[MUSIC] In this lecture, we will introduce the Project Team Builder. The first session is a general introduction. In this session, we demonstrate the theory we previously explained. Project management concepts are illustrated with the PTB simulator. By practicing with PTB, you will gain project management experience in a safe, controlled environment. The learn by doing approach will allow you to see how different areas of knowledge integrate and affect one another. Utilizing simulation makes project management training efficient and fun. In the simulator, your goal is to manage a given project successfully. That is, to maximize the benefit of value, minimize the cost, and satisfy deadline constraints. Your first decision will be to select the project from a library. You will then start by planning the project. Once you have a plan you are satisfied with, you can start to advance the simulation time. As the project is executing, you have to monitor and control it, possibly making changes to the original plan according to what actually happens. Finally, once the project is completed, you will get feedback on how well you have accomplished the goals of the project. To access the simulator, go to www.sandboxmodel.com using the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Edge browser. Log into the website. Click on the Run It menu and select PTB Training Simulator. Then click on the PTB Training Simulator link. If prompted by the browser, continue the launch of the program by selecting Allow or Yes as needed. In the next part of the walk through, you will see how to get started, how to create a basic project plan, and how to execute it. Open the project /Use Cases/easy/Easy Radar Development.scn. In this scenario, you have five activities. The project has a target date. Your goal is to finish the project within this timeframe. A bonus and a penalty are defined. If you finish the project before the target date, you will receive a predefined bonus for each day you are early. On the other hand, if you are late, you will have to pay the penalty. Next, you see the resource types for the project and their attributes, such as cost. On the top right-hand corner, you can see your target cost and current cash. The goal is to finish the project on time and within the target cost. Click on the Plan Default button. This is a basic plan that you can modify and improve. Currently, the estimated cost exceeds the target cost. And the project is scheduled to finish after the target duration. The first decisions you have to make are how to perform each task and when each task should start. The next screen is a Gantt view. This view shows the planned schedule of the project. It illustrate the planned start and finish dates of the project tasks. The first thing you want to do is try to reduce the duration of the project. Click on the Critical Tasks button to see the critical tasks. I do think the duration of a critical task will reduce the duration of the entire project. Double-click on the last activity, Integration and Testing. An expander will open in the bottom of the screen with information about this task. This task can be executed in one of two different modes. Each mode has an estimated duration, fixed cost and required resources. Currently, the mode In-House is selected. And the duration of the task will be 4 days. The other option, Subcontract, has a duration of 6 days. Therefore, selecting it won't help you to reduce the project duration. Let's look at the first task, Systems Engineering. For this task, the currently selected mode, Small Team, has a duration of 7 days, while using the mode Large Team reduces the task duration to 4 days. I do think the duration doesn't come for free. Using this mode will require more resources, and the task will also have a higher fixed cost. Double-click on the mode Large Team to select it. You can see in the Gantt chart that the task is now expected to take 4 days instead of 7. There is now a gap in the chart. And a dependent task can be rescheduled to start earlier. This can be done by dragging each task or by clicking on the Plan Early button. Once the activities are scheduled, the project's expected duration changes to 15 days, within the required date. This change also reduces the estimated cost. Because instead of being late and having to pay a penalty, you will get a bonus. To see the detailed information about your cost and income, click on the Detailed button. This view helps you understand the cash flows throughout the project. All the information you are currently seeing is an estimation only. Once you start executing the project, you'll be able to see what exactly occurred as well. Click on the Network button. This shows the tasks, their dependencies, and their current status. The arrows between the tasks indicate that the task at the start of the arrow has to be completed before the task at the end of the arrow can start. To see the resource usage for your current plan, click on Resource Charts and select Engineers. The available number of engineers is 10, as indicated by the blue line. In day 0 to 4, 3 engineers are required. As only one task, Systems Engineering, will be executed during these days, and it requires 3 engineers. Throughout the project, you have to make sure that you have enough resources to execute the project plan. Be aware, you are wasting money if you have too many engineers. Resources can be assigned and released throughout the project. Click on the Resource Information button. Each engineer has a cost when active per day and an idle cost per day. Releasing and assigning resources has a cost as well and occurs after a predefined lead time rather than immediately. Let's release 7 engineers. Select Engineers, enter 7, and click Release. Now, in the lead time of 1 day, you will have 3 engineers instead of 10. This is fine for the first 4 days. However, on day 4, you will have a problem as your plan requires 7 engineers. Therefore, you have to remember to assign those engineers on day 3. Each resource type also has a show up probability. If it is less than 100%, it means that there is a chance that some units will not show up. You should take this into account while determining how many units you assign to your project. Similarly, you should check the usage of your second resource type, technicians. Once you are satisfied with your project plan, you can start executing it. Click on the Gantt button and then on Run. As simulation time changes from 0 to 1, the first task is now being executed, and your cash position changes. The project is now in the execution phase. While you advance the simulation time, it's important to monitor and control the project. Make sure it is going according to plan, and make changes if it is not. Run the project for a few more days. On day 4, you'll get a message that you cannot run the project as you do not have enough engineers. Look at the resource usage chart for engineers. You have 3 units, whereas 7 are required. Assign 4 more units. They will be available on the next day. However, you still have a problem today. Click on the bar in the chart to see which tasks require the resource on this day. Since you have 3 units, you are forced to delay 2 of the 3 tasks that are supposed to start today. Click on the Gantt button. If you delay antenna design, which is a critical task, the entire project will be delayed. Therefore, let's delay the 2 other tasks, transmitter design and receiver design. Now looking back at the resource usage chart, you can see that you have enough engineers to continue to run the project. It probably would have been better to plan this in advance and assign more units on the previous day. At any time, it's possible to restart the project by clicking on File > Open, etc. Once the project is complete, the summary screen is displayed with the score based on your performance. You know now enough to run a basic simulation. [MUSIC]
