You are in charge of a medium-size real estate development project in Orange County. You have attracted $200 million in capital to fund this project, over which you are paying 10% interest per year. The first step you need to do is the architectural design, which will take 6 months. After that, you will do additional market research, to ensure the demand is still there; that will take 4 months. After the market research, you can start marketing the project to prospective buyers. In parallel to the market research, you need to complete an environmental impact assessment (EIA), which can take anywhere between 2 months and several years. After the additional market research and the EIA are completed, you can start construction. Construction starts with the underground work: water mains, sewage, etc., which takes 3 months. After that, building homes takes 6 months, and building roads also takes 6 months; homes and roads can be built simultaneously. Marketing involves first designing an advertising campaign, which takes 2 months; then the actual advertising itself, which takes 4 months; then the sales period, which takes 4 months. After construction and marketing are complete, the new owners can move in to their brand new home.

a) Draw a visual representation of this project. (Activity-on-Nodes diagram, Gantt chart, whichever format you prefer.)

b) Assume the EIA only takes 2 months to be approved. What is the critical path of this project? How long will it take before the new owners move in?

c) What does the critical path tell you?

d) You are very unlucky, and the only rainstorm of the year occurs while you are in the midst of construction, leading to a delay. How much delay (if any) can you accept before getting worried?