Project and Planning Schedule

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Written by Elizabeth Nguyen (Project Manager)

Objective

The objective of the planning and schedule task is to compile a project schedule for EE 400D from start to finish. The schedule was made on Microsoft Project and can be used as future reference for EE 400D project planning. What I’ve described is the process I’ve taken to create this project schedule (currently incomplete) and what details I’ve kept in mind.

Initial Planning

A discussion took place with Professor Hill concerning this project schedule. It needed to encompass a more detailed breakdown of the tasks a toy robot project would require along with links to tasks (to determine a critical path) and a timeline.

For reference, the EE 400D Task Matrix was used as a template for the assembly, software development, and verification phases. A more general project schedule was used to define the details of the design and planning phase.

Top Level Schedule

There are six general phases:

  • Hiring – Week One to Week Three
  • Planning – Week Four to Week Seven
  • Design – Week Four to Week Seven
  • Assembly – Week Eight to Week Thirteen
  • Software Development – Week Three to Week Fourteen
  • Verification and Validation – Week Thirteen to Week Fifteen

I broke down these six phases by the amount of weeks allocated towards them and further broke them down by tasks that should start or begin within them.

Divisions and Management

There are three divisions within EE 400D that students could be assigned to. A member of each division is then assigned to a project manager (PM). Each division is overseen by a division manager (DM) who is responsible for providing training for their respective division members. Their training schedule is accounted for in this project schedule.

Outlined below is a breakdown of the divisions and what they are tasked to do:

  • Manufacturing (MFG)
    • Responsible for learning SolidWorks in order to make 3D-print models for their project
  • Electronics & Control (E&C)
    • Responsible for learning Eagle to design and fabricate a custom PCB for their project
    • Responsible for various electrical components for their team such as encoders, servos, motors, etc.
    • Responsible for firmware
  • Missions, Systems, Test, and Software (MSTS)*
    • Responsible for determining resource allocation (current draw, power budget, etc.)
    • Responsible for development of software (which will follow the EE 444 lab sequence)
    • Responsible for verification and validation
    • Responsible for defining Level 2 Requirements

*Missions, Systems, Test, and Software may be divided into two divisions where MST is as it was before and Software is its own division. This is due to the fact that software tends to be ignored and left until the end of the semester to be done. Also, based on how I’ve currently structured the project schedule, MSTS may be too much of a responsibility for a single student.

Outlined below are some of the responsibilities of the PMs and DMs that were taken into account for the project schedule:

  • Project Managers
    • Responsible for outlining the requirements definition
      • Mission Objective
      • Level 1 Requirements
    • Responsible for the Preliminary Design Plan and Preliminary Project Plan
      • Monetary Budget
      • Project Schedule
    • Division Managers
      • Responsible for creating a training schedule for their respective divisions

Linkages

One important aspect of the project schedule is that the tasks are linked together. Links are created because one task cannot begin without another finishing. For example, PCB fabrication cannot begin without a PCB design and layout.

What also has caused schedules to not perform as intended is because linkages are not determined early enough. The purpose of this project schedule is for these linkages.