware building task While defining all the relationships for a task like this Testing task is a few minutes longer it lets the schedule correctly adapt to any of predecessor tasks finishing either early or late Project planning tools will determine the last date of each of the dependencies and will use that as the start date for the task Now did you catch that I jumped right into fs types of relationships here While I didn t raise the issue in the last paragraph since it was focused on one versus multiple predecessor tasks remember the question introduced earlier about What should happen to this task if the other task doesn t finish on time We could have defined the Testing task as beginning some number of days after each of the three build programming tasks started but testing is a classic case where it normally makes sense to delay starting the testing if the thing s being tested have a schedule slip Therefore testing is a common task type gated by the completion of other tasks and not the beginning To complete the dependencies in this example set the Practice task to begin four days after Testing has started The final initial schedule should look like this Name Duration Start Finish Predecess EE peor o1 104 107 lo l3 6 12 es 3 103 106 10
22. he ones before it had only a single dependency This is not always the case since sometimes multiple tasks have to reach certain points before a new task can start Consider our next Testing and rework task Imagine that the team has decided that it can start testing seven days before the basic robot build completes The complication here is that given this overly high level testing and rework task its start date is controlled by three other tasks the two build tasks and the programming task Thankfully it is easy to describe this kind of dependency on multiple tasks You simply list each individual dependency and separate them by semicolons The key here is to just take them one at a time First the testing task can t start until seven days before the build common features task is done so this is a 5fs 7 It can t start until seven days before the build design specific features task is done so this is a 6fs 7 and finally it can t start until seven days before the programming task is done which is 7fs 7 Put them together and you get the mouthful Sfs 7 6fs 7 7fs 7 Enter this as the predecessor for task 7 and look at what happens to the Gantt chart I did this on purpose for the tutorial In reality the build programming and testing rework lines should be at a lower level so that individual features can be tested as they are done eee E 8 4 Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors foul 2
23. killset Will Alpha be done in 8 weeks and Beta done two weeks later Not likely This is where the resource side of project management is useful If the program knows who is to work on each task then the tool can easily identify where someone is double booked or worse and shift the 15 schedules accordingly Or of course if this is a major schedule slip it can lead the project leaders to hire a contractor that also has that particular skillset to pull the schedule back in Similarly having people assigned to the tasks allows tools like ProjectLibre to show when someone is less than 10046 busy which allows the project managers to know when they will have a person that can be temporarily assigned to help with other tasks Managing large projects therefore requires balancing both the task schedule and resource sides of the picture which can become time consuming This is why I ve suggested staying away from resource scheduling on the rather straightforward from a project management perspective robot builds If you do have someone with a unique skill that is needed on multiple simultaneous tasks an easier way of dealing with it is to create a dependency between the tasks so they cannot be simultaneous or lengthen the duration of each of the tasks to account for the person being split between them During the robot build off season i e perhaps after Regionals Nationals I do invite you to make a copy of your team s real schedule
24. m that session that are posted with this document The slides cover the introductory material explaining why a team can benefit from using project planning techniques introduces some of the terminology that is used and describes some common pitfalls that hopefully you will be able to avoid by being aware of them While the terminology will be defined in this tutorial the whys and oops in the slides will not be recreated here If you haven t seen them yet I suggest looking over the slides before continuing with this tutorial The second comment is one of thanks In the spring 2013 robot build Team 3511 used an Excel spreadsheet to view their progress and word of that spreadsheet led to the Project Planning session being requested at the SCRA Workshop Jim Broker Team 3511 s mentor has given permission for that spreadsheet to be used in this tutorial as example tasks or as templates as desired Thank you Jim Scope of this Tutorial It is impossible in a short tutorial to introduce you to every aspect of project management software whether represented in a free tool like ProjectLibre or commercial tools like Microsoft Project Therefore not only is this not going to be a comprehensive user s manual describing every option and feature in ProjectLibre the scope of this tutorial is being purposely limited to the smallest set of features you ll likely need to manage the robot build In short the goal of this tutorial is not to impress yo
25. ng on the robot build We ve concentrated on defining and managing tasks which is one side of project management The flip side is scheduling and managing resources Resources include both people and special equipment that might be needed on the project Returning to the construction example from the previous paragraph if the general contractor has to rent a special piece of equipment for a few days the availability of that machine factors into when the task that uses it can be scheduled On most projects though people are the resource that the project management team has to be concerned with Imagine a large 200 300 person software development organization starting a year long project with hundreds or even thousands of tasks Among all these tasks are the following two tasks and merging the normally separate design build test rework tasks into single tasks for simplicity here e Design Code and Test Function Alpha 8 fulltime weeks e Design Code and Test Function Beta 10 fulltime weeks These tasks have no dependencies on each other can both can start on Day 1 of the project and both gate the starting of other tasks Taking a task only view of the project such as what we ve done throughout this tutorial since this simplification works for the robot build both of these would be shown as start able on Day 1 However what happens if both of these functions have to be written by the same programmer that has a particular s
