The city campus of a local college wants its own home page on the World Wide Web. The home page will be the first screen that 2,000+ students will view when they start their web browser.
The college administration has some grandiose ideas about what it wants to do with its home page, for example it should be updated on a daily basis with "tips and techniques." It should also have a "what's-hot" link. Furthermore, since students will be able to access instructors and other students with e-mail, the home page should provide a link to a directory of students who are "on-line."
The web page should provide access to the campus library's on-line database of books and periodicals.
Eventually the administration wants to use the WWW as a way present a list of courses prior to registration so that students may access this information in electronic form.
The task of developing such a home page has been given to the computer science instructor as part of "other duties, as assigned". The time frame is approximately one month--from August 2 to August 28.
The project uses only a few people. But like all projects, it has a series of milestones (sub-tasks). It uses resources (computer software/hardware, etc.) and has a time line with a definite starting and ending date. Here are just a few of the many subtasks that need to undertaken
The developer has had limited experience working with the Hypertext Mark up Language (HTML)--the linqua franca of the World Wide Web. He'll need to come up to speed rather quickly. Other things that need to be learned include the process of securing space on a local Internet Service Provider's (ISP) computer and how to upload and test a home page.
To complete the project in the time allowed, it's a good idea to spend some time picking the right tools for the job. Trying to do a project with improper tools would probably mean that the tasks would not get done or would be done poorly. In this case, the tools include a good "web editor" and a web browser. Since the college has standardized on Netscape's Navigator 2.02, this subtask would involve getting a personal copy of this software and learning how to use it.
It's one thing to create an interactive home page that meets your own personal tastes. However, a home page is meant to be used by thousands of other people. The task is, in some ways akin to writing advertising copy. Ad writers often solicit the opinions and ideas of others to see what works and what doesn't. The task, here, becomes one of setting up an informal network of people who will periodically review the progress and make suggestions for improvement.
One way to organize these sub-tasks is to use a program called Project KickStart. KickStart is a project-outliner. It will let you fill in the goals, obstacles, and tasks for a project. It doesn't let you enter dates or times. That's the task for another day and another program. KickStart, however, will let you export a list of tasks to several other Project Management programs.
The first step in the process of project planning involves getting a handle on all the subtasks. The following screen shot, taken from an HP Palmtop running Project: KickStart, shows a few of the many sub-tasks that I could think of when starting the project.
Having organized as many sub-tasks as possible for the creation of a Web page, the next step involves putting these tasks in the context of a calendar. KickStart doesn't have this time-line capability. So, for the first pass, I chose to use the ProTracs Pro project planning software.
To read more about ProTracs, in general, click on the icon.
The following screen shot shows the data entry screen, in ProTracs, after all the dates had been entered. The data imported from KickStart saved re-keying the subtasks and phases.
I chose to omit priority codes and skipped entering any information in the User Field. I had to enter the proposed and actual dates. However, ProTracs simplifies this by allowing you to enter a date as "8/1" and pressing the Enter or an arrow key. The date is automatically expanded to "08/01/96".
ProTracs is, by and large, function key driven which makes it a good match for the HP Palmtop. The meanings of the function keys are shown in the lower left corner of the following screen shot. Pressing one of the function keys produces a menu from which to choose the next step in the process.
The above picture shows the menu for producing various kinds of reports which let you view the project in several different ways.
The various reports produced by ProTracs are all automatic. There's not much to do other than select the type of report you want and decide if you want it to be sent to the screen, a disk file, or a printer. That may be all that's really needed. Since the reports are purely text information, you can import them into any word processor for further enhancements or formatting.
I tried importing the same data, from Project KickStart into a DEMO version of Primavera-3 for Windows. Sad to say, the attempt failed because the DEMO version of Primavera (P3) does not include a critical file P3BATCH.BAT which converts KickStart .DTA files to .P3 data files. However, I was able to key the same data into P3 with relative ease. (In this case, using Windows on a desktop computer really is beneficial.) The results are shown on the following screens.
The above screen shows the data entry screen for P3. There's room for handling resources and costs as well as times for Early and Late starts and finishes. The lower part of the screen is a form where you fill in the data. The top part of the screen shows a spreadsheet view of the activities. The dark horizontal and vertical lines can be slid from right to left and up and down to see more of each window. The Gantt chart, shown below, is update automatically, whenever you make a change to the data. You don't have to wait till you're finished to produce a chart. You can also point at the chart and move the ending and starting times for activities and the results will be reflected in the spreadsheet.
Primavera for Windows has a DOS counterpart. Finest Hour, which is still available. I did not have this DOS program for testing on the Palmtop.
To read more about Primavera click on the icon