Creating a Project Work Plan
Determining the Logical Relationship of Tasks in Your WBS
Resource Planning and Acquisition
Team Development
Cost Estimating and Budgeting
Learning Objectives for This Chapter
Describe the best practices for building a project schedule
Understand the concept of using an organizing principle for developing the work breakdown structure
Describe the types of task dependencies
Define the critical path and understand why it is important to project planning
Understand effort vs. duration
Be familiar with the various types of resources that are typically assigned to projects, including non-human and material resources
Define an optimized project plan
Describe why baselines are important to project tracking
Understand the basic principles for cost estimating and budgeting
Become familiar with the PMBOK concepts of resource planning, staff acquisition, and team development
Real project planning begins with a work breakdown structure (WBS), which is the formal project management term for a set of tasks that are configured into an outline structure, with phases at the highest level and detailed tasks at the lowest level. From there, the WBS can be expanded into a project schedule and used to guide resource assignments.
This chapter will discuss the process of building a complete project work plan, beginning with a list of tasks.
6.1 Creating a Project Work Plan
Project Planning Summary
What is the primary goal? What is the main product or outcome of this project?
What are the sub-goals? What are the intermediate steps and deliverables needed to achieve the primary goal?
How are we going to organize the project? Do we expect that there will be multiple remote teams with distinct deliverables that will be handed off between teams? Or will there be close knit groups collaborating on a sequence of joint deliverables?
What are the detailed activities? What more detailed tasks are needed to achieve the sub-goals?
In what order do the detailed activities have to be done? What is the necessary sequence of the tasks?
What kind of tasks are they? What determines how much time or effort they take?
What skills are needed to do the tasks? What attributes do the resources need to have? Who are the named resources who actually will perform the work?
How big are the tasks? What are our estimates of how much time or effort each one takes?
When will the work be done? What does the schedule look like?
Who will actually do the work, and when?
Referencing the Project Definition Document to Start Your Work Plan
Identify all project deliverables and determine how they will be documented.
Refer to your methodology.
Make sure the template suits your situation.
Decide if the detail for the summary schedule is appropriate.
Determine how the project budget was developed; validate it.
In order to build a plan, the project manager needs to know what deliverables have been designated for the project. This information can be found in the definition document created in the concept phase.
Methodologies and Planning
Many methodologies are accompanied by suggested work plans that have been built based upon successful projects that used the work plan. These work plan templates are a valuable source of information that can be used by the project manager in building the work plan.
A word of caution: Work plan templates sometimes contain hundreds, or even thousands, of predefined tasks. It is important that you validate these work plan templates even though it is tempting to think that a plan with that much detail already loaded must be right.
Determining How the SOW Summary Schedule Was Built
If the SOW contains a summary schedule, you might assume that a detailed work plan must have been built to support the summary schedule. If one has been built, then you already have a good starting point and may only need to validate what was already created.
The same holds true for the budget. As you may recall from the definition process, the project budget should be built from the detailed work plan, which states the total resource labor hours. Again, you should already have a good starting point for the plan.
Starting a Plan with a New Task Outline
If there is no methodology and no previous work plan that has been converted to a template, you may have to start with the proverbial “blank sheet of paper.” In the following sections, we will consider what processes and tools have been suggested to support this process.
Defining Activities
Activity definition involves identifying and documenting the specific activities that must be performed to produce the deliverables and sub-deliverables identified in the definition document. Ideally, the project manager will have the support of the project team throughout this process, but in many organizations, the project team is not identified until activity definition is complete.
Definition document – The project justification and the project objectives contained in the scope statement of the definition document are necessary inputs to the process.
Historical information – The activities required on previous similar projects can provide insight into the activities needed in this project.
Constraints – The factors that will limit the project team’s options, such as a predetermined finish date or a firm budget limit, must be considered.
High-level work breakdown structure – A work breakdown structure at the phase level may be available to guide activity definition.
Creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for Deliverables
The process of building the WBS starts by clustering tasks around logical groupings, such as related activities (e.g., design, programming, testing), related geographies (e.g., East, Midwest, West coast sites), or functions (e.g., accounting, human resources, shipping).
In the absence of a methodology that provides a template to guide activity definition, this can be as much art as science. The templates installed with Microsoft Project 2019 can be a useful source of insight into the options available.
A WBS “family tree”
Once you’ve clustered the tasks into logical groupings, you need to decide if the WBS contains the appropriate level of detail. A plan with three phases that contain 1000 hours each is not enough detail. However, if you loaded every step in a procedure into your work plan, this would probably be too much detail (e.g., a plan that contains 3000 tasks, each documenting one hour of effort).
So what’s the difference between a methodology procedure step and a task? Tasks are estimated, are scheduled, and have resources assigned. You wouldn’t want to go through all that effort for a procedure step. It’s not worth it. What we need are some rules of thumb for determining the right amount of detail.