26. nsider designs 8 days e Identify common design features 1 day e Decide final design 1 day e Build common features 15 days e Build design specific features 20 days e Programming 15 days e Testing and rework 10 days e Practice 10 days I m sure many of you are cringing at these tasks and the length estimates Good If so you realize that these are crude and unrealistic However they work for the tutorial An actual Gantt chart used by Team 3511 in the 2013 build is included at the end of this document for an example of a real set of tasks We ll now enter the first task In the top line under the Name column enter Kickoff and press tab Notice how the focus has now switched to the Duration column which was automatically filled in with 1 day We want the Kickoff to have a 1 day duration but since the means it is an estimate let s make eee 5 it a definite 1 day Do this by typing 1d into Kickoff line s duration box ProjectLibre lets you enter the number and the first character of the time such as hour day week etc if you don t want to spell it all out Note that the Start and Finish boxes contain 7 1 14 8 00 AM and 7 1 14 5 00 PM respectively ProjectLibre defaults to a traditional work week of 8am 5pm Monday Friday You will be shown later how to change this to better match your team s workday schedule At this point you should see the following on the screen
27. ntifiable three days before all the design considerations are done Following the examples from the slides the dependency for line 3 will then be 2fs 3 which means that this task can start three days before task 2 finishes Now could we say this dependency is 2ss 5 meaning it can start 5 days after task 2 starts Of course Deciding which way to specify the dependency is easy if you ask this question What should happen to this task 3 if the other task 2 doesn t finish on time If this task should start on time anyway then the best way of expressing the dependency would be the 2ss 5 since even if task 2 is delayed five days after it starts task 3 can start anyway If on the other hand this task has to delay starting if the other task is delayed then it would make sense to express the dependency as 2fs 3 so that if task 2 is delayed task 3 will be delayed along with it so it still doesn t start until 3 days before task 2 has finished We ll use both forms in this tutorial so you can see where the different approaches make sense In the case of tasks 2 and 3 though we ll answer the what should happen question by saying that even if the design consideration takes a few days more than planned five days into the design consideration we should start identifying the common features Therefore this dependency will be 2ss 5 since the important thing keeping task 3 from starting is task 2 being worke
28. o complete Pretend that the example project we ve created has to be completed before September 1 The Gantt chart critical path identification the red lines helps you to see which tasks to try to shorten Here is what the project should look like in your display pul 2014 JAug 201 Name Duration Start Finis 4 Sep 2014 s li l4 hz ho hs he he be bs b bs he be hz hs ls bi k4 bz Lo bz Tor Kickoff 1 day 7 1 14 8 00 AM 7 1 14 5 00 PM Consider designs 8 days 7 2 14 8 00 AM 7 15 14 5 00 PM Identify common design feat 1 day 7 10 14 8 00 AM 7 10 14 5 00 PM Decide final design 1 day 7 16 14 8 00 AM 7 16 14 5 00 PM Build common features 15 days 7 14 14 8 00 AM 8 7 14 5 00 PM Build design specific Features 20 days 7 17 14 8 00 AM 821 14 5 00 PM Programming 15 days 7 29 14 8 00 AM 8 21 14 5 00 PM Testing and rework 10 days 8 12 14 8 00 AM 8 27 14 5 00 PM Practice 10 days 8 19 14 8 00 AM 9 3 14 5 00 PM 0 Oo ns wne See how the build common features task line is blue The reason it is blue is that the task gated by its completion the testing task also requires other later completing tasks to complete To show this change the duration of the build common features from 15 days to 12 days and look at the project s end date See how the end date didn t change at all While shortening tasks that are not on the critical path might free up people to work on other tasks shortening it alone will not change the project s com
29. pletion date Please return build common features to 15 days duration now If you need to shorten the schedule concentrate on the red critical path tasks While you are shortening task durations don t be surprised by seeing the critical non critical i e red blue status of the lines change As an example of this change the duration of build design specific features line 6 from 20 days to 18 days Doing this shortened a critical path task yet didn t change the end date and furthermore the line turned blue The reason this happened is that while it is no longer a critical task item by gating when the testing task could start another task also gates the testing task and eee 10 so the project s end date still didn t change Note that right now all of the tasks prior to the build task might be blue I have seen a bug in ProjectLibre that occasionally when a red task becomes blue it accidentally and incorrectly sometimes paints the earlier tasks blue as well If this happens you can force it to recalculate all the colors by taking the last task shorting it by a day and then putting it back to where it was At this point set the duration of line 6 back to 20 days and save your project file File File Save as Now that you can easily get back to where we currently are at in the tutorial File File Open feel free to play with changing durations of the various tasks to see how the critical path line moves around an
