The Design Structure Matrix For Applied Research In The Project Schedule

The traditional project management tool, such as PERT and Gantt chart are used in activities sequencing. Those activities are independent with each other. But many project's activities do not fit this condition and it is inapposite for them to use PERT/Gantt chart. The most important thing is that the PERT/Gantt chart can not describe the information flow from one activity to another activity. It also can not deal with the problem of task feedbacks. The traditional project management tool can tell you that which activity must be finished when you want to start another activity, but now that the information is very important in every project, you need a tool which can tell us that which activity's information is necessary when you want to start another activity.The Design Structure Matrix (DSM) can reflect the relationship between every activity in one matrix. It focuses on the information flow instead of work flow. We can know the particular detail of the information.After research the theory of DSM and the traditional PM tool, this paper invent a project cycle module based on DSM and a Multi-project management module based on DSM. Also, some methods were given to solve the problem of iteration loop. This paper offers some new thought in project management.