ASSIGNMENT on civil engineering project management, business and finance homework help

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Assignment

  1. (10pts) Do Exercises 1, 2 and 3 Chapter 7 Page 260.
  2. (10pts) Read the case “ Friendly Assisted Living Facility case -7 “ on page 263 and answer the five (5) question at the end.
  3. (10pts) Read the incident for Discussion “ St Margaret’s Hospital” on page 261. What would you recommend Mary Lynn do?

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264 Actual Finish NA Baseline Duration Actual Baseline Start Finish 03/01/X7 07/30/X8 03/01/X7 06/04/X8 03/01/X7 07/11/X7 Finish Variance 369 days Actual Remaining Duration Variance 278.76 days 104.24 days 285.12 days 57.88 days 110 days O days Dur. Variance 14 days 14 days 15 days 14 days NA 08/01/X7 329 days 95 days 14 days 15 days Assisted Living Facility Construction Project Update as of 4/11/X8 Baseline ID Task Name Start 1 Construction & furnishings 03/01/X7 2 Facility construction 03/01/X7 3 Phase 1 - Foundation & 03/01/X7 Excavation 4 Phase 2 - Structure 04/19/X7 5 Phase 3 - Enclosure 07/12/X7 6 Phase 4 - Interiors 07/12/X7 7 First 45 (light-assisted) units 05/01/X8 ready to prepare for occupancy 8 First 45 units ready for residents 05/01/X8 9 Remaining 57 units (light & 06/04/X8 heavy) ready to prepare for occupancy 10 Construction complete 06/04/X8 11 Building ready for residents 06/05/X8 05/24/X7 09/22/X7 08/01/X7 01/15/X8 08/01/X7 06/04/X8 NA 05/01/X8 10/09/X7 01/15/X8 NA NA 113 days 134 days 234 days O days 99 days 120 days 139 days O days O days O days 95 days 0 days -14 days - 14 days O days O days 11 days O days 14 days 14 days 8 wks Owks 8 wks NA NA 06/25/X8 06/04/X8 NA NA Owks O days 14 days 14 days O days 0 days O days NA NA 06/04/X8 07/30/X8 NA NA 0 days 8 wks O days O wks O days 8 wks O days Owks 14 days 14 days Project Manager: K. Nanino 260 CHAPTER 7 / MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. When making an estimate for the time and cost to execute a project, should the time and cost required to develop the planning, monitoring, and controlling systems be included as well? Should the actions required to monitor and control a project be included in the project's action plan or WBS? 2. The chapter included an example of a firm where the PM dispensed with all the planning formality because no one ever looked at it anyway. What did the PM think the purpose of such planning was in this firm? What should the firm do in the future to correct this problem? 3. In fields such as psychology and sociology, verbal characterizations are frequently used to show the amount of some factor. How might one set up such a measure for a project management characteristic such as the "energy" of the project team? 4. How can the PM circumvent the problem that the monitoring system can only report on activities that have passed, thus telling the PM what has already gone wrong but not what will go wrong in the future? 5. How might using electronic media to report project information lead to problems with control? 6. Explain how the earned value chart captures all three objectives of a project: scope, cost, and schedule. 7. Why isn't there an earned value reporting conven- tion that allows progress on a task to be credited when the task is half completed? Wouldn't this be more accurate than giving credit only when the task is finally completed? 8. When would spending and schedule variances be more informative than ratios? When would ratios be better? 9. How should a PM reconcile the dual purposes of con- trol: conserving resources and regulating results through the use of resources? 10. Identify situations where each of the following con- trol tools might be useful: earned value charts, bench- marking, critical ratios, control charts, variance analysis, trend projections. 11. How might the existence of a change control system affect the behavior of a client, or a project team mem- ber, who desires to make a change in the project? 12. "In order to manage for overall project success, con- trol must be exercised at the detailed work level for each aspect of project performance or no significant change will occur." Does this mean that the PM should micromanage the project? If not, what does it mean? 13. Of all the rules for conducting meetings, the most dif- ficult to enforce is the injunction against the weekly (or daily) standard project progress report (the "show and tell" meeting). Why is this, and under what cir- cumstances do you think that such meetings are justified? 14. If your project management software calculates earned value, or any other standard item to be reported differently than the Project Management Institute suggests, should you deal with this matter in management reports? If so, how? 15. Logically, when using earned value data in the criti- cal ratio formula, should the "budgeted cost" be the planned value or the earned value? What problems occur with each choice! EXERCISES 3. The following project is at the end of its sixth week. Find the cost and schedule variances. Also find the CPI and SPI. Then find the critical ratio of the pro- ject using earned value calculations. Finally, calculate the ETC and EAC for the project. 