SECTION A [40 MARKS] Read the case study below and answer ALL the questions that follow. Case Study: Automotive giant Scania boosts European project management efficiency Project leaders across automotive giant Scania's European businesses have been empowered with a special new Project and Portfolio Management solution since moving to Microsoft Project Online - a move that has resulted in three times more successfully completed projects. Ready for the information age Automotive giant Scania had a problem. Core business processes were overly reliant on paper and whiteboards, and managers lacked an easy, central way to coordinate activities. Then, the company embarked on a three-year mission to explore Microsoft Project Online as the basis for a more functional internal project management portal. Scania has almost 500 project managers in Europe, leading 72 projects to completion in 2015 alone. By working with trusted local Microsoft technical partner inzagi, Scania has a new internal project planning solution: Project Online, complemented by Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Power BI. According to Vit Lobpreis, the organization's Czech Republic-based Regional Project Manager, the number of projects successfully completed has not only tripled, but projects more directly contribute to business success. The trend is clear, confirms Lobpreis. Projects are being completed on time and on budget, which helps Scania's business. Corporate planning tool The system is proving highly useful for gaining real-time insights into overall Scania progress, now that Scania leadership has increased visibility for faster, more data-driven decision making. "Management in our main Swedish HQ are also able to track the status of projects in every business unit now," says Lobpreis. "They can start discussions and follow-up action as needed, streamlining all our project management processes." Project Online was also key in helping Scania meet its internal General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) targets business units were better able to organize their responses to the new data rules. "Overall, Project Online has become a strategic corporate planning tool for us," adds Lobpreis. Next steps Scania plans to make project management a much easier task, and a resource available to an ever-increasing number of users by rolling out Project Online to other Scania units. Finally, a new Power BI-based dashboard that provides a complete task overview will even further facilitate work prioritization for business users. Lobpreis concludes, "We have a vision of implementing project and portfolio management to other support functions in Scania HQ?and over the longer-term vision, there is a possibility to extend use of Project Online to other geographies we operate in, such as Asia." Source: https://cdn.featuredcustomers.com/CustomerCaseStudy.document/microsoft-project_scania_422879.pdf Answer ALL the questions in this section. With reference to the case study, critically discuss the following:

QUESTION 4 (20 Marks) One technique used to analyse the tasks to control the length of a project is Critical Path Analysis (CPA). If a critical task is delayed or extended, the entire project duration is delayed. On the other hand, if the duration of a critical task is shortened, the entire project duration is shortened and the project finish date would move up. The critical path is the group of tasks that together control the length of the project and is made up of critical tasks. By assessing the critical path in a project, a project manager can determine where to focus resources and time to complete the project. Using a relevant example, deliberate on how the project manager can manipulate the critical path in order to ensure project completion should a project derail.