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Project structure examples

How a project is divided into project elements is up to the users of the application. It is important to first think about this division before creating the project. Changing the structure later on can result in a great deal of work.

Hours are registered by employees on project elements and not directly on projects. This means that every project must have at least one project element.

A simple starting point before deciding on a structure is to think about the smallest activities that need to be distinguished from the rest of the project’s activities and make those activities the project elements.

Below we will show a number of projects based on what we have seen in the real word.

Example1: Activities as project elements

A company making websites wants to distinguish between the different activities that are performed in a website creation project.

The first step in creating a website is the making of a graphical and functional design. This design is implemented by the programmers. The work of the programmers needs to be tested. The programmers will fix any bugs found by the testers. Finally, the website will be installed on the webserver.

In this case, each activity will become a project element.

  • DESIGN
  • PROGRAMMING
  • TESTING
  • INSTALLATION

 

Example 2: project parts as project elements

A different approach for a website project as mentioned above is to make project elements out of the functional parts of the website project.

The website that will be constructed will consist of a home page, a news page, some simple pages with text and images for the customers’ product description and a forum.

Especially when you want to keep track of the estimated and actual hours registered and the difference between them for each part of the site this can be a good option.

  • HOME_PAGE
  • NEWS_PAGE
  • PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION_PAGES
  • FORUM

The drawback in using this method is the difficulty in retrieving the information on hours for design, programming, testing and installation. If you work with a fixed designer and a fixed tester on the project and these are not the same as the programmers you might find this information on the resource (project element - employee relation) level. E.g. all hours registered by the person doing the testing will be the testing hours for that project element.

Example 3: Combining example 1 and 2

If both the activities as the functional parts of the project are equally important combining these in one project can be the best option. This will result in a project with a larger amount of project elements.

  • HOME_PAGE_SIGN
  • HOME_PAGE_PROGRAMMING
  • HOME_PAGE_TESTING
  • NEWS_ PAGE_DESIGN
  • NEWS_ PAGE_PROGRAMMING
  • NEWS_ PAGE_TESTING
  • PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION_PAGES_DESIGN
  • PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION_PAGES_PROGRAMMING
  • PRODUCT_DESCRIPTION_PAGES_TESTING
  • FORUM_DESIGN
  • FORUM_PROGRAMMING
  • FORUM_TESTING
  • INSTALLATION

 

Example 4: Different hourly rates

Hourly rates are defined at the project element level. If the application if used for determining turnover or for generating invoices based on estimated or registered hours it can be important to let the hourly rates influence the project elements used for a project.

In the example below, it can be the case that the cost related to the preparation time and the project management time is included in the consultancy tariff. In that case, no hourly rates have to be entered for the project elements PREPARATION and PROJECT_MANAGEMENT.  In this example, there is one activity that has two different hourly rates. Because we define the hourly rates at the project element level we need to create two different project elements, one for the senior rate and one for the junior rate.

  • PREPERATION
  • PROJECT_MANAGEMENT
  • SENIOR_CONSULTANCY
  • JUNIOR _CONSULTANCY
  • TRAVEL_TIME

 The TRAVEL_TIME project can be with or without an hourly tariff, based on deals that are made with the customer.

Example 5: Internal project

In some organizations hours are only registered to monitor and evaluate projects. In most organizations though, all hours worked are registered to get a complete picture of how resources are spent in an organization. To register “non-project-related” hours a separate project can be created with as type “ongoing” and with project elements for capturing these hours.

  • ABSENTEEISM
  • VACATION
  • HOLIDAYS
  • MEETING
  • STUDY
  • OTHER

This is a project like all others for which all reports in the application can be used. For absenteeism there is a special report. Before this special report can be used a system setting must be set to tell the application which project elements contain the absenteeism hours.

Be careful with the use of the OTHER project element. Users of the timesheet will be inclined to use this project element whenever they are not sure where to register hours or when they cannot remember their activity. This can be prevented by making clear that hours can only be registered on this project element when it is accompanied by a clear description.

Example 6: Direct and indirect hours

In some cases, the project elements are only used to make a distinction between hours that can be invoiced to the customer and hours that cannot be invoiced to the customer.

  • DIRECT_HOURS
  • INDIRECT_HOUR

Or

  • TO_BE_INVOICED
  • NOT_TO_BE_INVOICED