1. A project in its 26th week has an actual cost of $270,000. It was scheduled to have spent $261,000. For the work performed to date, the budgeted value is $272,000. What are the cost and schedule variances for the project? What are the SPI and CPI? 2. A project has just completed the 87th item in its plan. It was scheduled to have spent $168,000 at this point in the plan, has ally spent only $156,000. The foreman estimates that the value of the work actually finished is about $162,000. What are the spending and schedule variances for the project? What are the SPI and CPI? (wks) a Prede- Duration Budget Actual % Com. Activity cessors ($) Cost ($) plete 2 300 400 100 b 3 200 180 100 2 250 300 100 d a 5 600 400 20 b, c 4 400 200 20 C a e 262 CHAPTER 7 / MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT Mary Lynn is having trouble getting information on the to help them implement a newly purchased Dead-Beat- status of the three projects she chose. Communication Parent tracking system. Jeremy is nervous and wants to be between the project managers and the Quality sure that they meet the specifications of this new project. Improvement Department is not always timely. She wants He is not sure if the standard action plan needs changing to be sure that all three are completed in plenty of time or if there is something else he should do. before the survey is scheduled. Mary Lynn also wants to be able to tell where the projects are in relation to cach other, Question: What should Jeremy Smith do? as they all need to be completed by a certain date. She wonders how she can tell if they are behind or ahead Cable Tech, Inc. of schedule. Cable Tech is a contract cable wiring company. It pro- Question: What would you recommend Mary Lynn do? vides support to local cable companies in seven states in the midwest. Cable Tech has one operation in each state, Stoneworth Paving Company and they vary in size from 60 to 250 employees. A dis- turbing trend has been developing for the last couple of Stoneworth Paving Company specializes in highway paving years that Cable Tech management wishes to stop. jobs for the State of Virginia. When the state first awarded Incidences of tardiness and absenteeism are on the Stoneworth the contract, they stipulated a 1 percent pen- increase. Both are extremely disruptive in a contract wir- alty for each week Stoneworth was late on a completion ing operation. Cable Tech is nonunion in all seven loca- date. Preston Flintrock, the project coordinator for tions, and since management wants to keep this situation, Stoneworth, began to notice that the last two jobs were 3 it wants a careful, low-key approach to the problem. weeks late, and the paving job that was due to be completed Assistant Personnel Manager Jean Alister has been in the next 2 weeks was behind schedule. When Preston appointed project manager to recommend a solution. All went in the field to investigate, he found the job to be seven operations managers have been assigned to work understaffed, supplier delays, and a high work rejection rate/ with her on this problem. repaving needed. As a result, Preston decided to establish a Jean has had no problem interfacing with the opera- better system of project control and present it to his boss. tions managers. They quickly agreed that three steps must be taken to solve the problem: Question: If you were Preston, what characteristics would you be looking for in a new control system? Will a new 1. Institute a uniform daily attendance report that is sum- control system be adequate for the problem? Explain. marized weekly and forwarded to the main office. (Current practice varies from location to location, but Happy Customers comments on attendance are normally included in monthly operations reports.) J. Z. Smith is a small consulting firm specializing in implementing new information systems installation 2. Institute a uniform disciplinary policy, enforced in a uniform manner. projects for service agencies. J. Z. Smith has a standard project action plan for the implementation projects 3. Initiate an intensive employee education program to they work on. They feel very confident in the project emphasize the importance of good attendance. plan they use; all steps are included and the costs are In addition, the team decided that the three-point pro- estimated well. gram should be tested before a final recommendation is The project teams are very entrepreneurial and have great relationships with their small client base. The com- presented. They thought it would be best to test the pro- gram at one location for 2 months. Jean wants to control pany works with their clients informally following