Introduction As a seasoned project manager. you know that it is rare to have all your resources [people] dedicated to your project full time. In addition, you know from experience that while two individuals may have the same skills, they are likely to have different levels of competency depending on how manyyears they have been practicing those skills. After all. you would expect someone who has been performing a certain type of work for twenty years to be better at it than someone who has been performing it for only two years. With these ideas in mind, please read the following scenario. Scenario You have a team of three people who. fortunately for your can work more or less interchangeably on your project. As you begin planning. you and your team need to make some stafng decisions. But before you do that. you need to know how to make those decisions. Let's take a look at how to use duration as one way of doing this. Suppose you have identied a set of activities for which you wish to make duration estimates. You have com piled information on availability and productivity for your three team members in connection with those activities and wish to use that information to make work assignments. Availability and productivity are dened below: Availability The percentage of a resource's time to be devoted to your project Productivity The amount of time it takes a specic resource to complete a dened amount of work as compared to a standard estimate for that work. For example, let's say that a specic activity takes MOST resources 30 hours to complete. If you have a resource who takes 92 hours to complete that activity. then his or her productivity mte is BDH'Z or BT96. If a resource takes 70 hours to oomplete that activity. then his or her productivity rate is 30:70 or 114%. A resource can have different productivity rates for different activities. He or she might be 95% productive on one activity and 65% productive on another. The formula for productivity is the standardized effort divided by the actual effort for a given activity. Note: Productivity is also sometimes referred to as efciency. With the above information, you can improve your duration estimates. The formula to calculate duration using this approach is: Duration I Efforli'tproductivity'availability} Here is an example: John is going to work on Activity 2. The effort estimate forhctivity Z is 20 hours. John is available to you 50% of his time and has a productivity rate for this activity of 90%. This means that the duration effort forJohn on Activity Z is: 2Di[.50'.90] or 44- hours. Now you are ready to turn your attention back to your tea m. Below is a table with the effort for three specic tasks along with the availability and productivity rates for your three team members. Use this information to make some decisions. Effort Carlos Anna Libby Available 50% Available 80% Available 100% Question 4 1 pts You nd out that the productivity rate for Carlos was incorrectly noted on Activity B. On Activity B his productivity rate is 95%. If your primary consideration is getting the task done as quickly as possible, does this cha nge your answer to question #2 above? Please a nswer yes, or no? Select the most appropriate answer. 0ND oYes Question 5 1 pts When Activities A, B. and C are completed, you will be at a signicant point in your project. The com pletion of all three activities represents a progress point that your sponsor will want to see on a status report. What is the best thing toryou to add to your schedule to satisfy the need to report this prog'rEs point? Select the most appropriate answer: 0 A miltone O A project event 0 Add Activity D O Asurnmary code Question 6 1 pts Your project coordinator is helping you input the data for your project schedule. She has an activity list a list of milestones. and the rEource requirements. You notice that for each milestone she has assigned you as the resource and allocated 2 hours of effort. What do you say to her about the milestones? Select the most appropriate answer. 0 New me and the effort: a miltone is not assignable work 0 Great job. I could use the time in the schedule to wrap up the work. 0 Remove meand addyourself: lwill needyour help. 0 Nothing, she is doing herjoh and no commentary is required. Question '3' 1 pts Your project coordinator oontinues to input the schedule data but soon stops by to ask you when the resources should complete their work. You tell her that they should perform as much of the work as possible at the start of the activity. She needs to select Select the most appropriate answer. 0 Front-loading O Rounded contour O Back-loading 0 Flat contour Question 8 1 pts Carlos has just retumed from medical leave and is available to work on your project 50% of his time. His regular workday isB hours. Because he is still recovering, his productivity is 50%. Libby is available to work on your project 100% of her time. Her regular workday is also 8 hours. Activity B is on the critical path and right now. it will take Libby 25 days to complete it. Of course. you have been asked to complete the project more quickly. You have been asked to have Carlos work with Libby on Activity B {which can be worked on by more than one resource at a time}. What effect will having the two of them work together have on the schedule? Select the most aoprooriote answer: 0 Decrease the project schedule. 0 Increase the project schedule 0 Make other tasks on the schedule run late 0 Decrease the project sche Take Activity B off the critical path. dule Question 9 1 pts Your project schedule has been baselinecl. In the baselined version of your schedule, Libby was going to complete Activity C. Libby's manager calls you and states that there has been a change of plan. How Carlos will complete Activity C. This leads to a variance in the duration la difference between the original and the plan.] For the variance. the calculation is the original duration new duration. How much is that p roject ya ria nce? Select the most aoprooriote answer: EIO hours 85 hours 75 hours 0000 5 hours Question 10 1 pts Anna is assigned to two activitia iat can occur in parallel: Activity E and Activity F. The problem is that if she is assigned both of those tasks at once' she will be consistently working overtime. There is a way to set the work contour for both tasks that will help take some of the pressure off. Which combination of work oontours is most likely to help Anna's resource allocation? Select the most appropriate answen 0 Front load Activity E and back load Activity F. 0 Flat loadActMty E and flat IoadActivity r. 0 Front load Activity E and Flat load Activity F. 0 Back load Activity E and flat load Activity F