Project Management- Quiz 2 > Session 4 > Flashcards

Session 4 Flashcards

Project Planning (56 cards)

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1
Q

What is a roadmap?

A

A detailed timetable showing who must do what and when he has to

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2
Q

How much project planning should you do?

A

Richman’s: The average organization spends only 5% of its budget on project planning. Good practices dictates that at least 25% of this budget should be allocated to development. Kemp’s 1:100:1000 rule. Which is the rusk of disillusionnment

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3
Q

What does WBS stand for?

A

It is a work breakdown structure

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4
Q

What is a WBS?

A

A list of all tasks necessary for production a project

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5
Q

What are the objectives of the WBS?

A
  • Precise description of the project scope
  • Monitor project progress (each tasks can be measured in work units)
  • Build the project team (describe task assignments, situate individual work and effort within the project)
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6
Q

What is scheduling?

A

Scheduling involves determining the start and finish dates for project activities, tasks, and milestones. It establishes the sequences of activities, dependencies, and the overall project timeline

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7
Q

What is the WBS?

A

Is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team. It breaks down the project into smaller, more manageable components.

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8
Q

What are two aspects of project management that are interconnected?

A

Scheduling a project and creating a WBS are two distinct but interconnected

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9
Q

What are the two levels of the WBS?

A

The WBS is used to divide the work required for the project into separate tasks or activities.

(1) Summary tasks: cover several subordinate tasks
(2) Work package: task representing the actual work done by the resources

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10
Q

How is the WBS organized?

A

Project timeline, geographical criteria, the department responsible for carrying out the summary tasks, and deliverables

This depends on the type of project and its objectives

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11
Q

What are the W.B.S key success factors?

A
  • the WBS must be detailed from the most general to the most precise
  • the various work packages, taken together, must achieve the task announced by the summary task
  • each task must be labeled so that it corresponds to an activity that produces something

Divide the project into sufficiently detailed tasks that make sense within the project organization and can be managed

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12
Q

How precise is a task definition? (Another key to success)

A
  • 8, 80 rules: a must not take less than 8 hours or more than 80 hours to complete
  • is this useful rule to: (i) better estimate the task? (ii) better assign the completion of the task? (iii) better control progress
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13
Q

What does PERT stand for?

A

Project Evaluation and Review Technique

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14
Q

What is PERT?

A

Is a project management tool used to schedule, organize, and coordinate tasks within a project

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15
Q

What are some questions that PERT will answer?

A
  • How long will it take to complete a project?
  • What are the risks involved in a project in terms of schedule?
  • Which are the critical activities or tasks in a project that can cause delay of the entire project?
  • If the project has to be finished earlier than planned, what is the most efficient and effective way at the least cost?
  • Is the project on schedule, behind schedule, or ahead of schedule?
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16
Q

What is an activity?

A

A specific tasks or set of tasks that is part of the scope of a project, uses up some of the resources of a project, and requires some finite time to be complete

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17
Q

What is a path?

A

Sequence of activities

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18
Q

What is an event?

A

Beginning and end of activity

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19
Q

What is LS?

A

Late start time

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20
Q

What is ES?

A

early start time

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21
Q

What is LF?

A

late finish time

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22
Q

What is EF?

A

early finish time

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23
Q

What is Slack?

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A

Amount of play in the system; the differences between the critical path time and time required for a given path. = LS-ES or LF-EF

24
Q

What is Crashing?

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A

Reducing overall time required to complete project. Involves trading off costs of additional resources against the value of time saved to complete the project