the and evaluate the test by having a daily attendance report standard action plan. They provide weekly progress reports transmitted to her directly at headquarters, from which for the client and for Jeremy Smith, the president of she will make the final decision on whether or not to pre- J. Z. Smith. Jeremy has noticed that they have problems sent the program in its current format. with meeting budgets and due dates. He thinks his teams allow their clients to add steps to the projects. A current Question: Does this monitoring and control method client, the local welfare department, has asked J. Z. Smith seem adequate? What are the potential problems? INCIDENTS FOR DISCUSSION • 261 10. Industrial Building, Inc., has two project teams installing virtually identical, 4-story commercial buildings for a customer in two separate cities. Both projects have a planned daily cost of 100 and a planned daily earned value of 100. The first six days for each team have progressed as follows: 4. Repeat Exercise 3 using MSP (omit calculation of CPI and SPI). 5. Given an activity in a smartphone design project whose planned cost was $13,000 but actual cost to date is $12,000 so far, and whose value completed is only 80%, calculate the cost and schedule variances Will the client be pleased or angry? 6. Resolve Exercise 3 using the 50-50 rule for planned value and earned value. 7. Given the following information about a website design, which activities are on time, which are early, and which are behind schedule? Team A: Earned Value Team B: Earned Value Day A: Cost B: Cost 90 92 94 98 104 112 90 88 95 101 89 105 3 4 5 6 95 98 101 106 116 126 95 94 102 109 99 118 Actual Cost Critical Ratio Activity A B с D E Budgeted Cost $300 125 225 100 250 $200 250 150 100 250 1.0 0.5 1.5 1.5 0.67 Compare the two projects in terms of general progress and according to critical ratios. 11. At week 24 of a project to shoot a television com- mercial, the project manager is worried about her budget since costs have risen to $7,500. Find if there is a cost overage, and if so, how much it is. Is the schedule ahead or behind? Overall, does the project appear to be in control? 8. Design and plot a critical ratio chart for an advertis- ing project that had planned constant, linear progress from 0 to an earned value of 400 over a 100-day dura- tion. In fact, progress for the first 20 days has actually been: 4,6,8,12,14,18,24,28,30,34,40,42,42,44,48,52,5 4,58,62,66. What can you conclude about this project? 9. Given the following information, calculate the criti- cal ratios and indicate which activities are on target and which need to be investigated. Comment on the situation for each of the activities. Prede- cessors % Duration Budget Com- (wks) ($) plete 6 900 100 6 1200 100 6 1200 100 12 1800 100 a a Actual Scheduled Budgeted Actual Activity Progress Progress Cost Cost A 2 days 2 days $40 $35 B 4 days 6 days $30 $40 с 1 day 3 days $50 $70 D 3 days 2 days $25 $25 Activity a: Write script b: Screen actors c: Select actors d: Contract studio e: Obtain props f: Schedule date g: Shoot commercial b.c b,c,d 14 10 1400 1500 100 40 d.e 16 800 0 INCIDENTS FOR DISCUSSION St. Margaret's Hospital Mary Lynn DeCold is the Quality Improvement Director at St. Margaret's Hospital, a large acute care facility. She is responsible for monitoring all of the performance improve ment projects that take place in the hospital. At any given time numerous projects can be underway, some depart- mental and some enterprise-wide efforts. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is scheduled to conduct a survey of St. Margaret's in 9 months. It is a requirement of the accred- iting agency that three performance improvement projects be spotlighted during the survey. Mary Lynn wants to be sure that she picks three projects that will be finished within the next month or 2 so that they have at least 6 months' worth of data to show that the project improved performance. CASE • 263 С C A S E because posed lot, and the county to Friendly Assisted Living Facility Case-7 It is now just 4 months until the Assisted Living Facility program is scheduled to be completed. The team is excited they can watch the construction of the facility and feel they are moving toward the end of this program. Every week since construction began, the construction project manager, Kyle Nanno, has been holding a meeting of his project team. At the e meetings he invites representar tives of the construction n company, the facilities manager from Friendly Medical Center, the Director of Security, and other key people as he deems necessary. The meetings are scheduled every Friday at 1:00 PM and last not more than 1 hour. No matter who is or is not there, Kyle starts the meetings exactly at 1:00 pm. Kyle developed the fol- lowing standing agenda: 1. Review schedule and budget as of today's date 2. Review schedule and budget for next 2 weeks 3. Issues impacting schedule or budget 