"In practice, project managers carefully manage slack on sensitive resource-limited projects. If possible, they will add slack at the end of the project by committing to a completion date that goes beyond the schedule date. For example, the plans say the project should be completed on April 1, although the official completion date is 1 May. Other managers take a more aggressive approach to managing slack within the schedule. They use an early start schedule and prohibit use of slack on any activity or work package to be used unless authorised by the project manager. Progress by percent done by remaining time is carefully monitored. Activities that are beating estimated completion times are reported so that succeeding activities can start earlier and time is not wasted. The overall intent is to create save slack as a time buffer to complete the project early or to cover delay problems that may creep up on critical activities or paths." Source: Pearson, Larson and Gray (2013) Answer ALL the questions in this section.

Question 1 (30 Marks) The above extract refers to resource-limited projects. Elucidate (using relevant diagrams) the differences between a project that has a fixed delivery day and one that has a fixed limit on resource usage.

Question 2 (30 Marks) The above extract discusses various strategies for accelerating the completion of projects especially on resource-limited projects. Critically discuss how the alternative method for project completion acceleration (Critical Chain Project Management scheduling method) can help solve the management of slack on resource-limited projects.

Question 3 Consider the table below as a demonstration of a resource-limited project as discussed in the above extract and answer the questions that follow. Assume that you cannot schedule more than EIGHT (8) hours of work during any day of work. Activity Predecessors Duration (Days) Resource Hours per day A None 5 4 B A 3 4 C A 4 4 D A 6 3 E C 5 3 F C 6 2 G D 4 4

3.1 Identify if there are any days that involves resource conflict and give their status. (20 marks)

3.2 How would you reconfigure the resource loading to resolve this resource conflict? (20 marks)