Questions and Answers of Project Management Processes Methodologies And Economics

11. How could B/C analysis be used to help determine the level of subsidy to be paid to the operator of public transportation services in a congested urban area?
10. A software company is undecided on whether it should expand its capacity by using parttime programmers or by hiring more full-time employees. Future demand is the critical factor, which is not
9. Where does quality fit into the B/C equation? Identify some companies or products that compete primarily on the basis of quality rather than price.
8. The project to construct a subway in Washington, D.C., began in the early 1970s with the expectation that it would be fully operational by 1980. A portion of the system opened in 1977, but as of
7. For years before beginning the project to build a tunnel under the English Channel, Great Britain and France debated the pros and cons. Speculate on the critical issues that were raised.
6. Which factors in an organization do you think would affect the decision to go ahead with a project, such as automating a production line, other than the B/C ratio?
5. If you were evaluating a proposal to upgrade the computer-aided design system used by your organization, what type of information would you be looking for in detail? How would your answer change
4. Identify a project that you are planning to pursue either at home or at work. List all of the components, decision points, and chance events.What is the measure of success for the project?
3. How can you extend a polar graph, similar to the one shown in Fig. 2, to the case in which the criteria are individually weighted?
2. Assume that you work in the design department of an aerospace firm and you are given the responsibility of selecting a workstation that will be used by each group in the department.How would you
1. Where would ideas for new projects and products probably originate in a manufacturing company? What would be the most likely source in an R&D organization such as AT&T Laboratories or IBM’s
5. Write a job description for a project manager.
11 Write an RFP soliciting proposals for preparing your master’s thesis.The RFP should take into account the need for tables, figures, and multiple revisions. Make sure that it adequately describes
12 Explain how you would select the best proposal submitted in Exercise 11. That is, what measures would you use, and how would you evaluate and aggregate them with respect to each proposal?
17 Identify three projects that have failed, and discuss the reasons for their failure.
1. Explain what a project life cycle is.
8. What are the main deliverables of project integration?
10. What are the characteristics of a good project manager?
2. Explain how the design of a car affects its LCC.
3. Compare the cost of ownership of a new car with that of a used car of similar type.Life-Cycle Costing 94
5. What are the sources of uncertainty in Question 4?
10. Discuss the effect of taxes on the LCC of passenger cars. Compare domestic and imported cars.
11. Discuss the effect of LCC on the decision to locate a new warehouse.
12. Discuss a project in which the first phase of the life cycle accounts for more than 50% of the LCC.
13. Discuss a project in which the detailed design phase accounts for more than 50% of the LCC.
1 The cost of a used car is highly correlated with the following variables:(years)(cubic centimeters)(qualitative)Using regression analysis, the following relationship between the cost of a car and
5 Show a cash flow analysis for the LCC of an office building.
9 Natasha Gurdin is debating which of two possible models of a car to buy (A or B), being indifferent with regard to their technical performance. She has been told that the average monthly cost of
Prepare a risk management plan for the project of finding a job after graduation.
Select a project with which you are familiar and explain the most important factors that affect the configuration selection decisions of this project.
Prepare a configuration identification system for the project you have selected in Exercise 2. Exercise 2.Select a project with which you are familiar and explain the most important factors that
Write a job description for the configuration manager of a project.
Develop a flow diagram for the data handling and data processing required for CM, including i. Definition of files ii. Sources of data iii. Data processing requirement iv. Required output
Assume that you are an instructor in either an engineering or a business college. Interpret the meaning of and indicate how you would apply each of Deming’s 14 points to a typical class that you
Quality principles are only now being adopted by universities. Develop a plan for the administration in your college for implementing Juran’s approach.
List the major risks of a military operation such as the United States’ effort to oust Saadam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003. Outline a risk management plan for such projects.
Explain the relationship among time-based competition, cost-based competition, and CE.
What objectives, variables, and constraints should be considered in developing a project schedule?
If a project, by definition, is something that is not performed on a regular basis, then how can activity times be estimated?
What are the major characteristics that must be present in a project to use network techniques?
The “finish to start” precedence relation is the most common found in projects. Give some examples in which “start to start,” “end to end,” and “start to finish” precedence relations
Identify some projects in which PERT and CPM are inappropriate. Explain.
How can the LP model in Section 9 be expanded to include resource constraints that might arise as a result of, say, the limited availability of equipment or technical personnel?LP modelAssume an AOA
Discuss a project in which scheduling is not important. Explain why this project is not sensitive to scheduling decisions.
Compare and list the relative advantages of (a) The Gantt chart, (b) CPM analysis,(c) The basic PERT approach to scheduling.
Is it possible for a project team to achieve high efficiency without scheduling tasks and activities? Discuss.
“To excel in time-based competition, the early-start schedule should always be implemented.” Discuss.
“To maximize the net present value of a project, all cash-generating activities should begin on their early start, whereas all cost-generating activities should begin on their late start.”
A project is defined by the list of activities in Table 13. a. Draw the AOA network. b. Draw the AON network. c. Find the critical path. d. Find the total slack and free slack of each
Estimate the time that it will take you to learn a new computer software package that combines a spreadsheet with statistical analysis. Explain how the estimate was made and what accuracy you think
Use the modular technique to estimate the time required to prepare a proposal or business plan for manufacturing a new medical device that analyzes blood enzymes.
Use the benchmark job technique to estimate the time required to type a 50-page paper and prepare figures using a computer graphics package.
Develop a linear regression model to estimate the dependent variable “time to type a paper” as a function of two or more independent variables.