25
What do you need to estimate? and Why?
(1) completion time: the time interval required to complete the tasks. Expressed in days or weeks (2) Workload: the amount of work required to complete the tasks (hours or days) Do not forget the indirect factors that can affect the duration or workload required to complete a task
26
What are the two possibilities of working hours and workload?
(1) the completion time is not fixed a priori: in this case, it will depend on the workload and available resources assigned to the project (2) The completion time is fixed a priori: in this case the resources allocated to the tasks are constrained by a comparison of the workload and the time available for completion
27
How do you estimate the time needed to complete a task?
- expert judgement - by analogy - intuition it is not the method but the managers sensitivity that matters most
28
What is dependencies between tasks?
Once the estimates have been made, we look at the relationships between the tasks. Not all tasks can start at the same time and some tasks depend on others to get started. We call these relationships dependencies
29
What are the 3 types of dependencies?
- Finish-to-start (FS): the task cannot start before the previous one has finished - Finish-to-finish (FF): two tasks must finish at the same time - Start-to-start (SS): two tasks can be started at the same time Once these elements have been defined, the PERT diagram can be created
30
What are the 3 types of sequencing activities?
(1) Mandatory dependencies: these dependencies are part of the project and are inherent to the project (2) Discretionary dependencies: these dependencies are defined by the project team (3) External dependencies: these dependencies involve relationship between the project and the non-project activities
31
What is the CPM?
Critical Path Method - is a project management tool used to determine the longest sequence of dependent tasks that must be completed for a project to be finished - this sequence is know as the critical path - understanding the critical path is crucial because any delay in these tasks directly impacts the overall project completion date
32
What is a tasks or activities?
the individual work components required to complete a project
33
What is a node?
Represent the start or finish of tasks
34
What is an arrows?
Show dependencies between tasks (which task must be completed before another can start)
35
What is the critical path?
The sequence of tasks that indicates the project's minimum duration. If any task on the critical path is delayed, the whole project is delayed
36
What is slack or float?
The amount of time that a task can be delayed without causing a delay to the overall proejct. Tasks on the critical path have 0 slack
37
Why is it necessary to find the critical path?
- shortest route to project completion (longest duration) - any delay on the critical path will delay completion of the entire project Central element of project planning
38
What is project margin (float or slack)?
Time during which an activity can be delayed or extended
39
What is the total margin (total float)?
difference between the latest start of the next task and the earliest end of the task itself
40
What is a flexible margin (free float)?
difference between the earliest start date of the next task and the earliest finish date of the task itself
41
How to deal with uncertainty in scheduling activities?
PDM and PERT can be used in times of uncertainty as well. Instead of the duration for an activity, estimated duration as defined by PERT can be found using three estimates of time. - Optimistic time: the shortest time in which activity can be completed - Most likely time: the completion time having the highest probability - Pessimistic time: the longest time that an activity might require
42
How to calculate Expected time?
= optimistic time + (4*most likely time) + pessimistic time divided all by 6
43
What is the variance in scheduling activities?
This expected time may be used in the network diagram instead of the normal duration period for each activity.
44
How to calculate the variance and the standard deviation?
Variation= (pessimistic time- optimistic time divided by 6)^2 Standard deviation is the square root of the sum of the standard deviation
45
How do you calculate the probability of completing the project in a specific period of time?
Z= (desired due time - sum of the expected time of the critical path)/ total path deviation
46
What does it mean to project crash?
Attempt to reduce the completion time of a project to a lesser amount of time
47
What is the daily crash cost?
How much does it cost in resources to reduce the time by a day?
48
What is the crash limit?
What is the lower limit of daily crash cost?
49
What do you need to cease when crashing?
The target completion time is reached and the crash cost exceeds the penalty cost
50
What does a project need?
Without planing, there is no project
51
What are the three objectives of planning/ calendar?
- strengthen commitment - enable participants to understand their role in the project - project control This is a critical stage of the project
52
What is a milestone?
Milestones are the key events of your project that demonstrate its progress
52
What are the two methods of planning?
Classic planning: based on project start date Backward palnning: built from project end date These two approaches are compatible and the choice depends on the type of project
53
What are project milestones?
- Corresponds to the important dates for completing your project - Take the form of a concrete project (production of deliverables)
54
What are milestones are used to?
- set the end of a task - monitor project progress and validate task completion
55
What are some Gantt Software?
Featured products: MS-Project; PSNext; Project Scheduler Free software: open Workbench; Gantt-project Other: Genius inside; Planisware
Project Management- Quiz 2
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