Ch 3: Project Management

Question 1

The three phases of project management

Answer 1

Project Planning: Goal setting, defining the project, and team organization

Scheduling: How much time each activity will take, and how many people and resources will be needed at each stage of production.

Controlling: Here the firm monitors resources, costs, quality, and budgets. It also revises/changes plans and shifts resources to meet time and cost demand

Question 2

What is a project organization?

Answer 2

An organization formed to ensure that programs (projects) receive the proper management and attention

Question 3

The project organization works best when:

Answer 3

Work can be defined with a specific goal and deadline

The job is unique or somewhat unfamiliar to the org

The work contains complex interrelated tasks requiring specialized skills

The project is temporary but critical to the org.

The project cust across the organization

Question 4

The project manager

Answer 4

The manager coordinates activities with other departments and reports directly to top management.

Question 5

The project manager is responsible for making sure that:

Answer 5

1. All necessary activities are finished in propers equence and on time
2. the project comes in within budget
3. the project meets its quality goals
4. people assigned are motivated, directed, and have the info needed to do their jobs.

Question 5

Ethical Issues in Project Management

Answer 5

1. Gift offers from contractors
2. Pressure to alter status reports to mask the reality of delays
3. false reports for charges of time and expenses
4. Pressures to comprise quality to meet bonus/penalty schedules

Question 6

Work breakdown structure-

Answer 6

project broken down into major subcomponents; then subdivided into more detailed components, then finally into a set of activities and their related costs.

Question 7

WBS hierarchy

Answer 7

Project
Major tasks in project
Subtasks in major tasks
Activities (work packages) to be completed.

Question 8

Gnatt charts

Answer 8

Low cost means of helping mangers make sure that activities are planned, order of importance is documented, activity time estimates are recorded

Do not adequately illustrate the interrelationships between the activities and the resources

Question 9

Another approach- PERT; CPM

Question 10

Four purposes of Project Scheduling

Answer 10

1. Shows the relationship of each activity to others and to the whole project
2. Identifies the precedence relationships among activities
3. Encourages the setting of realistic time and cost estimates for each activity
4. It helps to make better use of people, money and material resources by identifying the bottlenecks in the project

Question 10

Project Management techniques: PERT and CPM

Answer 10

Program Evaluation and Review Technique- 1958 Booz, Allen and Hamilton

Critical Path Method- 1957 J.E. Kelly

Question 11

Pert and CPM follow six steps

Answer 11

1. Define the project and prepare the work breakdown structure
2. Develop the relationships among the activities
3. Draw the network connecting all the activities
4. Assign time and/or cost estimates to each activity
5. Compute the longest time path through the network (Critical path)
6. Use the network to help plan, schedule, monitor, and control the project

Question 12

What questions do PERT and CRM help to answer?

Answer 12

When will project be completed

What is the probability that the project wil be completed by the specified date?

Question 13

Network Diagrams and Approaches- Linked to first step-WBS

Answer 13

Two approaches:
Activity on Node

Activity on Arrow

Question 14

Activity on Node

Answer 14

A network diagram in which nodes designate activities

Question 15

Activity on Arrow

Answer 15

Network diagram in which arrows designate activities

Question 16

Dummy activity

Answer 16

Activity with no time that is inserted into a network to maintain the logic of the network

Question 17

Determining the Project Schedule- Critical Path Analysis

Answer 17

A process that helps determine a project schedule

Question 18

Critical Path

Answer 18

The longest time path through the network

Question 19

How to Find Critical Path

Answer 19

Earliest start (ES)= earliest time an activity can start, assuming all predecessors are completed

Earliest finish (EF)= self explanatory

Lastest Start LS- latest time activity can start so as to not delay the completion time of entire project

Lastest finish LF: latest time an activity can finish so as to not delay the completion time of entire project.

Question 20

Foward Pass and Backward pass

Answer 20

ES and EF are determined during the Forward pass

It is a process that identifies all the earliest times

Backward pass
Identifies the latest start and finish times

Question 21

Three-time Estimates in PERT

Answer 21

Optimistic Time= time an activity will take if everything goes as planned- need small probability-1/100

Pessimistic Time= Time an activity will take assuming very unfavourable conditions. There should also be a small probability-1/100

Most Likely Time: most realistic estimate of time required to complete activity

Question 22

Probability of Project Completiont-Time Trade off and Peroject Crashing

Answer 22

Crashing- shortening activity time ina the network to reduce time on critical path to reduce total completion time.

Question 23

Adv and Dis of Critical Paths

Answer 23

Adv:
Especially useful when scheduling and controlling large projects
Straight forward concept and not mathematically complex
Applicable to a wide variety of projects

Dis
Project activities have to be clearly defined, independent, and stable in their relationship

Precedence relationships must be specified and networked together.