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| project | may be defined as a series of related jobs usually directed toward some major output and requiring a significant period of time to perform. |
| project management | defined as planning, directing, and controlling resources(people, equipment, material) to meet the technical, cost, and time constraints of the project. 3 structures pure project, functional project, or matrix project |
| pure project | where a self-contained team works full-time on the project. ADVANTAGES: project manager has full authority over project. Team members report to one boss. Lines of communication are shortened for quick decisions. Team pride, motivation, and commitment are high. DISADVs: Duplication of resources-people and equip not shared across projects. Firms goals and policies ignored. Lack of technology transfers(new tech) b/c weak functional divisions. Team members have no functional are home causes worry and project delay |
| functional project | a functional project is housed within a functional division. ADs: Team members can work on several projects. Technical expertise is maintained w/in functional area. Funtional area is a home after project is completed, specialist advance vertically. Critical mass of specialized knowledge creates solitions to technical problems. DISADs: Aspects of project that are not directly related to functional area get shortchanged. Motivation of team members is often weak. Needs of client are secondary and are responded to slowly. |
| matrix project | blends properties of functional and pure structures. Each project utilizes people from different functional areas. The project manager decides which tasks and when they will be performed, but functional managers control which people and technology are used. |
| advantages/disadvantages of matrix project | Communication between functional divisions is enhanced. Project manager held responsible for project. Resource duplication minimized. Functional home for team members. Policies of parent firm are followed, increasing project support. DISADs: 2 bosses. Depends on project managers negotiating skills. Sub-optimization is a danger as PM hoard resources for their own project. |
| project starts out as | a statement of work(SOW). The SOW may be a written description of objectives. Can also contain performance measures |
| task | a further subdivision of a project. usually not longer than several months and is performeed by 1 group. If project needs more seperation a subtask may be used |
| work package | a group of activities combined to be assignable to a single organizational unit. provides description of what is to be done, when its started and comleted, budget, measures of performance, and specific events. |
| project milestones | specific events to be reached at points in time in a project. |
| work breakdown structure | defines the heirarchy of project tasks, subtasks, ans work packages. Completion of work packages results in the completion of a subtask, completion of one or more subtask results in the completion of a task, and completion of all task is required to complete the project. No single correct WBS for a project. |
| Activities | defined w/in the context or the work breakdown structure and are pieces of work that consume time. are not seen as when they all are completed the project is done |
| critical path | of activities in a project is the sequence of activites that form the longest chain in terms of completion time. If one of activities in it are delayed, then the entire project is delayed. Provides a wide range of scheduling info useful in managing a project. |
| Critical Path Method (CPM) | helps to identify the critical paths in the project networks. |
| prerequisites for CPM | project must have: well-defined jobs or tasks whose completion marks the end of the project. Independent jobs or tasks, and taks that follow a given sequence. |
| CPM w/ single time estimate | Used when activity times are know w/ certainty. Used to determine timing estimates for the project, each activity in the project, and slack time for activities. |
| Steps in the CPM w/ single time estimate | 1) Activity identification 2) Activity sequencing and network construction. may use immediate predecessors-the activities that need to be completed immediately before an activity. 3) Determine the critical path. from the CP all of the project and activity timing info can be obtained. 4) determine the early & late start/finish schdule |
| slack time | leeway when an activity in a project can start/finish |
| 4 points in time for each project | the early start, early finish, late start, late finish. Difference between the early and late start times is the slack time. |
| early start schedule | one that lists all of the activities by early start times. completes the projects and all of its activities as soon as possible. |
| late start schedule | lists of activites that can start as late as possible w/out delaying the completion date of the project. one motivation is the savings from postponing materials, labor until neccesary |
| CPM with three activity time estimates | a= optimistic time: the minimum reasonable period of time in which the activity can be completed. (probability 1% it can be completed in less time). m= most likely time: the best guess of time required. since it is most likely to appear, its also the mode of the beta distribution. b= pessimistic time: the maximum reasonable period of time the activity would take to be completed. (1% that it would take longer) |
| calculate the expected time | [a+4(m)+b]/6 |
| calculate variance of 3 times | (b-a/6)^2 (pess-optim/6)^2 |
| Z | desired time-expected completion time for project/sum of variances |
| time-cost models | Determine the optimum point in time-cost tradeoffs. Basic assumption: relationship between activity completion time and project cost- cost money to expedite a project but also cost money to lengthen a project. Attempt to develop a minimum-cost schedule for an entire project and to control expenditures during the project. |
| activity direct cost | the cost associated with expediting activities and add to the project direct cost. Ex. over-time, additonal workers, additional equipment |
| project indirect costs | cost associated with sustaining the project. Ex. overhead, facilities, and resource opp cost. |
| because activity direct cost and project indirect costs are opposing cost dependent on time | the scheduling problem is essentially one of finding the project duration that minimizes their sum. finding optimum time-cost tradeoff |
| CPM assumptions/limitations | 1)project activities can be identified as entities(clear beg and end point). 2)Project sequence relationships can be specified and networked. (cannot always be specified beforehand). 3)Project control should focus on the critical path. 4) The activity times follow the beta distribution, w/ the varicance of the project assumed to equal the sum of the variances along the critical path. 5)Project control should focus on critical path |