Completing the WBS
The Rule of 80 is one way to test whether the WBS contains enough detail. Donald Plummer writes in Productivity Management, “The 80-hour rule stipulates that you break a project into tasks of 80 hours or less, each of which must result in a tangible product or deliverable.”
This rule is just a guideline. You have to decide what the right level of detail is for your project. A small network upgrade project that occurs over a weekend might contain 50 tasks that each requires 30–60 minutes of effort. Early software developers used the guideline that tasks should be greater than 4 hours of effort and less than 40 hours of effort.
Another useful approach is to ask if you have enough detail to be able to manage effectively. The longer the task, the more you will have to rely on the progress reports of the resource assigned to it and the harder it will be to ask probing questions about their progress. When you think you have enough detail, you should refer to the list of deliverables to be certain that tasks exist to build each of the deliverables. This is a good preliminary test of completeness, but it is still possible to overlook some important activities.
Working with Tasks That Are Not Deliverables Related
If you look only at the list of deliverables to build the WBS, there are some tasks you may miss. These are called scaffolding tasks , a term from the construction management industry. The scaffolding is used to put up the building, but when the building is delivered, the scaffolding is gone.
- 1.
Support tasks – Such as writing the program used for a one-time database conversion; the database gets converted, but the program to convert it does not get delivered; other examples include configuring a test environment or converting database records to a new format.
- 2.
Project management tasks – Such as the processes of tracking, analysis, and scope management; such tasks do not produce project deliverables, but still need to be included in the plan.
- 3.
Administrative tasks – Such as filing and copying; the deliverables guidelines in the SOW may not be any help in reminding you to include administrative tasks in the plan, but they are important enough to include; other examples include printing, non-project meetings, and other non-project activities that impact the schedule.
Scaffolding tasks can take a significant amount of effort, so it is important they are uncovered through some means other than the deliverables list.
Using the Gantt Chart with the WBS
The Gantt Chart
6.2 Determining Logical Relationships of Tasks in Your WBS
Task Dependencies
Once the WBS is built, you are ready to decide the order tasks will be performed. Some tasks depend on one or more tasks before they can start. For example, you can’t put up the walls until you pour the foundation. Some tasks need to start or finish at the same time, while other tasks can’t start until another one is already underway.
The predecessor and successor relationship you define provides the foundation for the critical path of your project. There are four different kinds of task dependencies.
Finish-to-Start Dependencies (FS)
Start-to-Start Dependencies (SS)
Finish-to-Finish Dependencies (FF)
Start-to-Finish Dependencies (SF)
Variations of Task Dependency Types
Activity Sequencing
The PMBOK Guide calls the process of establishing dependencies activity sequencing . This is the process of identifying and documenting dependencies between activities to be able to develop a realistic and achievable schedule.
Sequencing can be done manually as well as with project management software. Manual methods are often used on smaller projects. Project management software is more effective when the project is longer than six weeks, requires managing multiple resources, and requires frequent repetitive reports.
Product characteristics—such as the physical layout of a plant to be constructed or subsystems on a software project—often affect activity sequencing.
Mandatory dependencies are those that are inherent in the nature of the work being performed. These dependencies often involve physical limitations (e.g., software must be written before it can be tested), but they can also be based on the logic of the tasks.
- Discretionary dependencies are not required, but instead are determined by the project manager or team. Discretionary dependencies are usually based on knowledge of
Best practices within a particular application area.
Some aspect of the project that makes a specific sequence desirable, even though there are other approaches available. One justification might be the availability of necessary resources.
External dependencies is a relationship between project activities and non-project activities. For example, an activity in a project may depend on delivery of hardware from an external source, or environmental hearings may be required before site preparation on a construction project.
Once the logical relationships are determined, the project manager can create visual representations of the activities, including project network diagrams and Gantt Charts. Gantt Charts are most commonly used, but network diagrams are often helpful in complex projects involving relationships among subprojects.
These visual representations are helpful in determining and using the critical path method (CPM).
The Critical Path
The critical path is the longest path through the network, based on task duration, which dictates the shortest amount of time the project can be completed.
Though the critical path had originally been used by DuPont to sequence activities in chemical plant construction, the critical path was popularized when Lockheed was building the Polaris submarine in the 1950s. Project managers noticed that some seemingly important tasks could be late without impacting the end date of the project, while other less important tasks that were late were delaying the overall project. This problem led them to rediscover DuPont’s concept of the critical path.
Calculating the Critical Path
Sample critical path
Path | Length of Path | Longest? |
|---|---|---|
1-3-4-6-10 | 9 days | No |
1-2-5-7-10∗ | 12 days∗ | Yes∗ |
1-8-9-10 | 11 days | No |
These calculations can also provide you with the slack. Slack is the amount of time that a task can be delayed without impacting the project end date. Tasks not on the critical path have slack, while tasks on the critical path have zero slack.
