What does it mean to say that project monitoring and control are on the opposite sides of project selection and planning?
> What should the CFOP do?
> If you were the President, how would you handle this problem?
> 1. What is the expected value of the project? 2. Simulate this project 1000 times and compute the average profit over the 1000 replications. Plot a histogram of the outcomes of the 100 replications. 3. How does the average of the simulation compare to th
> Construct a WBS for the project in Question 3.5.
> 1. The cost per square foot for the units is given in the text together with its standard deviation. What other areas of cost or revenue are likely to have cost uncertainty? 2. How would you suggest the team handle the issue of Dr. Link’s supposedly inf
> Contrast the traditional waterfall approach to project management with Agile Project Management.
> Why are R&D projects in a company’s Aggregate Project Plan significantly different in type from the firm’s Derivative, Breakthrough, and Platform projects?
> Draw a distinction between a project and a program. Why is the distinction important?
> What is “micromanagement?”
> Explain what is meant by the project manager having credibility.
> What is a virtual project?
> Why is the problem of allocating scarce resources to a set of projects similar to the problem of scheduling a job shop?
> When using AON networks, how does one indicate an event such as a project milestone?
> What is meant by “project slack”?
> You and your family and friends are planning to host a graduation party at the end of the school year. Construct a WBS for this party.
> What limitation associated with traditional project management techniques like Gantt charts and precedence diagrams does the Design Structure Matrix overcome?
> What are the important characteristics of project team members?
> If the calendar should not dictate reporting frequency, what should?
> Aside from the obvious benefits for project control, what other benefits might result from a good project reporting system?
> Explain the difference between a project that has a fixed delivery day and one that has a fixed limit on resource usage.
> In order to manage for overall project success, control must be exercised at the detailed work level for each aspect of project performance or no significant change will occur.” Does this mean that the PM should micromanage the project? If not, what does
> How might the existence of a change control system affect the behavior of a client, or a project team member, who desires to make a change in the project?
> Can you think of any circumstances where deferring conflict might be a wise course of action?
> A matrix organization is difficult to manage all by itself. What do you think the problems would be in managing mixed organizational systems?
> Why is it important for a project to have “flexibility”?
> Assume that your class instructor appointed you project manager to lead a dozen of your classmates in writing up the end-of-chapter pedagogy materials (i.e., Review Questions, Discussion Question, Problems, Incidents for Discussion, and Cases) as an Inst
> What advantages are lost if the sum of the weights in a weighted scoring approach does not add to 1.0?
> How might you use project management in doing a major school work assignment?
> Why is it suggested that factors with less than 2 percent or 3 percent impact not be considered in this approach?
> What is the difference between the Resource column on the WBS (including personnel needed by the project) and the Assigned To column?
> Why do you think most PMs use MSP’s Gantt chart format more commonly than the network format?
> Discuss the drawbacks of implementing a project plan without a RACI matrix.
> How should a PM decide which problems (or potential problems) deserve being reported to management and which are not worth the trouble when attempting to “never surprise the boss.”
> Contrast a project from a nonproject.
> What is a critical path?
> What are the major purposes served by an after-the-fact project evaluation?
> Develop a WBS with at least two levels for a project you are personally familiar with (e.g., moving away to college, registering for class, cleaning out a garage). (Hint: the plan will be more useful as a learning exercise if you have a subordinate or tw
> What issues should be addressed in the project final report?
> What are the main duties of the closure manager?
> What are the types of project closure?
> What information should be included in a project audit?
> What are the typical steps in a project audit?
> Contrast project audits with financial audits.
> What are the measurement challenges associated with using a multivariate model such as a scoring model?
> What are some of the commonly used project evaluation criteria?
> Using earned value analysis, explain how the total cost of a partially completed project can be estimated.
> Why is it probably a good idea to avoid periodic reports, except in specific cases such as reports tied to the organization’s accounting system?
> Why is the hierarchical planning process useful for project planning? How might it influence the plan if the hierarchical planning process was not used?
> The monitoring system is the direct connection between project planning and control. Why is this true?
> Why can’t the PM use the organization’s current information system for project monitoring and reporting?
> List and describe the three most common criteria by which to evaluate different resource allocation priority rules.
> When allocating scarce resources to several different projects at the same time, why is it important to make sure that all resource calendars are on the same time base (i.e., hourly, daily, or weekly …)?
