ISDS CH 3

Question 1

3 phases of project management

Answer 1

1) planning
2) scheduling
3) controllin

Question 2

planning:

Answer 2

includes goal setting, defining the project and team organizations

Question 3

scheduling:

Answer 3

relates people, money, and supplies to specific activities and relates activities to each other

Question 4

controlling:

Answer 4

here the firm monitors resources, costs, quality and budgets. revises/ changes plans and shifts resources to meet time and cost demands

Question 5

project organization:

Answer 5

formed to ensure that programs (projects) receive project management and attention

Question 6

project organization is most helpful when

Answer 6

1) work tasks can be defined with a specific goal and deadline
2) job is unique/ somewhat unfamiliar to the existing org
3) work contains complex interrelated tasks requiring specialized skills
4) project is temporary but critical to the org
5) project cuts across org lines

Question 7

project manager receive high visibility in a firm and are responsible for making sure that

Answer 7

1) all necessary activities are finished in proper sequence and on time
2) project comes in with in budget
3) project meets its quality goals
4) people assigned to the project receive the motivation, direction and information needed to do their job

Question 8

ethical issues faced in project management

Answer 8

1) offers of gifts from contractors
2) pressure to alter status reports to mask the reality of delays
3) false reports for charges of time and exp
4) pressures to compromise quality to meet bonuses or avoid penalties related to schedules

Question 9

work breakdown structure (WBS):

Answer 9

hierarchical description of a project into more and more detailed components

Question 10

project scheduling:

Answer 10

involves sequencing and allocating time to all project activities

Question 11

Gantt charts:

Answer 11

planning charts used to schedule resources and allocate time

Question 12

project scheduling serves several purposes

Answer 12

1) shows 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 activities
4) helps make better use of people, money, and material resources

Question 13

programs produce a variety if reports

Answer 13

1) detailed cost breakdowns
2) labor requirements
3) cost and hour summaries
4) raw material and expenditure forecasts
5) variance reports
6) time analysis
7) work status reports

Question 14

waterfall projects:

Answer 14

projects that progress smoothly in a step by step manner until completed

Question 15

agile projects:

Answer 15

ill-defined projects requiring collaboration and constant feedback to adjust to project unknown

Question 16

Program evaluation and review training technique (PERT):

Answer 16

project management technique that employees 3 times estimate for each activity

Question 17

Critical Path method (CPM)

Answer 17

a project management technique that uses only 1 time per activity

Question 18

PERT and CPM follow 6 basic steps

Answer 18

1) define the project and prepare the work breakdown structure
2) develop the relationships among the activities; decide which activities must precede and which must follow others
3) draw the network connecting all the activites
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 19

2 approaches for drawing a project network

Answer 19

1) activity on node
2) activity on arrow

Question 20

activity on node:

Answer 20

a network diagram in which nodes designate activities

Question 21

activity on arrow:

Answer 21

a network diagram in which arrows designate activities

Question 22

critical path analysis:

Answer 22

process that helps determine a project schedule

Question 23

forward pass:

Answer 23

process that identifies all the early times (ES and EF)

Question 24

backward pass:

Answer 24

identifies late state and finish times (LS and LF)

Question 25

earliest start time:

Answer 25

before an activity can start, all its immediate predecessors must be finished; if an activity has only a single immediate predecessor, its ES equals EF of the predecessor; if an activity has multiple immediate predecessors, its ES is the max of all EF values of its predecessors

Question 26

earliest start time formula:

Answer 26

ES= Max (EF of all immediate predecessors)

Question 27

earliest finish time rule:

Answer 27

EF of an activity is the sum of an activity is the sum of its earliest start time (ES) and its activity time

Question 28

Earliest finish time formula:

Answer 28

EF= ES + activity time

Question 29

Latest finish time rule:

Answer 29

If an activity is an immediate predecessor for just a single activity, its LF equals the LS of the activity that immediately follows it; if an activity is an immediate predecessors to more than one activity, its LF is the minimum of all LS values of all activities that immediately follow it

Question 30

Latest finish time formula:

Answer 30

LF= min (LS of all immediate following activities)

Question 31

Latest start time rule:

Answer 31

LS of an activity is the difference of its latest finish time and its activity time

Question 32

slack time:

Answer 32

free time for an activity (also referred to as free float or free slack)

Question 33

slack formula:

Answer 33

slack = LS-ES or LF- EF

Question 34

critical activities:

Answer 34

activities with 0 slack and said to be on critical path

Question 35

critical path is a continued path through the project network that

Answer 35

starts at the 1st activity in the project; terminates at the last activity in the project; includes only critical activities

Question 36

total slack:

Answer 36

when 2 plus noncritical activities appear successfully in a path

Question 37

most likely (m):

Answer 37

the most probably time to complete an activity in PERT

Question 38

pessimistic time (b):

Answer 38

worst activity time that could be expected in a PERT network; to compute the dispersion/ variance of activity completion time

Question 39

PERT makes 2 more assumptions

Answer 39

1) total project completion time follow a normal probability distribution
2) activity times are statistically independent

Question 40

when managing a project, it is not uncommon for a project manager to be faced with either (or both) of following situation

Answer 40

1) the project is behind schedule
2) the scheduled project completion time has been moved forward

Question 41

crashing:

Answer 41

shortening activity time in a network to decrease time on the critical path so total completion time is reduced

Question 42

when choosing an activity to crash and by how much we need to ensure the following

Answer 42

amount by which an activity is crashed is permissible; taken together, the shortened activity durations will enable us to finish the project by the due date; the total cost of crashing is as small as possible

Question 43

advantage of PERT and CPM

Answer 43

1) useful when scheduling and controlling large projects
2) straight forward concept and not mathematically complex
3) graphical networks help highlight relationships among project activities
4) critical path and slack time analyses help pinpoint activities that need to be closely watched
5) project doc and graphs point out who is responsible for various activities
6) applicable to a wide variety of projects
7) useful in monitoring not only schedules but costs as well

Question 44

liabilities of PERT and CRM

Answer 44

1) project activities have to be clearly defined, independent, and stable in their relationships
2) precedence relationships must be specified and networked together
3) time est tend to be subjective and are subject to fudging by managers who fear the dangers of being overly optimistic or not pessimistic enough
4) there is the inherent danger of placing too much emphasis on the longest, or critical