Tasks 3, 4, or 6 can be up to 3 days late without changing the critical path. These tasks each have three days of slack.
What would happen if Task 2 consumed 5 days instead of 3 days?
What would the length of the 1-2-5-7-10 path become?
In this case, would the 1-2-5-7-10 path still be critical?
Another process for calculating the critical path and slack is the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). This process evaluates probable outcome based on three scenarios: a best-case, expected-case, and worst-case scenario. The outcome in question may be the duration of a task, its start date, or its finish date.
The Critical Path As an Estimate
All tasks are known – If you forget to add some tasks and add them later, the original critical path may change. Most project plans are missing tasks when they are initially built.
All links are accurate – A complicated plan with hundreds of tasks is likely to have some incorrect task dependencies defined.
All estimates are accurate – Inaccurate estimates can cause the original critical path to change.
Other non-critical paths may have small amounts of slack – A complicated activity path can have multiple non-critical paths. A change in any one of these paths can cause the original critical path to change.
Given the amount of assumptions we rely on in our analysis, the only time you know the actual critical path is after the project is finished.
Despite these potential problems, the critical path method gives the project manager a good indication of where to focus attention. The most important application of CPM is to realize a late task on the critical path will cause the project end date to change.
Estimating the Duration of Activities
The PMBOK Guide covers a process called activity duration estimating. This is a process of determining the number of work periods needed to complete each activity.
This estimation will often require consideration of elapsed time as well. For example, if concrete curing will require four days, that means it will require four work days if it begins on Monday, but only two work days if it begins on Friday.
Resource availability – The duration of most activities will be influenced by the resource assignments. Two people may be able to complete an activity in half the time it would take either of them alone, while a person working half time will generally take at least twice as much time to complete an activity as the same person working full time.
Resource capabilities – The duration of most activities will be significantly influenced by the capabilities of the resources assigned. An experienced employee will generally complete an activity in less time than an inexperienced employee.
- Historical information – Historical information can be very helpful in this estimating process. Common sources of such information include
Project files – Previous project results may be detailed enough to provide insights into the duration of activities.
Commercial duration estimating databases – Historical information is often available commercially, which is especially useful when the activity duration is not driven by the work involved (e.g., How long does it take concrete to cure? How long does a government agency usually take to respond to certain types of requests?).
Project team knowledge – Members of the project team may be aware of previous results or estimates.
Analogous estimating – Analogous estimating, also called top-down estimating, means using the actual duration of a previous, similar activity as the basis for estimating the duration of a future activity. It is frequently used to estimate project duration when there is a limited amount of detailed information about the project, for example, when the project is in the early phases.
Analogous estimating is a form of expert judgment. This form of estimating is most reliable when (1) the previous activities are similar in fact and not just in appearance and (2) the individuals preparing the estimates have the needed expertise.
Simulation – Simulation involves calculating multiple durations with different sets of assumptions. The most common is Monte Carlo analysis in which a distribution of probable results is defined for each activity and used to calculate a distribution of probable results for the total project.
Schedule Development
Once the durations of the activities in the project have been determined, the project manager and project team can move to schedule development . Schedule development, as defined by the PMBOK Guide, means determining start and finish dates for project activities. If the start and finish dates of individual activities are not realistic, the project is unlikely to be finished on schedule.
As with estimating duration, there are several items the project manager and project team should consider in this process:
Resource pool description – Knowing what resources will be available at what times and in what patterns is necessary for schedule development. Shared resources can be especially difficult to schedule unless their availability can be negotiated in advance.
Calendars – Project and resource calendars identify periods when work is allowed. Project calendars affect all resources; some projects will work only during normal business hours, while others will work a full three shifts. Resource calendars affect a specific resource or category of resources; for example, a project team member may be on vacation or in a training program or a labor contract may limit certain workers to certain days of the week.
- Constraints – There are two major categories of constraints that must be considered during schedule development:
Imposed dates – Completion of certain deliverables by a specified date may be required by the project sponsor, the project customer, or other external agency.
Key events or major milestones – Completion of certain deliverables by a specified date may be requested by the project sponsor, the project customer, or other stakeholders and may be connected with contract payments. Once scheduled, these dates become expected and often extremely difficult to move.
Leads and lags – Any of the dependencies may require a lead or a lag to accurately define the relationship (there might be a two-week delay between ordering a piece of equipment and installing or using it).
The Importance of the Estimate
The entire project plan and schedule revolves around the estimated effort for each task. For this reason, the estimates play a key role in building a reliable schedule for the project.
