Chapter 3

Question 1

Project Characteristics:

Answer 1

• Work can be defined with an specific goal and deadline.
• Job is unique or somewhat familiar to the existing org.
• Work contains complex interrelated tasks requiring specialized skills.
• Project is temporary but critical to the organization.
• Many related activities.
• Difficult production planning and inventory control.
• High labor skills.

Question 2

Strategic importance of project management:

Answer 2

Actual environment:
- Shorter product life cycle.
- Need for innovation.
Project management is vital to improve the competitive advantage of any company.

Question 3

Management of projects

Answer 3

• Planning: goal setting, defining the project, team org.
• Scheduling: relates people, money and supply to specific activities.
• Controlling: monitors resources, costs, quality and budgets.

Question 4

Project planning:

Answer 4

• Establishing objectives.
• Defining the project.
• Creating work breakdown structure.
• Determining sources.
• Forming organizations.

Question 5

Projects Organization:

Answer 5

• Often temporary structure.
• Uses specialists from entire company.
• Headed by project manager.

Question 6

Role of Project Managers:

Answer 6

Responsible for making sure that:

• All necessary activities are finished in order and on time.
• Project comes in within budget.
• Project meets quality goals.
• People assigned to the project receive motivation, direction and information.

Question 7

Project Scheduling:

Answer 7

• Identifying precedence relationships.
• Sequencing activities.
• Determining activity’s time and costs.
• Estimating a material and worker requirements.
• Determining critical activities.

Question 8

Purposes of project scheduling:

Answer 8

• Show relationship of each activity to other and to the whole project.
• Identifies the precedence relationships among others.
• Encourages the setting of realistic time and cost estimates for each activity.
• Helps make better use of people, money, materials resources by identifying critical bottlenecks in the project.

Question 9

Project Management Techniques:

Answer 9

• Gantt chart.
• Critical Path Method.
• Program evaluation and review technique (PERT).

Question 10

PERT & CPM

Answer 10

• Network techniques.
• Consider precedence relationships and interdependencies.
• Each uses a different estimate of activity times.