Project Management

Question 1

Examples

Answer 1

Airbus
Difficulties integrating complex wiring systems with the frame
CAD design software incompatibility between branches

Great Western Electrification
Inadequate project planning
Dependencies not identified
Optimistic estimates

Honda
One team one goal
Lean operations and waste reduction
Continuous improvement

COVID-19
Logistics of delivering tests

Question 2

Planning

Answer 2

Well defined objective

Unique
Temporary
Some degree of complexity
Uncertainty and risk

Question 3

Project Management

Answer 3

Understand the project environment: social, economy, business, politics
Project definition: objectives, scope and strategy,
Project planning
Technical execution

Question 4

Project Planning

Answer 4

Identify objectives
Estimate times and resources
Identify relationships and dependencies
Identify resource time constraints
Fix the schedule for time and resources

Question 5

Network Analysis

Answer 5

Critical Path: the path with the longest duration of time. The project cannot be completed sooner than the time required by the critical path

Question 6

Activity scheduling

Answer 6

Forward pass
Earliest Start (ES) = maximum EF of imm. predecessors
Earliest Finish (EF) = ES + activity duration

Backward pass
Latest Finish (LF) = minimum LS of immediate following activities
Latest Start (LS) = LF – activity duration

Question 7

Program Eval

Answer 7

Determine the probability that the project will be completed within a certain time period [risk involved in the project

Most likely time (m), the Optimistic time (a), the Pessimistic time (b)

Use expected times to identify critical path, and compute slack and project time

Total project variance = Sum of variance of critical path activities

Project variance is a measure of the risk involved in the project

Question 8

Crashing Project Networks

Answer 8

the process of reducing time spans on activities so that the project is completed in less time. This usually incurs extra cost
Focus must be on critical path activities
In order to decide which activity to crash, the ‘crash cost slope’ of each is calculated (crash cost per time period).
Crash the activity on the critical path which has the lowest crash cost slope.