Time Management Question

Submitted by Julbrown31 on Tue, 04/02/2013 - 04:36

 Q: The project is calculated to be completed in 4 days after the desired completion date. You do not have access to additional resources. The project is low risk, the BCR is expected to be 1.6, and the dependencies are preferential. Under these circumstances, what would be the next BEST thing to do?

 

A. Cut resources from activity

B. Make more activities concurrent

C. Move resources from preferential dependencies to external dependencies

D. Remove an activity

 

The answer is B.. I selected D because the project is low risk and I assumed if there are no additional resources...how can activities running concurrently make sense. Who is doing the additional work when resources are already assigned to existing deliverables...

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Renji2013

Tue, 04/02/2013 - 05:00

My idea is like this ..


Suppose you have 3 activities pending.  Suppose  these could also be established as fastracked in planning stage (the dependencies could be slightly overlapping , eg with leads ,and not strictly F ->S). But PM didnt do it, to reduce the risks involved. Now the contingency came. What do he do ?


Preferential dependencies: These are best practices to do certain things even though alternatives exist. So If some resources are waiting on preferential dependencies, remove the dependency and do the work in alternative faster sequences,


Sequential dependencies: Only way is to CRASH with more resources or reduce scope(not recommended)


External dependencies: Nothing could be done here..just wait for the trigger. Also they are not under the control or done by the team. So, no need of allocating resources to reduce the impact of external dependencies.


Overlapping dependencies: These could be fastracked. The PMI is assuming a big project where  many team members are loaded and offloaded based on the resource histogram/staffing management plan. And many of the tasks remaining may not be done by the existing resources themselves till the end of the project. Logically, Fastracking requires that the new resources are avaialble at an earlier date also. In the question we have to assume they are there available. But the activity costs remain the same anyway.


Removing the activity should always be the lease prefferred option, if there is no data to support it. So the best choice is B


 


Renji


 


 


 

Julbrown31

Tue, 04/02/2013 - 05:22

 Thanks.. This is helpful . 

 

sspawar

Tue, 04/02/2013 - 08:58

 this qsn has been asked earlier. you may search that.

since project is low risk and  additional source is not there

--- hence to complete work in time - fast track can be adopted-- it is the same as more activities are concurrent.

Dependencies are preferencial means --- activities sequences can be modified, if needed.

As in this case because of fast tracking sequences will get changes.

 Make more activities concurrent  = fast tracking = running activities parallel , means running activities of different nature at a time, with their available resources, it does not mean similar activity is to be run in 2 folds or similar resources are to be used in 2 or 3 folds.

It involves risk , but not cost.

Question tells 4 days you have been delayed, means resources for running parallel activities are available/accumulated.

whereas Crashing means -- deploying more resources on same activity, it requires extra resources and money and risk too.