4. Next steps and action items to be completed The construction project update presented at the April 11, 20x1 meeting is shown on the next page. After each meeting the construction project manager emails the minutes of the meeting and the action item list generated to each member of the Construction Project team. He also sends the information to Fred Splient, the president of Friendly Medical Center, as well as to each member of the ALF Project Steering Team. Following the update is the most recent copy of the action items generated at the 4/11/X8 construction pro- ject meeting. Upon reading the minutes and action items from the week's meeting, Fred got quite angry. Fred read the min- utes every week and would immediately phone Kyle to ask why certain decisions still had not been made. This week he wanted to know why the location of the security panel had not been picked out yet, and what the hair salon issue was about Kyle decided that these matters would be better discussed face to face. He went to Fred's office. to explain to Fred that the Director of Security Frank Geagy, had not attended the construction project update meeting in weeks. Kyle said that Frank informed him that in light of the cost cutting going on in the hospital, he is short staffed and cannot hire a new security guard. Frank states that he personally has to cover shifts during the time when the update meetings take place. Kyle told Fred that he was not comfortable making the security panel decision without the head of security's input, and that Frank has not returned his phone calls or answered his emails. Fred Splient proceeded to tell Kyle in a very loud and angry voice, "That guy is not short staffed and is not busy covering anyone's shift. Who does he think he is?" Fred instructed Kyle to tell Frank to answer the contractor's questions immediately or the decisions would be made for him Kyle said he would do so and then changed the subject. He told Fred that they were still waiting for the city offi- cials to approve the parking lot construction permit, Friendly Medical Center's legal officer estimated that it would take 8-10 weeks to hear back on approval. Kyle allocated that amount in the schedule. Kyle received notice from Fred to proceed with the February 9, he submitted the application for a permit,com- plete with appropriate plans and descriptions of the pro- allocated weeks to wait for notify him. He expected approval on or before April 19 and scheduled construction to April 20. Privately, he doubted he would hear from the com county by his target date. The lot would take 3 weeks to build, 2 weeks to install the lighting and add landscaping, and 1 week to pave and stripe. The plot had to be completed by the end of June so that parking spaces would be available when Marketing wanted to begin showing the facility to potential residents. This was a tight schedule, but the marketing people insisted that residents had to begin preparing for this kind of move at least a month before they took residence. Potential residents needed to see the facility, get familiar apartment layouts, and they needed a place to park. Also, Marketing insisted on having some occupancy by the opening date. Kyle told Fred that Legal was calling the county weekly to follow up. Fred wanted to know why the parking lot construction was not outlined on the project plan for facil- ity construction. Fred asked Kyle to add it to the Gantt chart and to do a what-it on the assumption that not respond until May 1. Fred also wanted to know the latest date that they could be notified and still meet a a June 15 deadline for completion of the lot. As Kyle was leaving Fred's office, Fred asked him about the hair salon. Kyle explained that the COO and VP of Marketing had come up with an idea to build and operate a hair salon in the facility for the residents. They thought this might be a great selling point that could generate rev- enue. They came to Kyle just 2 months ago and asked him to include a hair salon on the first floor the facility. Kyle explained that he did not have enough information to be able to determine the impact this would have on the con- struction schedule or the cost of this addition, Fred lis- tened and then wondered if the members of his team had done any analysis to determine if this was a good idea or not. Fred told Kyle he would get back to him on that one. He then made a phone call to the COO and VP of Marketing, with Kyle proced proceeded of 262 CHAPTER 7 / MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT Mary Lynn is having trouble getting information on the to help them implement a newly purchased Dead-Beat- status of the three projects she chose. Communication Parent tracking system. Jeremy is nervous and wants to be between the project managers and the Quality sure that they meet the specifications of this new project. Improvement Department is not always timely. She wants He is not sure if the standard action