Project management MCQ Chapter 5-9

Once the timer is up, ask the group how many people included the roots of the tree and use this as a means to discuss how we can ignore important parts of any system simply because they are not visible. The aim of the game is to get a deeper understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives on anything—a new project, an organizational restructuring, a shift in the company’s vision or team dynamic. Use these problem-solving techniques to warm up a group and prepare them for the rest of the process. Activating your group by tapping into some of the top problem-solving skills can be one of the best ways to see great outcomes from your session.

Exploring problems and finding solutions is often creative in nature, though as with any creative process, there is the potential to lose focus and get lost. You’re all in it together, and even if your team or area is seeing problems, that isn’t necessarily a disparagement of you personally. Using facilitation skills to manage group dynamics is one effective method of helping conversations be more constructive.

Advantages and Disadvantages of PERT Analysis

This collaborative technique builds greater insight into scope definitions, underlying assumptions, and consensus regarding the level of granularity required to manage the projects. The table below shows us the situation, after we have figured out where we could save some time by using additional resources. The “Crash Days Allowed” column shows us how many days we could save on various tasks by crashing the project.

• Start by creating a desired end state or outcome and bare this in mind – any process solving model is made more effective by knowing what you are moving towards.
• For example, 1.1.2 Propulsion identifies this item as a Level 3 WBS element, since there are three numbers separated by two decimal points.
• Computational procedures for these various scheduling problems will be described in Chapters 10 and 11.
• It’s likely that you’ll be able to implement several work packages at once because you can perform several tasks simultaneously.
• Higher levels in the tree represent decision nodes or summary activities, while branches in the tree lead to smaller components and work activities.
• A planner typically will schedule only one activity in the same location at the same time.

If the critical path is delayed, she will be given whatever she needs to get it back on schedule. Remember that Gantt charts, milestone charts, and network https://business-accounting.net/ diagrams are just visualizations of your project schedule. When you finish your risk management activities, you need to revalidate the schedule once again.

How do you identify the right solution?

Organizing and charting a team’s progress can be important in ensuring its success. SQUID is a great model that allows a team to effectively switch between giving questions and answers and develop the skills they need to stay on track throughout the process. Developing the right agenda can involve difficult but necessary planning. Ensuring all the correct steps are followed can also be stressful or time-consuming the shortest possible time an activity can be completed realistically is called depending on your level of experience. Creating the right group makeup is also important in ensuring you have the necessary expertise and skillset to both identify and follow up on potential solutions. Carefully consider who to include at each stage to help ensure your problem-solving method is followed and positioned for success. Problem-solving activities are only one part of the puzzle.

• One of the most useful problem solving skills you can teach your team is of approaching challenges with creativity, flexibility, and openness.
• Feature-driven software projects may use a similar technique which is to employ a feature breakdown structure.
• Also, standard definitions and nomenclatures for most tasks exist.
• Great solutions can’t be enacted without action and ownership.
• For other uses of “breakdown structures”, see Breakdown structure.
• 8.Adverse weather, design flaws, and equipment breakdown can create negative slack.

Navy introduced network scheduling techniques by developing PERT as a management control system for the development of the Polaris missile program. PERT’s focus was to give managers the means to plan and control processes and activities so the project could be completed within the specified time period. The Polaris program involved 250 prime contractors, more than 9,000 subcontractors, and hundreds of thousands of tasks. Actually, it is sometimes the case that tasks that arenot on the critical path are the ones most likely to delay the project. Sometimes the amount of time required to complete various tasks in a project is not as clear-cut as in the above example.

Step 15: Adjust Your Schedule and Resources to the Deadline. Or Prove That It’s Impossible

Some activities have a necessary technical or physical relationship that cannot be superseded. For example, concrete pours cannot proceed before formwork and reinforcement are in place. Those activities which do not require continuous performance. A shortage of programmers to write software is an example of a ________ type of resource constraint. A project closure is considered ________ if it never seems to end due to constant “add-ons” in attempt to improve the project outcome.

Finally, activity I cannot begin until the sewer line is installed and formwork and reinforcement are ready, so activities F and G are preceding. Other utilities may be routed over the slab foundation, so activity H is not necessarily a preceding activity for activity I . The result of our planning are the immediate precedences shown in Table 9-1. More formally, a hierarchical approach to work task definition decomposes the work activity into component parts in the form of a tree. Higher levels in the tree represent decision nodes or summary activities, while branches in the tree lead to smaller components and work activities.

Critical Path Method (CPM) and Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

This can be problematic in that it doesn’t allow your team to fully process the results or reflect on the process. All problem-solving strategies are made more effective by thinking of problems critically and by exposing things that may not normally come to light. Warm-up games like Draw a Tree are great in that they quickly demonstrate some key problem-solving skills in an accessible and effective way.

More detailed definitions of required resources would include the number and type of both workers and equipment required by an activity as well as the amount and types of materials. Standard resource requirements for particular activities can be recorded and adjusted for the special conditions of particular projects. As a result, the resources types required for particular activities may already be defined. Reliance on historical or standard activity definitions of this type requires a standard coding system for activities.

First, a circle of activity precedences will result in an impossible plan. For example, if activity A precedes activity B, activity B precedes activity C, and activity C precedes activity A, then the project can never be started or completed! Fortunately, formal scheduling methods and good computer scheduling programs will find any such errors in the logic of the construction plan. In forming a construction plan, a useful approach is to simulate the construction process either in the imagination of the planner or with a formal computer based simulation technique. By observing the result, comparisons among different plans or problems with the existing plan can be identified. For example, a decision to use a particular piece of equipment for an operation immediately leads to the question of whether or not there is sufficient access space for the equipment. Three dimensional geometric models in a computer aided design system may be helpful in simulating space requirements for operations and for identifying any interferences.

• Develop precedence relationships for the roadway project activities appearing in Figure 9-2 (Example 9-3).
• As a result, the individual planner defining work tasks does not have to approach each facet of the project entirely from scratch.
• If you are having trouble seeing or completing this challenge, this page may help.
• 15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful.
• We’ve put together this list of techniques to help you and your team with problem identification, analysis, and discussion that sets the foundation for developing effective solutions.

For example, inspecting Figure 9-6 reveals that each activity except for activity B depends upon the completion of activity A. With this information, the next problem is to represent the activities in a network diagram and to determine all the precedence relationships among the activities. One network representation of these nine activities is shown in Figure 9-5, in which the activities appear as branches or links between nodes. The nodes represent milestones of possible beginning and starting times. This representation is called an activity-on-branchdiagram. Note that an initial event beginning activity is defined (Node 0 in Figure 9-5), while node 5 represents the completion of all activities.

But you don’t know about all vacations at the start of the project. Up to this point, we have used working days rather than calendar ones. There are holidays, vacations, sick leaves, and unexpected delays to take into account. A resources calendar, in essence, just shows when resources are available. As a result, you’ll promise to deliver the project scope following a certain schedule. In addition, you may also need to provide some interim deliverables on specific dates.

Importance of the Critical Path Method

Use this method to keep the solution implementation process clear and simple for all involved. First, although PERT assumes that task completion times are independent of one another, in reality this is not always true.

Variables Within Critical Path

Potential bottlenecks can thus be identified, and schedule, resource allocation or technology changes made to avoid problems. Three mistakes should be avoided in specifying predecessor relationships for construction plans.