> Explain the difference in the problems faced by a PM who is short of secretarial resources and one who is short of a “Walt.”
> The arrival and departure times of commercial aircraft are carefully scheduled. Why, then, is it so important to have excess capacity in the airport control tower?
> List as many things as you can think of that should be entered into a specific resource’s calendar.
> What does it mean to “fast track” a project?
> Given the fact that a project’s resource requirements are clearly spelled out in the project’s action plan, why are PMs so concerned with resource allocation?
> Give several examples of a type of project that would benefit from a template project plan being developed.
> Describe in your own words what is meant by Goldratt’s critical chain.
> What is meant by the term “student syndrome”?
> Explain why project-oriented firms require excess resource capacity.
> Consider Figure 5-14. Paths a-b-c and a-b-d converge at activity f, but we ignore this potential merge problem in the text. Why?
> What is a “dummy” activity?
> For the following project, (a) List all predecessors of task 5. (b) List all predecessors of task 4. (c) List all predecessors of the network finish (F).
> Will all activities on a noncritical path have the same slack? Why or why not?
> How do you determine the ES for an activity with two predecessors? How do you determine the LF for an activity with two successors?
> How is slack determined?
> When activity times are known with certainty, the critical path is defined as the set of activities on a path from the project’s start event to its finish event that, if delayed, will delay the completion date of the project. Why must this definition be
> In many project-oriented organizations, even routine processes are treated as projects. Why do you think this happened? How is it accomplished?
> 1. To what extent were the problems facing the notebook computer development project avoidable? 2. What could have been done to avoid these problems? 3. Would it make sense to apply a project selection model such as the weighted scoring model to the pr
> Not uncommonly, the Gantt chart is deceptive in its apparent simplicity.” Briefly explain.
> A probabilistic network has a critical path of 21 days and a .95 probability of completing this path in 24 days. Therefore, the project has a .95 chance of being finished by the end of the 24th day. True or False? Briefly explain your answer.
> Are there other kinds of changes in a project in addition to the three basic types described in Section 4.4? Might a change be the result of two types at the same time?
> Would you expect a task in a manufacturing plant that uses lots of complex equipment to have a learning curve closer to 70 percent or 95 percent?
> What is the logic in charging administrative costs based on total time to project completion?
> Contrast the disadvantages of top-down budgeting and bottom-up budgeting.
> Distinguish among highly probable risks, extremely serious risks, and highly vulnerable areas in risk identification.
> Under what circumstances is it sensible to do without a project launch meeting?
> Why is participatory management beneficial to project planning? How does the process of participatory management actually work in planning?
> Discuss the pros and cons of identifying and including the project team at the project launch meeting.
> Usually projects involving high levels of technological uncertainty are quite complex. Yet Shenhar says to use a flexible management style with high-uncertainty projects, but a formal style with complex projects. Explain.
> Discuss the reasons for inviting the functional managers to a project launch meeting rather than their subordinates who may be actually doing the work?
> Contrast the project plan and the work breakdown structure.
> What are some benefits of setting up a project plan for routine, frequent projects?
> What are the advantages and disadvantages of a matrix project organization?
> List five reasons to organize a new product development project as a transdisciplinary, matrix-organized project.
> List five reasons to organize a new product development project as a functionally organized project in the parent firm’s Marketing Department.
> What is meant by “micromanagement?” Why is it such a managerial sin?
> Review the chapter and make a list of all the advantages and disadvantages of matrix project organization you can find.
> Explain the meaning and implications of “projectitis.”
> Explain why the systems approach is necessary to manage projects.
> Another trade-off PMs have to make is between team process and progress – the purpose being to keep the peace, give the team an occasional rest, protect the larger organization or other projects, and so on. What might happen if the PM does not anticipate
> Contrast pure project organizations, functional project organizations, and matrix project organizations.
> What is the project management office (PMO) and what purpose does it serve?
> How does the weighted scoring approach avoid the drawbacks of the NPV approach? Can the two approaches be combined? How? What weights would be appropriate if they were combined?
> Contrast the two types of project life cycle and discuss why it is important to know which type the current project is following.
> Identify the three goals of a project. What does it mean for a project to be “overdetermined?”
> Contrast win-lose negotiation, lose-lose negotiation and win-win negotiation and explain why the latter is so important in project management.
> Why is it important for the project manager to adopt the systems approach?
> What is the primary role of a project manager? How are the primary roles related to one another?
