When using AON networks, how does one indicate an event such as a project milestone?
> How can the PM circumvent the problem that the monitoring system can only report on activities that have passed, thus telling the PM what has already gone wrong but not what will go wrong in the future?
> In such fields as psychology and sociology, verbal characterizations are frequently used to show the amount of some factor. How might one set up such a measure for a project management characteristic such as the “energy” of the project team?
> The chapter includes an example of a firm where the PM dispensed with all the planning formality because no one ever looked at it anyway. What did the PM think the purpose of such planning was in this firm? What should the firm do in the future to correc
> Logically, when using earned value data in the critical ratio formula, should the “budgeted” cost be the planned value or the earned value? What problems occur with each choice?
> If your project management software calculates earned value, or any other standard item to be reported, differently than the Project Management Institute suggests, should you deal with this matter in management reports? If so, how?
> Of all the rules for conducting meetings, the most difficult to enforce is the injunction against the weekly (or daily) standard project progress report (the “show and tell” meeting). Why is this, and under what circumstances do you think such meetings a
> Select a hypothetical project (e.g. designing and building a Web site, installing a new machine in an assembly line, or conducting a major inspection and repair of a passenger aircraft), and briefly describe an example of how each of the following types
> Identify situations where each of the following control tools might be useful: earned value charts, benchmarking, critical ratios, control charts, variance analysis, trend projections.
> When making an estimate for the time and cost to execute a project, should the time and cost required to develop the planning, monitoring, and controlling systems be included as well? Should the actions required to monitor and control a project be includ
> Describe as many types of resource allocation problems as you can, based on the situations described in the chapter.
> 1. Draw a Gantt chart for the construction phase of the project. What is the completion date if construction starts in March? What is the completion date of the project if construction is started in November? 2. Why is it not possible to meet the schedul
> Goldratt suggested that to avoid the student syndrome,” it is a good idea to set the activity durations so short that there is a high probability that the task will not be finished on time. On the other hand, it has long been known that setting up people
> Projects A and B are both nearing completion. You are managing a super important project C that requires an immediate input of resource being used by both projects A and B, but is otherwise unavailable. Project A has an S-shaped life cycle. Project B’s l
> Linking a group of projects together with pseudoactivities creates a sort of superproject. What does this mean, and why would anyone want to do it?
> What purpose(s) might be served by using each of the following priority rules for allocating scarce resources? a. As late as possible. b. Shortest task duration time first. c. Minimum slack first.
> Discuss the advantages of “labor pools” in a project – oriented company. Are there any potential disadvantages with the use of pools?
> Describe the fundamental trade-offs when deciding whether or not to crash a project.
> It was noted that “the PM must manage the project team as well as the project.” Explain why.
> Given all the estimating done to determine the duration of project activities, what does it mean to say that “only after the fact do we know which path was actually the critical path”?
> In the calculation of variance for optimistic and pessimistic activity duration estimates made at the 95 or 90 percent level, the denominator of the fraction that approximated the standard deviation of the time distribution changes from the traditional (
> Which of the linkages in precedence diagramming do you think is most commonly used? Why?
> 1. Estimate the final construction budget. 2. What should they do about the work slowdown? 3. Create a Gantt chart with the revisions to the duration of the interiors step. When will the project be completed? 4. What is the importance of the fact that
> If this approach is not accurate, would the probability of completion considering the critical path alone be more accurate? How might you estimate the correct probability without resorting to simulation?
> When would it be accurate to determine the probability of project completion by multiplying the probabilities of all the paths through the network together? When would it not be accurate?
> How might you use the network approach to help prepare cost estimates?
> Why do you think scheduling has been the major focus of effort throughout the history of project management rather than performance or budgeting?
> Should a PM manage critical path tasks differently than noncritical path tasks?
> Contrast simulation to other risk analysis tools discussed in Chapter 3 such as decision tables, FMEA, logic charts, and contingency planning. What are its advantages and disadvantages? If you were to do an important risk analysis, which tool would you p
> So what went wrong with the assistant purchasing manager’s solution to the problem of having an inadequate supply of hard-to-obtain parts?
> As a senior manager, you oversee a project with a total estimated cost of 245 engineer-months of effort. Three months ago, however, the project had fallen behind by about 25 engineer-months so you authorized the hiring of three additional engineers, whic
> If a firm uses program budgeting for its projects, is an activity budget not needed? If it is, then of what value is the program budget?
> The chapter describes the problems of budgeting projects with S-shaped and J-shaped life cycle curves. What might be the budget problems if the life cycle of a project was just a straight diagonal line from 0 at project start to 100 percent at project co
> 1. What do you think the construction project manager should have done when the Director of Security stopped attending the project meetings? 2. Do you think it is an effective communications tool to send the construction project meeting minutes to the AL
> Given the tendency of accountants to allocate a project’s estimated costs evenly over the duration of the task, what danger might this pose for a project manager who faces the following situation? The major task for a $5 million project is budgeted at $3
> Consider the differences between Agile Project Management and the traditional waterfall approach summarized in Table 3-4. Which practices associated with the APM approach do you see as having the greatest potential to compliment the traditional waterfall
> Consider one or more projects (from this course or elsewhere) that you understand reasonably well. Identify situations where information learned from a later task of the project becomes important to an earlier task.
> 1. What do you think Alex should show to his boss, so that the boss would feel more comfortable letting Alex determine and monitor the project’s budget? 2. What should Alex say to persuade his boss?
> 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?
> 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?
> What does it mean to say that project monitoring and control are on the opposite sides of project selection and planning?
> 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?