30. take a moment and look at the options that appear under the tabs There is a lot there but don t worry as there are only a few options that you ll need to know for the robot build Navigating in this Tutorial As you looked through the tabs did you notice that the options are grouped into sections In the previous paragraph I asked you to click the View tab and on the far left you ll see the Gantt icon and word Click on that That is rather wordy From here on P11 shorten this to tab section option and so moving back to the normal display is done by clicking View Task views Gantt If the option I m asking you to click is currently displayed i e there is no need to switch to a different tab I ll specify the option by just saying section option Therefore from where you are now at if I wanted you to click on Resources I ll ask you to click on Resource views Resources Go ahead and click on that Now get back to our normal display Defining Your Project Adding Tasks While I urged teams during the Workshop presentation and in the slides not to have individual tasks longer than one week long for this tutorial I m going to ignore that suggestion for one simple reason Having nine tasks is easier for learning a tool than is having perhaps 30 to 40 real tasks during your build Here are the hypothetical tasks and their estimated duration length of time to complete the task we ll be using e Kickoff 1 day duration e Co
31. u with the tool but rather to help you use this tool in your build If you are intrigued by this software there is plenty of time after the build and competitions are over to explore it more thoroughly Resources for more Information or Help There are several resources available to help you learn and use the tool There is an online help facility in the tool accessible by clicking on the in the upper right corner There is also a large user community SCRA is the Steel City Robotics Alliance If you are not familiar with it I highly recommend that you visit www steelcityrobotics org Among other events each year they sponsor a workshop for teams to hone their skills or learn about new topics Excel is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Project is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation eee 3 on the www projectlibre org website that might be useful for you to join Given the short build time though many questions will be time urgent and so while the author of this document is by no means an expert in every piece of project management tools he is willing to help where possible You can reach him by sending an email to cyankes msa com To help have your email stand out from others please put ProjectLibre in the subject field As stated earlier this tutorial just scratches the surface of what ProjectLibre can do Amazon has books paper or Kindle available on ProjectLibre including a user m
32. uaeaeeeseeesessesasaeeessessessaaeees 11 Adjusting Late Tasks 2 cer teritur eate ce odes ree exea ede eode veau qe reo ER Ran EEE ve debes 12 l iug logi o p 14 PIA Hee EE 14 Creating a Project with Forward versus Backwards Scheduled Tasks eene 14 Mzrieleni C 15 Appendix 1 2013 Team 3511 Task List ccccccccccsssssssececececessseaeeeeecessesaaeseceesscessesesaeaeeesecesseseaaeeeseeseeeea 17 Introduction General Comments Congratulations Reading this shows that you are interested in using project management software to help with your team s robot build While using this type of software to help manage an 8 week project might seem excessive I believe you will find that this will help you deal with the hectic build period by quickly showing where your team is in the build process and whether it is behind on or ahead of schedule Quite importantly if your team is behind schedule a tool like this can help identify where the team needs to concentrate its effort to achieve the goal of taking a quality robot to Regionals and possibly further on to Nationals Two comments before we get into the meat of the subject First in writing this tutorial I am presuming that you have either attended the Project Planning session at the 2013 SCRA Workshop or have read the annotated slides fro
33. urday and Sunday are now all grayed out to show that they aren t work days Let s now look at how to deal with specific days off July 4 is a day that schools are closed so will we have to adjust the schedule to show that as a non working day Click Task Calendar again to check which day of the week July 4 2014 is on It is on a Friday which is already a day off for our hypothetical team so we don t have to tell ProjectLibre to ignore that day That s boring so let s pretend that the schools are not in session on July 21 2014 for some reason In the Change Working Calendar box click on just July 21 2014 and click non working time and then OK The Gantt chart will now show that to be a non working day and will shift everything after it to the right one work day If you want to change a non working day to being a working day select the day as above and click either use default or non default working time The difference between these is whether the day is one of your normal workdays or not If it is a normal workday clicking use default will return it back to normal If it isn t a normal work day a Saturday for example click non default working time Either way one of these will turn the non workday from gray to white background and that is the one you want to use Using Critical Paths After entering your real project s tasks and their dependencies you might find that the project s ending date is later than when it has t
34. y Final Assemby COMPLETE Electrical Board Design Pneumatic Schematic Electrical Board Construction Pneumatic Fabrication Bot Wiring Programming Test Bed Autonomous Design Testing Programming Practice Robot Crating Ship MOCK PYRAMID MOCK FEEDER STATION MOCK SCORING STATION Driver Station 17
35. y noticeable Do yourself a favor and try to keep your tasks small Adjusting Late Tasks Adjusting the schedule to account for tasks that are running behind can be one of the hardest things to do because it requires the team to acknowledge that some part of the project is behind schedule At the same time is one of the most important things the team s keeper of the schedule can do Repeating myself since this is on the slide set s annotations the importance of adjusting the schedule for late tasks is hard to understate since doing this is how the team can recognize what I call the current reality path and can make changes if that path does not point to success The earlier you can discover that a task is running late the more time you have in which to correct it so avoid the temptation to give the team another day or two to make it up before adjusting the schedule Besides the team already knows that the task is behind schedule so not adjusting the schedule doesn t help anyone And if the team does make up the work the team can celebrate and the schedule can be readjusted as will be demonstrated below Sorry for what might appear to have been a soapbox but hopefully this conveys the importance of facing schedule reality Ok back to the mechanics of adjusting the schedule amp Going back to the tutorial example consider designs was marked as being 30 done and is a bit over a day behind schedule since today is supposedly July 9
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