Time KA - processes that define effort and duration

Submitted by Antoine D on Wed, 06/13/2012 - 02:46

I have a doubt about which process defines the level of effort for each activity.

Is-it the process "estimate activity resources"?

Forums: 
General Discussion
  • Log in to post comments
  • 966 reads

sspawar

Wed, 06/13/2012 - 05:59

Defined in Process of Define Activities.


It is kept mentioned in Activity Attributes ( out put of define activities)


Activity Attributes are inputs for Estimate Activity Resources.


Definition of Level of Effort -


Level of Effort

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Jump to: navigation, search


In project management, level of effort (LOE) is a support-type project activity that must be done to support other work activities or the entire project effort. It usually consists of short amounts of work that must be repeated periodically. Examples of such an activity may be project budget accounting, customer liaison, or oiling machinery during manufacturing, etc.


Since an LOE activity is not itself a work item directly associated with accomplishing the final project product, service or result, but rather one that supports such work, its duration is based on the duration of the discrete work activity it is supporting — oiling machinery will start when manufacturing starts and finish when it finishes. As a result, an LOE activity should never be on the critical path of the project schedule, as it never of itself adds time to the project. Rather, manufacturing would be on the critical path, and the oiling activity would become shorter or longer only if manufacturing does.


In inserting LOE activities to a critical path method schedule, the LOE is usually scheduled as both a start-to-start (SS) and finish-to-finish successor of the driving activity. In a network logic diagram, these two relationships make it look as though the LOE is hanging from the start and finish of the discrete activity. As a result, an LOE thus diagrammed is sometimes referred to as a "hammock" activity or relationship.


LOE is used to define the amount of work performance within a time and is measured in man days or man hours per day/week/month.


LOE estimation is one of the primary tasks of a project manager.

Antoine D

Wed, 06/13/2012 - 23:43

 I believe that activity attributes are completed through the execution of the different time planning processes, progressive elaboration.

Here are some of the activity attributes: predecessor, relationship, lead, lag, imposed dates, resource req., location,  level of effort, constraint, assumption, team member, etc.

 

Precedessor, relationship will be defined during the sequence activity process.

Resource requirements will be define during the estimate activity resource process.

So I would think that the level of effort would be defined during the estimate activity resource process.

This brings also another question, level of effort should be estimated with some Tools and Techniques like analogous estimate, parametric estimate, 3points estimates, etc.. However those one are only mentioned for the estimate activity duration process.

Antoine D

Sat, 06/16/2012 - 20:06

 According to this website , effort is defined during the define activity resources process.

http://www.pm-primer.com/pmbok-project-management-body-of-knowledge/usin...

"

This particular process focuses on each activity within the schedule to calculate the resource requirements. Another factor that will need to be considered along with the hours work effort required, is the availability of the resources.

(...)

 

There are three outputs from the estimate activity resources process:

Activity resource requirements. This is normally a document that describes the number of resources for each schedule activity, and the knowledge, skills and experience of each. The work effort may be described as total hours, or as skills set per time period. An example for the latter might be three bricklayers for a period of two weeks. It is helpful to include assumptions and other detail in support of such estimates for each activity.

 

"

 

According to this other website, effort is defined during the define activity duration process

http://www.aditya369.com/Pages/Project_Time_Management.aspx

"The main goal for “Activity Duration Estimating” process is to provide effort estimation for all activities developed in during Activity Definition Process. Also know as Effort estimation, means how many hours/days are required to complete an activity. Duration is totally different than the work effort

"

 

In order to measure we need some techniques like PERT, analogous, parametric estimating and those one are only available during the estimate activity duration process; so I would think that the estimate duratoin process provides the effort (and the duration).

Folks, what are your thought: which process defines the level of effort?