plan needs changing to be sure that all three are completed in plenty of time or if there is something else he should do. before the survey is scheduled. Mary Lynn also wants to be able to tell where the projects are in relation to cach other, Question: What should Jeremy Smith do? as they all need to be completed by a certain date. She wonders how she can tell if they are behind or ahead Cable Tech, Inc. of schedule. Cable Tech is a contract cable wiring company. It pro- Question: What would you recommend Mary Lynn do? vides support to local cable companies in seven states in the midwest. Cable Tech has one operation in each state, Stoneworth Paving Company and they vary in size from 60 to 250 employees. A dis- turbing trend has been developing for the last couple of Stoneworth Paving Company specializes in highway paving years that Cable Tech management wishes to stop. jobs for the State of Virginia. When the state first awarded Incidences of tardiness and absenteeism are on the Stoneworth the contract, they stipulated a 1 percent pen- increase. Both are extremely disruptive in a contract wir- alty for each week Stoneworth was late on a completion ing operation. Cable Tech is nonunion in all seven loca- date. Preston Flintrock, the project coordinator for tions, and since management wants to keep this situation, Stoneworth, began to notice that the last two jobs were 3 it wants a careful, low-key approach to the problem. weeks late, and the paving job that was due to be completed Assistant Personnel Manager Jean Alister has been in the next 2 weeks was behind schedule. When Preston appointed project manager to recommend a solution. All went in the field to investigate, he found the job to be seven operations managers have been assigned to work understaffed, supplier delays, and a high work rejection rate/ with her on this problem. repaving needed. As a result, Preston decided to establish a Jean has had no problem interfacing with the opera- better system of project control and present it to his boss. tions managers. They quickly agreed that three steps must be taken to solve the problem: Question: If you were Preston, what characteristics would you be looking for in a new control system? Will a new 1. Institute a uniform daily attendance report that is sum- control system be adequate for the problem? Explain. marized weekly and forwarded to the main office. (Current practice varies from location to location, but Happy Customers comments on attendance are normally included in monthly operations reports.) J. Z. Smith is a small consulting firm specializing in implementing new information systems installation 2. Institute a uniform disciplinary policy, enforced in a uniform manner. projects for service agencies. J. Z. Smith has a standard project action plan for the implementation projects 3. Initiate an intensive employee education program to they work on. They feel very confident in the project emphasize the importance of good attendance. plan they use; all steps are included and the costs are In addition, the team decided that the three-point pro- estimated well. gram should be tested before a final recommendation is The project teams are very entrepreneurial and have great relationships with their small client base. The com- presented. They thought it would be best to test the pro- gram at one location for 2 months. Jean wants to control pany works with their clients informally following the and evaluate the test by having a daily attendance report standard action plan. They provide weekly progress reports transmitted to her directly at headquarters, from which for the client and for Jeremy Smith, the president of she will make the final decision on whether or not to pre- J. Z. Smith. Jeremy has noticed that they have problems sent the program in its current format. with meeting budgets and due dates. He thinks his teams allow their clients to add steps to the projects. A current Question: Does this monitoring and control method client, the local welfare department, has asked J. Z. Smith seem adequate? What are the potential problems? INCIDENTS FOR DISCUSSION • 261 10. Industrial Building, Inc., has two project teams installing virtually identical, 4-story commercial buildings for a customer in two separate cities. Both projects have a planned daily cost of 100 and a planned daily earned value of 100. The first six days for each team have progressed as follows: 4. Repeat Exercise 3 using MSP (omit calculation of CPI and SPI). 5. Given an activity in a smartphone design project whose planned cost was $13,000 but actual cost to date is $12,000 so far, and whose value completed is only 80%, calculate the cost and schedule variances Will the client be pleased or angry? 6. Resolve Exercise 3 using the 50-50 rule for planned value and earned value. 