Project Scheduling at Blanque Cheque Construction $($B$)$

Joe has been managing his project now for more than$12$ months and is becoming concerned with how farbehind the schedule it is slipping. Through a seriesof mishaps, late supplier deliveries, bad weather, andother unforeseen circumstances, the project has experiencedone delay after another. Although the originalplan called for the project to be completed within thenext four months, Joe$$s site supervisor is confident thatBCC cannot possibly make that completion date. Latecompletion of the project has some severe consequences,both for BCC and for Joe. For the company, a series ofpenalty clauses kicks in for every week the project is latepast the contracted completion date. For Joe personally,a late completion to his first project assignment can bevery damaging to his career.

Joe has just finished a meeting with his directsupervisor to determine what options he has at thispoint. The good news is that the BCC bid for the constructionproject came with some additional profitmargin above what is common in the industry, so Joe$$sboss has given him some $$wiggle room$$ in the form of$$30,000$ in discretionary budget money if needed. Thebad news is that the delivery date for the project is fixedand cannot be altered without incurring substantial penalties,something BCC is not prepared to accept. Themessage to Joe is clear: he can spend some additionalmoney, but he cannot have any extra time.Joe has just called a meeting with the site supervisorand other key project team members to discuss thepossibility of crashing the remaining project activities.He calculates that crashing most of the final activitieswill bring them in close to the original contracted completiondate, but at a substantial cost. He needs to weighthese options carefully with his team members to determineif crashing makes sense.

Questions

$1.$ What are some of the issues that weigh in favor ofand against crashing the project?

$2.$ Suppose you were the site supervisor for this project.How would you advise Joe to proceed? Beforedeciding whether or not to crash the project, whatquestions should you consider and how shouldyou evaluate your options?