2014-2015

Planning & Organizing Hand-out & Assignment

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU)

Planning assignment
The focus of this assignment will be on learning to produce a workable planning
as a group. To work successfully with a project planning as a group, you also need
to plan your individual activities as well.
Each group needs to make a planning for working on the assignments.. The
planning can come in the format of a Gantt chart with additional explanation, but
a clear overview in Word or Excel can also do. You have to make this planning
about the your whole workload for this course (assignment 1, 2 and 3).
You can make this assignment with your group, so you will hand in one groupplanning.
Make sure that your planning clearly indicates how you divide the workload and
which person is responsible for the different tasks/actions.
You can decide for yourself which program you will use to make the planning.
Hand in one assignment per group. Please make sure that the file name
contains your group number.
The deadline for the assignment is Tuesday 28th of April You can submit the
assignment in the submit folder on OASE in your group folder.
The assignment you submit will be assessed on the following criteria:

Level of detail (be SMART)

Describe actions: e.g. write a table of contents instead of a table of

contents

Dependencies between tasks

Contributions of each team member

Milestones

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 2

Project management in a nutshell

A project can be defined as a group of people (usually from various fields of expertise)
collaborating temporally with the aim of reaching a predetermined goal within a
predetermined budget.
Phasing
To keep a large project manageable, a project is often divided into phases. The following
phases can be distinguished:
1. Concept / Initiative
2. Definition
3. Design
4. Preparation
5. Realization
6. Aftercare/ Follow-up
For more information on Project Management and the different project phases,
see the weblecture on videocollege.tue.nl (go to professional skills project
management)

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 3

Project planning
Planning means thinking about what goals you want to achieve before a certain time,
what activities you should undertake to do so and an estimate of the time each activity
will cost. A project planning helps you to get from an idea to a result.
When you are doing a project, you dont get paid to DO stuff, you get paid to DELIVER
results.

Describe the end results of your project. What are the things you have to
deliver at the end? (think of nouns)

Describe for each phase what the end result(s) is/are. When can you move to
the next phase?
Note that the phases are explained in the previously mentioned video on
project management. Are there phases that already have been predefined??
1. Concept

2. Definition

3. Design

4. Preparation

5. Realization

6. Aftercare

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 4

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 5

Describe for each of the relevant phases which steps you most likely have to
take to get to the result. Describe at least 4 content activities per phase.
Content activities are not project management activities, like adjusting the
project planning. Content activities are verbs. If a phase is not relevant, you
can keep it open.
TIP: Think backwards, from the intended end result to realization, to
preparation, to design, to definition.
1. Concept

2. Definition

3. Design

4. Preparation

5. Realization

6. Aftercare

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 6

Gantt chart
A Gantt chart is a project planning tool that is simple to understand and easy to
construct, it is used by most project managers.

A Gantt chart is a matrix.

The Gantt chart is constructed with a horizontal axis representing the total
time span of the project, broken down into increments (days, weeks, or
months).
The Gantt chart is constructed with a vertical axis representing the tasks that
make up the project.
The Gantt chart is constructed with a graph area which contains horizontal
bars for each task connecting the period start and period ending symbols.
The Gantt chart also has variants such as:
Milestones: important checkpoints or interim goals for a project
Resources: for team projects, it often helps to have an additional column
containing numbers or initials which identify who on the team is responsible
for the task
Status: the projects progress, the chart is updated by filling in the task's bar
to a length proportional to the amount of work that has been finished
Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 7

Dependencies: an essential concept that some activities are dependent on

other activities being completed first
More information on making a GANTT chart can be found in the video Gantt
chart Tutorial video: Learn how to create Gantt charts, a link to it is posted on
the OASE site of this course

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 8

The first step in making a Gantt chart is to list all the activities/tasks you need
to complete to for your project. Then, write down the earliest date you can
start the activity/task, how long it would take to finish and whether or not an
activity/task is dependent on other tasks.
Activity:
Assignment I
Initial
Meeting(Assigning
tasks, find 5th
country and finish
reading Ashby
chapter 14 and
reader chapter 4)
Information about
each country(A4)
Progress Meeting
(Analyze each
other work and
feedbacks)
Group Work (To
complete the
comparison of all
countries and add
references)
Last Meeting
(proofread,
conclude, and
hand in
assignment)
Assignment II
Finish reading
Ashby chapter 6
and 7 and chapter
8 in Reader
Choose appliance
and record
specifications and
take it apart.
Identify the
individual parts
and research
about the parts
Meeting to
produce the flow

Earliest start:
22/04/15
22/04/15

Length:
19 days
2 hours

22/04/15

12 days

04/05/15

3 hours

06/05/15

5 hours

11/05/15

2 hours

Intermediate exam

16/05/15
16/05/15

2 days

Other projects and

homework

20/05/15

7 hours

Other
assignments/
homework

24/05/15

5 hours

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Dependent on:

Preparation for
Test 2

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 9

chart. Explanation
in footnotes and
references.
Assignment III
Perform three
single eco-audit
by defining
scenarios and
assess data
Analysis and
reflection on
environmental
impact
Write 1 A4 of
different audit
methodologies,
analyze
differences, make
a conclusion and
reflection.

25/05/15
27/05/15

6 hours

30/05/15

3 hours

03/06/15

6 hours

Assignment Professional Skill Planning & Organizing

Preparation for
exams

Onderwijs en Studenten Service Centrum (STU) 10

The next step in making a Gantt chart is to put all the activities in a schedule. You plot your activities by
drawing a horizontal bar, the length of the bar represents how long you think the task will take. The final step
is to color code the activities depending on the person who will be executing the tasks or the resources you
need.
Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Overview colors used:

Color
Person / Resource
Planning & Organizing Hand-out

Educational and Student Service Center (STU) 11

Week 7

Week 8

Once you completed your Gantt chart you have an overview of the activities you need to do during your project, when you
need to do them, on what other activities your activities depend, and you also have an indication how many hours you will
need to spent on the project.

Planning & Organizing Hand-out

Educational and Student Service Center (STU) 12