7. Given the following information about a website design, which activities are on time, which are early, and which are behind schedule? Team A: Earned Value Team B: Earned Value Day A: Cost B: Cost 90 92 94 98 104 112 90 88 95 101 89 105 3 4 5 6 95 98 101 106 116 126 95 94 102 109 99 118 Actual Cost Critical Ratio Activity A B с D E Budgeted Cost $300 125 225 100 250 $200 250 150 100 250 1.0 0.5 1.5 1.5 0.67 Compare the two projects in terms of general progress and according to critical ratios. 11. At week 24 of a project to shoot a television com- mercial, the project manager is worried about her budget since costs have risen to $7,500. Find if there is a cost overage, and if so, how much it is. Is the schedule ahead or behind? Overall, does the project appear to be in control? 8. Design and plot a critical ratio chart for an advertis- ing project that had planned constant, linear progress from 0 to an earned value of 400 over a 100-day dura- tion. In fact, progress for the first 20 days has actually been: 4,6,8,12,14,18,24,28,30,34,40,42,42,44,48,52,5 4,58,62,66. What can you conclude about this project? 9. Given the following information, calculate the criti- cal ratios and indicate which activities are on target and which need to be investigated. Comment on the situation for each of the activities. Prede- cessors % Duration Budget Com- (wks) ($) plete 6 900 100 6 1200 100 6 1200 100 12 1800 100 a a Actual Scheduled Budgeted Actual Activity Progress Progress Cost Cost A 2 days 2 days $40 $35 B 4 days 6 days $30 $40 с 1 day 3 days $50 $70 D 3 days 2 days $25 $25 Activity a: Write script b: Screen actors c: Select actors d: Contract studio e: Obtain props f: Schedule date g: Shoot commercial b.c b,c,d 14 10 1400 1500 100 40 d.e 16 800 0 INCIDENTS FOR DISCUSSION St. Margaret's Hospital Mary Lynn DeCold is the Quality Improvement Director at St. Margaret's Hospital, a large acute care facility. She is responsible for monitoring all of the performance improve ment projects that take place in the hospital. At any given time numerous projects can be underway, some depart- mental and some enterprise-wide efforts. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is scheduled to conduct a survey of St. Margaret's in 9 months. It is a requirement of the accred- iting agency that three performance improvement projects be spotlighted during the survey. Mary Lynn wants to be sure that she picks three projects that will be finished within the next month or 2 so that they have at least 6 months' worth of data to show that the project improved performance. 264 Actual Finish NA Baseline Duration Actual Baseline Start Finish 03/01/X7 07/30/X8 03/01/X7 06/04/X8 03/01/X7 07/11/X7 Finish Variance 369 days Actual Remaining Duration Variance 278.76 days 104.24 days 285.12 days 57.88 days 110 days O days Dur. Variance 14 days 14 days 15 days 14 days NA 08/01/X7 329 days 95 days 14 days 15 days Assisted Living Facility Construction Project Update as of 4/11/X8 Baseline ID Task Name Start 1 Construction & furnishings 03/01/X7 2 Facility construction 03/01/X7 3 Phase 1 - Foundation & 03/01/X7 Excavation 4 Phase 2 - Structure 04/19/X7 5 Phase 3 - Enclosure 07/12/X7 6 Phase 4 - Interiors 07/12/X7 7 First 45 (light-assisted) units 05/01/X8 ready to prepare for occupancy 8 First 45 units ready for residents 05/01/X8 9 Remaining 57 units (light & 06/04/X8 heavy) ready to prepare for occupancy 10 Construction complete 06/04/X8 11 Building ready for residents 06/05/X8 05/24/X7 09/22/X7 08/01/X7 01/15/X8 08/01/X7 06/04/X8 NA 05/01/X8 10/09/X7 01/15/X8 NA NA 113 days 134 days 234 days O days 99 days 120 days 139 days O days O days O days 95 days 0 days -14 days - 14 days O days O days 11 days O days 14 days 14 days 8 wks Owks 8 wks NA NA 06/25/X8 06/04/X8 NA NA Owks O days 14 days 14 days O days 0 days O days NA NA 06/04/X8 07/30/X8 NA NA 0 days 8 wks O days O wks O days 8 wks O days Owks 14 days 14 days Project Manager: K. Nanino 260 CHAPTER 7 / MONITORING AND CONTROLLING THE PROJECT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. When making an estimate for the time and cost to execute a project, should the time and cost required to develop the planning, monitoring, and controlling systems be included as well? Should the actions required to monitor and control a project be included in the project's action plan or WBS? 2. The chapter included an example of a firm where the PM dispensed with all the planning formality because no one ever looked at it anyway. What did the PM think the purpose of such planning was in this firm? What should the firm do in the future to correct this problem? 3. In fields such as psychology and sociology, verbal characterizations are frequently used to show the amount of some factor. How might one set up such a measure for a project management characteristic such as the "energy" of the project team? 4. How can the PM circumvent the problem that the monitoring system can only report on activities that have passed, thus telling the PM what has already gone wrong but not what will go wrong in the future? 