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UT Knoxville BUAD 341 - Final Exam Study Guide
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BA 341 Final EditionFinal Exam Study Guide Lectures: 19 - 23Lecture 19 (November 10)Projects - A project is - a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. - Characteristics of a Projecto Purpose – a one-time activity with well- defined desired end resultso Temporary – has a definite beginning and a definite end, hence a finite durationo Life Cycle - projects evolve in steps -> from a slow beginning they progress to a build-up of size, then peak, begin a decline and then must be terminatedo Interdependencies – projects can interact with other projects within the same parent organization and most typically, with the functional departments (marketing, finance, manufacturing, etc) of the firm; How are projects organized?- As part of the functional organization- Matrix organization- Pure Projecto Uniqueness - every project has elements that make it unique – e.g. an office building has different owners, design, location, contractors, etc.o Conflict - projects vs. functional dept. and project vs. project with respect to resources and personnel- Examples of Projectso Honda introduces Insighto Apple launches iOS 6o Construction of Haslam Business Buildingo Columbia Pictures produces “The Amazing Spider-Man”o Pfizer launches SudafedProject Manager - Responsibilities, major challenges, skills of good PMs- Responsible too The parent organizationo The cliento The project team- Major challenges o Selecting and motivating the personnelo Dealing with obstacleso Making project goal trade-offso Communicating with all partieso Dealing with project risks and potential failure- What is takes to be a good project manager?o Strong technical and managerial background  Credibilityo Excellent communication skillso Excellent organizational (planning, goal-setting) skillso Negotiator and team-buildero Sensitive to political issueso Ability to handle pressure Project Scheduling- Common inputs to Project Scheduling o List of project tasks, subtasks, work packages and activitieso Logical sequence of activities in the projecto Activity durationso Resources involved and their availabilityo Usually presented as o Work breakdown structure (WBS)o Precedence tablesLecture 20 (November 12)Project Scheduling- Common Outputso Gantt Chartso Project network diagramo- Critical Path Method (CPM) and PERTo One alternative is to identify all possible paths through the projecto Project duration is given by the longest path (critical path)-o Using the Critical Path Method – a project management technique that uses only one time factor per activity- Identify activity slack and critical path(s) based on ES/EF, LS/LF times provided with the network diagramo Earliest Start (ES) – earliest time at which an activity can start, assuming all predecessors have been completed o Earliest Finish (EF) – Earliest time at which an activity can be finishedo Latest Start (LS) – latest time at which an activity can start so as to not delay the completion time of an entire projecto Latest Finish (LF) – latest time by which an activity has to finish so as to not delay the completion time of the entire projecto Slack time – free time for an activity, also referred to as free float or free slack. Slack=LS-Es=LF-EFo On the test be able to Identify impact of activity delays on project schedule o Compute expected activity durations and variances- Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)o Similar to CPM but able to incorporate duration uncertaintyo A project management technique that employs three times estimates for each activityo Let, for each project task a = optimistic time estimate b = pessimistic time estimate m = most likely time estimateo Then, compute for each project task ET (Expected Time) = (a + 4m + b)/6 σ2 (Variance) = ((b-a)/6)2Lecture 21 (November 17)Project Scheduling - Compute project completion probabilities (be able to read the normal tableprovided with the class notes)Time-cost models in Project Management- Goal: reduce project duration by x days- Constraint: find the most cost-effective approach- Stepso 1) Determine the project inputs: List of project activities and activity sequence Activity durations and costs- Normal Cost (NC) – the lowest expected activity cost- Normal Time (NT) – duration associated with NC- Crash Time (CT) – the shortest possible activity time- Crash Cost (CC) – the cost associated with CTo 2) Find the cost per period (slope), to expedite each activity o 3) Identify the critical path, using normal activity timeso 4) Start crashing (reducing) the activities on the critical path, one activity at a time, one period (e.g., day) at a time, in increasing order of their slopes (the lower the slope, the cheaper the crashing)o 5) Reevaluate the critical path after each one-period crash; if new duration is satisfactory stop, otherwise, go back to step 4 Lecture 22 (November 19)Critical Chain Project Management- Typical traditional assumptions, behavioral aspectso There are several human behavior laws that tend to jeopardize task and overall project durations: o Parkinson’s Law o 3-Minute Egg Rule o Student Syndromeo Multitaskingo Addressing them is especially important when there are limited recourses available for a project.Let’s consider an example- Assume the following project, where the letters represent resources- Further, assume that activity durations have been determined in the traditional way- i.e., have been individually padded for safety-- In this example letters represent recourses. o There is one task that requires the resource V.o There is one task that requires the resource W.o There is one task that requires the resource Y.o There is one task that requires the resource Z.o And there are two tasks that require the resource X. The resource X can work only on 1 task at a time.- Step 1 - Use Aggressive but possible times (ABPT)o According to the CCPM the first step is to use aggressive but possible times (ABPT) for task durations. o Aggressive but possible times equal to half of traditionally estimated task durations. For example, the traditional time estimate for the task that requires the resource V was 12 days, ABPT estimate is 12/2= 6 days.- Step 2 - Identify the critical chain (The longest sequence of dependent events that prevents the project from completing sooner, based on ABPT durationso The correspondent of the “constraint” in a project environmento Task and resource


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UT Knoxville BUAD 341 - Final Exam Study Guide

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