What a project is

01The problem

Kolanut, the drinks and snacks distributor from the forecasting course, is opening a depot in Abuja. Sales want it open before the year-end rush. The finance director wants it within budget. Operations want it done properly: permits, racking, power, systems, trained staff, stock and delivery routes, all ready on the same day.

Ten weeks in, the fit-out is behind, imported equipment cost more than planned, and Sales have just asked for a cold room. Is the opening date still realistic? What will it cost? Which requests should be approved? This course gives you the tools to answer, using the project's real plan and progress.

02The concept

A project is temporary work with a defined outcome: it has a start, an end, and something specific to deliver. Running the depot afterwards is operations; launching it is a project.

Scope, time and cost

Every project balances three things: what is delivered (scope), when (time) and for how much (cost), at an agreed quality. Change one and at least one other moves. Adding a cold room (scope) costs money and time; opening sooner (time) needs more money or less scope.

The lifecycle

The charter

One page that authorises the project: its objective, scope (in and out), deadline, budget, sponsor, project manager, and how success is measured. Without one, people disagree later about what was promised.

03Example

The depot project's tasks:

import pandas as pd

base = "https://academy.cloudtechanalytics.com/datasets/project/"
tasks = pd.read_csv(base + "tasks.csv").fillna({"predecessors": ""})
print(len(tasks), "tasks")
tasks["budget_ngn"] = tasks["likely_days"] * tasks["daily_cost_ngn"]
tasks.groupby("phase").agg(tasks=("task_id", "size"), budget_ngn=("budget_ngn", "sum")).sort_values("budget_ngn", ascending=False)

23 tasks
            tasks  budget_ngn
phase
Facilities      6    45170000
Systems         5    13400000
Operations      3     7600000
People          3     6520000
Initiation      3     4990000
Launch          3     3850000

Each task has three estimates of its length in working days (lesson 3), the tasks it depends on, and a daily cost. The budget here uses the most likely length of each task. The biggest spending is in facilities: fit-out, racking, power. Now look at the first few tasks and their dependencies:

tasks[["task_id", "name", "owner", "likely_days", "predecessors"]].head(8)

task_id                                      name        owner  likely_days predecessors
0      A1         Approve business case and charter      Finance            3
1      A2                Select site and sign lease   Operations           10           A1
2      A3       Obtain building and trading permits   Operations           15           A2
3      B1                       Design depot layout   Facilities            7           A2
4      B2  Fit-out works: floor, power and security   Contractor           25        A3;B1
5      B3                             Order racking  Procurement            5           B1
6      B4                  Import and clear racking  Procurement           20           B3
7      B5                           Install racking   Contractor            6        B2;B4

Nothing can start until the charter is approved (A1); the fit-out (B2) needs both the permits (A3) and the layout design (B1). These dependencies, not the number of tasks, decide how long the project takes, as lesson 4 shows.

04Walkthrough

1. Run the cells. Which phase has the most tasks? Which costs the most?
2. Find every task that depends on B2. What happens to them if the fit-out slips?
3. Name one thing that is in scope and one that is out of scope for this project.
4. Write the charter's key lines (the task below).

05Practice

06Check your understanding