Management of schedule: Develop schedule

Question 1

What computational tool should be used to develop the schedule and why?

Answer 1

Microsoft Project as it increases overall efficiency

Question 2

What 4 things do you need to refer to when developing the schedule?

Answer 2

Project network diagram (PND)
Activity list
Duration estimates
Dependency determination and integration results

Question 3

What method traditionally should you implement to deduce the critical path and why is this important?

Answer 3

Use the critical path method
It is important as it highlights key activities that will have the largest knock on effect to the schedule if not completed on time.

Question 4

How do you perform the critical path method traditionally (CPM)?

Answer 4

1. Extract early and late finish times from Microsoft project
2. Calculate the float
3. Activities with no float are considered critical

Question 5

Why should resource optimisation be completed after a preliminary schedule is devised?

Answer 5

To minimise resource fluctuation on the project

Question 6

What are the two types of resource optimisation and when should they be used?

Answer 6

1. Resource smoothing - Executed on non-critical activities, used for works where time constraints take priority.
2. Resource levelling - Executed on non-critical activities, used in other cases when resources take priority.

Question 7

How would you apply resource smoothing to a non-critical activity and how does it affect the schedule?

Answer 7

1. It does not affect the schedules total duration!
2. Adjust activity within it’s early and late start times to allow most work to be done. (Time constraints take priority! Total project duration not increase or decrease)

Question 8

How would you apply resource levelling to a non-critical activity and how does it affect the schedule?

Answer 8

1. Potentially extends the total duration
2. Adjust start and finish times of activity to level resources.

Question 9

When would schedule compression be good practice?

Answer 9

When meeting a fixed deadline. Time constraints take priority!

Question 10

What are the two forms of schedule compression?

Answer 10

1. Crashing
2. Fast tracking

If time constraint takes priority over cost constraint. Use fast tracking!

Question 11

What is crashing?

Answer 11

1. A form of schedule compression
2. Considers the cost and schedule trade-offs
3. Determines how to obtain the greatest amount of compression for lowest cost

Question 12

What is fast tracking? (Clue: Start roof truss fabrication before structural design complete)

Answer 12

1. A form of schedule compression
2. Overlap activities that would normally be done in sequence

Use modular construction!

Question 13

What is a sensitivity analysis? (What-if analysis)

Answer 13

Create versions of the schedule considering alternate scenarios.

Question 14

What is Monte Carlo simulation and what type of approach is it? (Remember cannot use with parametric estimating or analogous estimating as deterministic!)

Answer 14

1. Probabilistic approach that performs risk analysis.
2. Monte Carlo considers different duration estimates for given activities from three point estimating and assigns probabilities to each of those estimates.
3. It then creates the schedule randomly using this information.
4. Produces a cumulative probability distribution of possible durations

Question 15

What is some higher level analysis regarding devising the critical path of the project? (Clue: First state traditional approach, but what you would use?)

Answer 15

A traditional approach would be deterministic, extracting the earliest finish and latest finish times from MS Project, and calculating the float. A float of zero would mean an activity is critical.

However, I regard it as more desirable to deduce the critical path using the probabilistic approach of Monte Carlo simulation. As this also performs risk analysis and creates a cumulative distribution of possible schedules.