Develop a list of activities for the project “designing a new house.” Estimate the duration of each activity, and define the precedence relations among them. How much uncertainty exists in each
Develop an early-start and a late-start schedule for the project in Exercise 6 using a Gantt chart. Identify the critical path, and calculate the slack of noncritical activities. Data in Exercise
Develop the AOA network for the project in Exercise 6. Calculate the early time and the late time of each event and the early start, early finish, late start, and late finish of each activity.Data in
Develop a linear program that generates the schedule for the project in Exercise 6.Data in Exercise 6.Develop a list of activities for the project “designing a new house.” Estimate the duration
Develop a high-level AOA model for the project “designing and building a new house.”
Suppose that the project mentioned in Exercise 11 must be finished 2 months before the early finish time. How would you solve this scheduling conflict? Data in Exercise 11Develop a high-level AOA
Caryn Johnson is in charge of relocating (“reconductoring”) 1,700 ft of 13.8-kilovolt overhead primary line as a result of the widening of the road section in which the line is presently
Space Module Assembly. An aerospace company has received a contract from NASA for the final assembly of a space module for an upcoming mission. A team of engineers has determined the activities,
Consider the precedence relations given in Table 21. a. Draw an early-start Gantt chart. b. Draw the AON network for this project. c. Draw the AOA network. d. Generate all possible paths for the
Consider a project with which you are familiar and describe it briefly. For each classification scheme discussed in Section 2, classify each resource used in the project.Section 2:Project resources
Discuss an example of a project that is not subject to resource constraints. Is this project subject to other constraints?
Discuss the importance of information as a resource in a technological project. Give an example in which availability of information is a major constraint.
Select a classification scheme and classify the resource “information” required by a technologically advanced country that is trying to develop a manned space program.
Develop a flow diagram for a resource leveling procedure that can be translated into a computer program. What are your objectives, and what are the input, output, and data processing requirements?
Modify the flow diagram developed in Question 5 so that it can handle resource allocation problems.Data in Question 5Develop a flow diagram for a resource leveling procedure that can be translated
Give an example of a bottleneck resource in a project. Under what conditions should this constraint be removed?
In the fall of 2002, a coalition force under the auspices of the United States moved massive amounts of equipment, matériel, and troops into the Persian Gulf area in a prelude to the war with Iraq
What are the difficulties involved in leveling a schedule, particularly when the activities consume multiple resources?
How much does a project manager need to know about a scheduling or resource leveling computer program to use the output intelligently?
Why is the impact of scheduling and resource allocation generally more significant in multi project organizations? How do large fluctuations in demand affect the situation?
What difficulties do you foresee in assigning technical personnel such as software engineers to multiple projects?
Each activity in a project can be performed by two different resource combinations (Table 4). Assume that the usage rate of each resource is constant throughout the duration of each activity. Now
Develop a resource plan and a schedule for the project “cleaning and resupplying a passenger plane between flight legs.” Which resource is the bottleneck?
The precedence relations and crew size required to complete a project are given in Table 5. For example, activity E, which comes after activity C, requires 10 weeks for its completion by a crew of
The following data concern an activity that has to be performed as part of a project:a. What is the probability that completing the activity on time will require at least a 10% addition to the
Develop a budgeting procedure for a university. Explain the role of each management level together with its input and output.
Develop a budgeting procedure for a contractor who works on small housing projects.
Develop a budget for the project “getting an undergraduate degree.” Explain your assumptions and your analysis.
Assume that you are in charge of developing your state’s department of transportation budget. Write specific instructions for project managers in your department to facilitate a bottom-up budgeting
What kind of logic is used in the budgeting process of the federal government?
Give an example of a project in which a late-start schedule is used because of budgeting and cash flow considerations.
Give a detailed example of an activity that can be performed in several modes. Describe each mode, the technology required, and the associated cost.
Develop a flowchart for a computerized project budgeting program. Explain the input and output of each element and the data processing required.
Identify two projects for which the top-down budgeting approach would be most appropriate. What advantages does it provide?
Assume that you have crashed a project as much as possible but that the length of the critical path is still not acceptable. What other options are available?
Most computer codes that have been developed to solve the crashing problem assume a linear relationship between the time and the cost for an activity. This leads to a linear program. What does this
When a project leader tries to perform slack management, what difficulties might he or she encounter?
Read the article by Herroelen and Leus (2001) on the merits and pitfalls of critical chain scheduling. Explain the relationship between the critical chain and the critical path and the relationship
Discuss the pros and cons of the critical chain and explain under what conditions it might be a good approach to scheduling resources.
Develop a budget for the project described in Table 11 assuming that the cost of each activity is linearly distributed over its duration. a. Assume an early-start schedule. b. Assume a late-start
Assume that a continuous time–cost tradeoff exists for each activity, as shown in Fig. 3. Write out the corresponding linear program for minimizing the total project cost, defining all notation
Consider the project information given in Table 17. a. Calculate the project cost based just on the costs of the activities. b. Generate the weekly and cumulative cash flow charts, once for an
You have signed a contract to complete the project described in Exercise 10 within 10 weeks. The weekly managerial fee is $2,000. a. Generate the schedule that will delay expenses to the last
Assuming that the weekly labor cost per employee is $1,200 and that the fringe benefit rate is 25%, determine the cumulative cash flow requirement for the project described earlier. a. For an
Describe the control systems used in one organization with which you are familiar.
Referring to Question 1, explain how the control system that you identified deals with uncertainty. Data in Question 1Describe the control systems used in one organization with which you are
Give an example of an organization that does not use any control systems. Is this justified?

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