5. How might using electronic media to report project information lead to problems with control? 6. Explain how the earned value chart captures all three objectives of a project: scope, cost, and schedule. 7. Why isn't there an earned value reporting conven- tion that allows progress on a task to be credited when the task is half completed? Wouldn't this be more accurate than giving credit only when the task is finally completed? 8. When would spending and schedule variances be more informative than ratios? When would ratios be better? 9. How should a PM reconcile the dual purposes of con- trol: conserving resources and regulating results through the use of resources? 10. Identify situations where each of the following con- trol tools might be useful: earned value charts, bench- marking, critical ratios, control charts, variance analysis, trend projections. 11. How might the existence of a change control system affect the behavior of a client, or a project team mem- ber, who desires to make a change in the project? 12. "In order to manage for overall project success, con- trol must be exercised at the detailed work level for each aspect of project performance or no significant change will occur." Does this mean that the PM should micromanage the project? If not, what does it mean? 13. Of all the rules for conducting meetings, the most dif- ficult to enforce is the injunction against the weekly (or daily) standard project progress report (the "show and tell" meeting). Why is this, and under what cir- cumstances do you think that such meetings are justified? 14. If your project management software calculates earned value, or any other standard item to be reported differently than the Project Management Institute suggests, should you deal with this matter in management reports? If so, how? 15. Logically, when using earned value data in the criti- cal ratio formula, should the "budgeted cost" be the planned value or the earned value? What problems occur with each choice! EXERCISES 3. The following project is at the end of its sixth week. Find the cost and schedule variances. Also find the CPI and SPI. Then find the critical ratio of the pro- ject using earned value calculations. Finally, calculate the ETC and EAC for the project. 1. A project in its 26th week has an actual cost of $270,000. It was scheduled to have spent $261,000. For the work performed to date, the budgeted value is $272,000. What are the cost and schedule variances for the project? What are the SPI and CPI? 2. A project has just completed the 87th item in its plan. It was scheduled to have spent $168,000 at this point in the plan, has ally spent only $156,000. The foreman estimates that the value of the work actually finished is about $162,000. What are the spending and schedule variances for the project? What are the SPI and CPI? (wks) a Prede- Duration Budget Actual % Com. Activity cessors ($) Cost ($) plete 2 300 400 100 b 3 200 180 100 2 250 300 100 d a 5 600 400 20 b, c 4 400 200 20 C a e • 265 QUESTIONS Friendly Assisted Living Facility Construction coordination meeting 4/11/X8 ACTION ITEM LIST Date Date Initiated Required 01/10/20X8 ASAP Date Required Resolved From 02/11/20X8 St. Dismas Comments Proposal to St. Dismas 1/18/X7 11/9/20X7 12/1/20X7 02/8/20X8 St. Dismas 11/9/20X7 12/1/20X7 St. Dismas Security Cost proposal to St. Dismas 1/13/X7 Item Provide notice to proceed on parking lots Provide PS. # for designer to purchase accessories What are the security requirements? There are fire doors, and they do not have locks. We have rough-in for card readers, but no electric hardware. Lighting review-will exterior lighting in addition to the building mounted lights be required! Location of security panel 12/14/20X7 03/15/20X8 03/15/20X8 St. Dismas lighting consultant & electrician 09/28/20X7 ASAP St. Dismas security 01/18/20X7 01/27/20X8 02/11/20X8 St. Dismas designer 02/9/20X8 ASAP Contractor Room number style and placement Parking lot permit Part of signage discussion Permit application 2/9/20X8, waiting for City to approve Conduit required 02/11/20X8 ASAP Fire alarm connection to hospital panel Hair salon decision Updated fire alarm drawings 02/11/20X8 02/7/20X8 ASAP 07/1/X8 St. Dismas electrician St. Dismas Contractor & electrician QUESTIONS 1. What do you think the construction project manager should have done when the Director of Security stopped attending the project meetings? 2. Do you think it is an effective communications tool to send the construction project meeting minutes to the ALF steering team and the President? Support your answer. 3. How much time has to be made up for the original, baseline schedule to be met? 4. Develop a plan and draw a Gantt chart for the Parking Lot phase of the project as originally planned by Kyle. Answer Fred's questions. 5. What information does Fred need to make a decision about building a hair salon?
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Explanation & Answer

