13  Planning and Managing Engineering Projects

Week 13 Planned, awaiting draft

ImportantLearning objectives (tentative)

By the end of this week you should be able to:

1. Build a work breakdown structure and Gantt chart.
2. Find the critical path of a small project.

NoteComing soon

These lecture notes will be written from the instructor’s Week 13 draft. The topics below are a working outline.

13.1 Planned topics

• Project management fundamentals
• Work breakdown structure
• Gantt charts and the critical path
• Teams, roles, and communication

NoteKey terms in this chapter

• Critical path — The longest sequence of dependent tasks in a project; any delay on it delays project completion.
• Gantt chart — A bar chart that shows project tasks against a timeline, including start dates, durations, and dependencies.
• Project management — Applying knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to plan and execute a temporary effort that creates a unique result.
• Work breakdown structure — A hierarchical decomposition of a project into smaller, manageable deliverables and tasks.