Assignment 5
1. What are the processes (discussed in class) involved in project time / schedule
management.
Planning schedule management: determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that
will be used for planning, executing, and controlling the project schedule
Defining activities: identifying the specific activities that the project team members and
stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables.
Sequencing activities: identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities
Estimating activity resources: estimating how many resources a project team should use to
perform project activities
Estimating activity durations: estimating the number of work periods that are needed to complete
individual activities
Developing the schedule: analyzing activity sequences, activity resource estimates, and activity
duration estimates to create the project schedule
Controlling the schedule: controlling and managing changes to the project schedule
2. What is a task/activity? What is a milestone? Describe task/activity sequencing?
An activity or a task is referred to a factor of work that is normally in the breakdown structure of
the work which involves an expected cost, time duration and resource requirements.
Milestone are zero duration activities, and will often be created as a result of key activities being
completed at a particular point in time. They are also used to name and identifying key control
points when monitoring and controlling during project execution. Such milestones may influence or
impose the sequence of activities and are hence vital to be used here.
Task/Activity sequencing is referred to a process of reviewing the tasks or activities and
determining dependencies among them.
3. What is a project resource? What are some examples of project resources? What role /
importance
do resources play in project time/schedule management?
A project resource is a term used for all the resources that are required for the completion of the
tasks included in a project. The most significant examples of project resource include human labor,
facilities, equipments and machines, and the funding required to finance the project. The importance
of resources in schedule management is very significant because the effective allocation of the
resource involved within a project make the project schedule effective and enables a project to be
successful.
4. Discuss the difference between a task’s duration and an task’s effort?
A task’s duration basically involves the timeline of a task including the actual time when a task was
started and the time when it was actually completed. And A task’s effort basically refers to the
actual number of hour or the actual time that is required to be spent focusing on the actual task to
get the job done.
5. What is a Network diagram? What is a Gantt chart? Compare and contrast the two.
A network diagram refers to the schematic display the logical relationships and the sequencing of
the activities involved in a project.
A Gantt Chart aims to provide a standard format for the display of the schedule information of a
project by listing the project activities along with their start and completion dates in a timeline
format.
6. What is the critical path? Describe how the critical path is determined?
A critical path for a project is referred to the series of activities that could determine the earliest
time by which a project could be completed.
Firstly, a good network diagram needs to be developed. Further, the estimated duration should be
added for all the activities on each path with the help of a network diagram. The longest path
obtained is determined to be the critical path.
7. What is slack (float)? What is total slack? What is free slack?
Slack is referred to an amount of time by which a task in the project could be delayed without the
delay in the succeeding task or the completion date of the project.
Total Slack is referred to the amount of time ac activity may be delayed from its early start time
without delaying the completion date of the planned project.
Free Slack is referred to the amount of time an activity could be delayed without a delay in the
early start time of any activity being immediately followed.
9. In assignment 4 you created a WBS diagram and Gannt task list for a new Selfcheckout Point of Sale
(cash register) system in TU’s University Store. That project required at least 4 summary
tasks and 12
primary tasks. Using the MS Project file you created in assignment 4, put together the
schedule for the
Self -checkout project by adding the duration and sequencing for all tasks. Generate a .pdf for
the Gantt
chart view of your Self-checkout project. Generate a .pdf for the Network diagram for Selfcheckout
project as well.
Answer the following questions about your Self-checkout project:
a. If you start the project on 9/1/2014, how many work days will the project take to complete?
When will the project be complete?
10/3/2014
b. Identify each of the summary tasks (level 1 of your WBS - 1., 2., 3., etc. ) and the total
duration of each summary task?
design
implementation
c. What primary tasks are on the critical path?
All of them.
Assignment 4
1. What is scope? What processes are involved in project scope management?
Project Scope management include the process required to ensure that the project include all
the work required and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. Managing
the project scope is primarily concerned with defining and controlling.
Below are the list of process involved into Scope:
1. Plan Scope management.
2. Collect Requirement.
3. Define Scope.
4. Create WBS.
5. Validate Scope.
6. Control Scope
2. What is a project scope statement? What should a project scope statement include?
The Project Scope statement is the description of the project scope, major deliverables,
assumption and constraints. The project scope statement document the entire scope, including
project and product scope, it describe in details, the project’s deliverables and the work
required to create those deliverables, it also provides a common understanding of the project
scope among project stakeholder. It may contain explicit scope exclusions that can assist in
managing stakeholder expectations.
Project Scope Statement includes below:
1. Product scope description.
2. Acceptance Criteria.
3. Deliverable.
4. Project exclusion.
5. Constraints.
6. Assumption.
3. What are project requirements? Discuss the common methods used for collecting
project requirements.
The PMBOK® Guide, Fifth Edition, describes requirements as “conditions or
capabilities that must be met by the project or present in the product, service, or
result to satisfy an agreement or other formally imposed specification”
Common Methods used for collecting project requirements:
-Interviewing
-Focus groups and facilitated workshops
-Using group creativity and decision-making techniques
-Questionnaires and surveys
-Observation
-Prototyping
-Benchmarking
4. What is scope creep? What are the goals of scope control? Why is controlling scope so
important in project management?
Scope Creep means the uncontrolled expansion to product or project scope without
adjustments to time, cost and resources.
Goals of scope control:
-Influence the factors that cause scope changes
-Assure changes are processed according to procedures developed as part of
integrated change control
-Manage changes when they occur
Controlling scope so important in Project management:
A project will surely have tales of how scope changes have had a negative overall effect.
Scope change is bound to happen and is expected in most cases, but the goal is to keep your
scope as focused as possible in hopes of creating as straight of a line to you and your client's
goal as possible. These components are project initiation, scope planning, scope definition,
scope verification, and scope change control.
5. What is a WBS? What is a WBS diagram? What is a responsibility matrix?
WBS is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines
the total scope of the project and WBS is a foundation document that provides the
basis for planning and managing project schedules, costs, resources, and changes
WBS diagram:
A WBS diagram, the project scope is graphically expressed. Usually the diagram starts with
a graphic object or a box at the top, which represents the entire project. Then, there are subcomponents under the box. These boxes represent the deliverables of the project. Under each
deliverable, there are sub-elements listed. These sub-elements are the activities that should be
performed in order to achieve the deliverables.
Although most of the WBS diagrams are designed based on the deliveries, some WBS are
created based on the project phases. Usually, information technology projects are perfectly fit
into WBS model. Therefore, almost all information technology projects make use of WBS. In
addition to the general use of WBS, there is specific objective for deriving a WBS as well.
WBS is the input for Gantt charts, a tool that is used for project management purpose. Gantt
chart is used for tracking the progression of the tasks derived by WBS.
Responsibility matrix:
The Responsibility Matrix (RM), also known as the Responsibility
Assignment Matrix (RAM), is used to show the connections between work that needs to be
done and project team members.
6 -You are put in charge of introducing a new self-checkout Point of Sale (cash register)
system in TU’s University Store. Identify all of the deliverables and work required to
complete the project (must have at least 12 primary tasks and 4 summary tasks). Use
your choice of software to create a WBS diagram(with at least 2 levels). Use MS project
to create a corresponding Gantt chart task list-do not include durations or dependencies
(predecessors/successors).Use Word (table) to create a corresponding responsibility
matrix for the project (make up team member names). Place (copy and paste) the WBS
diagram, Gantt chart task list and responsibility matrix below:
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