Hello, these are the first and last sections of the assignment. Am sending the second bit in one hour.

Ex 1.
Actual Cost (AC)
Earned Value (EV)
Planned Value (PV)
Cost Variance (CV) = EV - AC
Schedule Variance (SV)= EV - PV
SPI= EV/PV
CPI= EV/AC

$270,000
$272,000
$261,000
$2,000
$11,000
1.042
1.007

Ex 2.
Actual Cost (AC)
Earned Value (EV)
Planned Value (PV)
Cost Variance (CV) = EV - AC
Schedule Variance (SV)= EV - PV
SPI = EV/PV
CPI = EV/AC

Ex 3.
Activity
a
b
c
d
e

Predecessors
a
a
b, c

$156,000
$162,000
$168,000
$6,000
$-6,000
0.964
1.038

Duration.
(Weeks)
2
3
2
5
4

Budget
($)
300
200
250
600
400

Actual Cost
($)
400
180
300
400
200

%
Completed
100
100
100
20
20

Since at the 6th week the project is within schedule, the Planned and Earned Values are equal.
Hence, the CV and SV are computed as follows:
AC
EV=PV
CV = EV - AC
SV = EV - PV
CPI = EV/AC
SPI = EV/PV

$880*6/7= $754.30
$750*6/7= $642.86
$-111.44
$0.00
0.85
1.0

Critical Ratio (CR) = time remaining / work days remaining
The time remaining to the completion of the project = (16 - 6) weeks = 10 weeks
Work days rem. to completion of the project = (7 + 100/20*5 + 100/20*4 – 6) weeks = 46 weeks.
Hence CR = 10/46 = 0.217 implying the project is behind schedule.
Estimate to Completion
The total duration of the project after 16 weeks based on the plan is given as:
$300 + $200 + $250 + 100/20*$600 + 100/20*$400 = $5,750
At the 6th week, the estimated cost at that given time is:
6/7*($300 + $200 + $250) = $642.86
Hence, the Estimate to Completion (ETC) = $5,750 - $642.86 = $5,107.14
Estimate at completion
For the project to be completed at 100% after the 16 weeks, the actual budget would be given as:
$400 + $180 + $300 +100/20*$400 +100/20*$200 = $3,880
Since the project is at 6th week, the actual cost by week 6 is given as:
6/7*($400 + $180 + $300) = $754.30
Hence, the actual cost to completion = $3,880 - $754.30 = $3,125.70
And the Estimate at Completion (EAT) =$5,107.14 + $754.30 = $5,861.44


Mary can consider the following three business strategies as the...


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