The Rock-n-Bands Case Analysis: Identifying the Simulating Issues

1. Planning Risks: Inadequate time to plan, allocate resources and scheduling thoroughly for projects completions and budget parameters.

The end date of the project cannot be moved, so the project should be considered as a time constrain project. Two internal research teams are assigned to Development initially, but Development over allocation still exists. In the resource graph, we can see that the peak of demand in Development is 500%, which means we need to hire 1 more development team outside the company. The peak demand is consisted by 5 tasks: 1.2 “Hardware design”, 2.2.1 “Disk drivers”, 2.3 “Memory management”, 3.2 “Routine utilities” and 3.3 “Complex utilities”. Among these tasks, 3.2 “Routine utilities” has the shortest duration. Since the cost for outside development team is higher, we should hire it for as short duration as possible. Thus the external development team is assigned to the task 3.2 “Routine utilities”.

project data from work breakdown structures and schedules" and comparing it to "topdown project goals." After this, the teams are to estimate investment risks

592 Week 1 DQ 1 WBS Construction PROJ 592 Week 1 DQ 2 Project Cost Estimates and Assumptions PROJ 592 Week 2 DQ 1 Cost Components PROJ 592 Week 2 DQ 2 Estimating Processes PROJ 592 Week 3 DQ 1 Project Schedules PROJ 592 Week 3 DQ 2 Sensitivity Analysis PROJ 592 Week 4 DQ 1 Resource Allocation and Leveling PROJ 592 Week 4 DQ 2 Advanced Schedule Techniques PROJ 592 Week 5 DQ 1 Earned Value Calculation PROJ 592 Week 5 DQ 2 Project Monitoring and Control & EV PROJ 592 Week 6 DQ 1 Forecasting Project Completion Cost PROJ 592 Week 6 DQ 2 Project Control PROJ 592

The Scanlon plan created problems within the company and questions had to be formulated and put into place to be addressed before any major decisions could be made. Although the Scanlon plan was a good plan, it was not a “one size” fits all plan. Changes needed to be made and what type of changes had to be addressed. Some of the other difficulties facing the company was, no

Describe common practices to estimate the duration of project activities as well as real reasons that cause project delays.

Resources used will be primarily the project team members. To reduce risk all members need to be aware of the project schedule so that the right team members are available at the right times. Adequate computer resources, physical space and other support staff need to be ensured so that the project does not fall behind schedule.

There are constantly problems arising from poor time management. Last week, a welder took too many breaks and did not complete his task. Yesterday, an ironworker did not complete his assignment, because he took an extended lunch.

Problem 12 (page 82) Table 2.5 on page 82 contains information about an environmental clean-up project. Shorten the project three weeks by finding the minimum-cost schedule. Assume that project indirect costs and penalty consts are negligible. Identify activities to crash while minimizing the additional crash costs. Solution: AON Diagram for the environmental project:

One of the main concerns during the meeting was the impact of cost and time constraints on networking techniques and project schedules. Under the ideal situation, the project start and end dates are fixed. Adding resources is not usually feasible as it increases cost. There should be a balance between time and cost constraints as it avoids wasting of resources. Also most people are willing to accept that costs could exceed expectations, and might even take a perverse delight in recounting past examples, the same is not true for time constraints. This is probably due to the fact that cost over runs are resolved in-house, while schedule issues are open and visible to the customer. A company has a lot of useful, desirable work that could be done, but has limited and finite resources available with which to do that work. Choices have to be made about which work to do and how to allocate resources. This leads to constraints especially, the time constraint and the cost constraint. Time, in project management, is analyzed down to its smallest detail. Each and every component of the project is analyzed with respect to the time required for completion. After completion of this analysis these components are broken down even further into the time required to do each task.

Deal with a single party only. Since this project have to complete in a short period, it could be more efficient if only one party involve in this project. The project that only involves a single party can avoid communication problems between parties and the overruns of the project.

The team leaders' projections show that the cost of starting the race under normal circumstances would be $3,152,000 (see table 2), however, normal conditions also dictate that the project will require 50 weeks to finish. As with any solid plan, the team leaders have also calculated crash times and costs as backup options in case the project experiences delays, or in this circumstance an imposed deadline; the start of the race 45 weeks from now. Analyzing crash times and costs we see that if each activity were crashed the project could be finished in 42 weeks, however, the budget would skyrocket to $4.952 million (see table 5). Therefore, the team will need to analyze the project network and its critical path to determine which individual activities can be crashed while maintaining the integrity of the budget.

Placing the events in a Gantt chart will help clarify and organize the events, the order in which they will occur, as well as any preceding activities that must be accomplished. Table 5 shows the project 's normal conditions, their timeframes and associated costs. As noted, normal conditions require 50 weeks to complete and therefore, cannot be used. Table 6 is a similar chart showing the project under ultimate crash conditions. As mentioned earlier, the project can be accomplished in as little as 42 weeks if every activity is crashed. This scenario is not desired however, because the project 's budget then approaches $5 million in associated costs, over 50% beyond the original allotted expenditure.

Lack of project management clarity: the planning activity had lot of material but lacked content, clear action items and lack of consensus on the milestones. The difficulties in the project only increased with time and a more performance driven style would have kept things on track if introduced early on.

A key activity in project management is assessing project constraints. A project has three limitations: scope, budget and schedule. These limitations are project constraints because they are sensitive to change and have an impact on project risk. Risk is exposure to uncertain outcomes. Project constraints are mutually exclusive. If one constraint changes it affects the others and adjustments may be required to compensate and manage risks. For example, a delay in the schedule can increase the risk that the project will not finish on time. Time is money and delays have a negative impact on the budget. To