The amount of effort is usually stated in hours, but minutes, days, weeks, months, or even years may be appropriate depending on the type of project. A voicemail system upgrade may be measured in minutes, due to the fact that the project team has only a small amount of time to accomplish the project objectives. A large program with a high amount of uncertainty that will span multiple years may be estimated in units of weeks or months. In all cases, the schedule will only be as reliable as the underlying estimates.
Effort vs. Duration
Duration is the amount of time estimated to complete the estimated effort. The effort for a task may be estimated at 40 hours, but its duration is uncertain until you have more information. You’ll need to know how many people will work on the task and the percentage of time each will devote to the task. For example, a person working 100% of an 8-hour day will require 5 days to complete the 40-hour task, while a person devoting 25% of an 8-hour day will need 20 days to complete the task.
Assign five people to the task working 100% of an 8-hour day and the task will be done in one day, or will it? Adding resources to a task may reduce its duration, but new considerations must be taken into account. Will the resources need to spend more time on communication and coordination than a single person working on the task does? Can the task really be split among multiple resources? These factors will affect both effort and duration.
Estimating Work
Historical – Data based on past, identical projects that sets a precedent for task duration estimates
Participative – Data based on past, similar projects that sets a precedent for task duration estimates
Intuitive – Data based on past, dissimilar projects that sets a precedent for task duration estimates
Unknown – Foresight without any precedent or relevant information
Determining Resource Requirements
The project is scheduled for 12 months and the estimated number of programmer hours is 4500. Assuming each programmer can productively work 30 hours per week, how many programmers will you need?
The programmers can’t start until the end of the 3rd month and must be done by the end of the 9th month.
Given this new factor, the work must be done in 25 weeks of duration instead of 50. Now you’ll need six programmers.
Another variable is the actual skill level of the resources that will perform the work. Since you may not know the names of the people who will be assigned to the project, you may need to make assumptions. You might assume that all programmers will have at least five years of real programming experience with the technology that will be used in the project. Be sure to clearly document such assumptions.
Non-human and Material Resources
Not all resources are people. The project manager should keep in mind other resources that may be needed—concrete, steel, pipe, wood, glass, computers, test time, equipment, and so on. Such resources can be critical factors in the project manager’s ability to complete the project successfully. They should also be scheduled to the tasks that require them.
Avoiding Over-allocation with Load Leveling
Load leveling is the process of assigning resources to the plan without giving them too much work to do in any given time period. You can do 40 hours of work next week, but you can’t do 40 hours of work on Monday.
A note of caution: When using automated tools, care should be taken to ensure that resources are not being given too much work in any given time period while you are assigning resources to tasks. If you wait until you are done assigning all of your resources to level your plan, you may be faced with a hopeless mess.
It is tempting to assume that your full-time resources will be able to devote 40 hours per week to the project. Unfortunately, this is usually not realistic. It’s better to take a more conservative approach and assume that full-time people will not be able to devote more than 30 hours per week to the plan.
Another thing to keep in mind is the problem of under-allocation. Full-time resources that are only scheduled for 10 hours per week can be a problem too.
Task vs. Resource Leveling
Load leveling can be done in two different ways: by task or by resource. Leveling by task is what you do when you assign resources to a task and then make sure the resources are available to work on the task.
Leveling by resource means that after you create resource assignments, you look at each resource and all of the tasks assigned to each resource to see if tasks need to be rescheduled to provide for a realistic workload for each resource. However, this approach may present problems—as you reschedule tasks to more realistically allocate one resource, you may over-allocate another.
Leveling Against a Fixed Project End Date
Unrealistic project plans are often built to a fixed end date coupled with insufficient resources. The best way to avoid this situation is a sound approach to resource leveling.
Optimizing the Plan
The planning steps reviewed up to this point should produce a reasonable first draft of the work plan. Planning is like writing—several drafts may be required.
Several of the steps may be repeated as the plan is optimized: resources may be added to meet the target end date; estimates may be adjusted as resource skills or roles are converted to real names; new tasks may be discovered as details are filled in; links may change to accommodate other schedule constraints; assignments may shift to load level the plan. Tools like Microsoft Project provide an automatic load-leveling capability.
All of these changes often force the project manager to iterate the steps of planning until a realistic plan is built. The work plan and schedule is not optimized until the scope, schedule, and resources have been configured to meet the project objectives!
The Baseline and Project Manager Accountability
Why Baseline the Plan?
The baseline is recorded so that the project manager has a stake in the ground against which to measure progress as the project begins. The baseline is the foundation for reporting the “plan vs. actual” that is so fundamental to gauging whether a project is or is not on course.
It is one of the final steps before the project starts.
The Case for Baselining Only the Earlier Phases
For a long, multi-phase project, there may be so much uncertainty in the later phase of the project that the baseline is only valid for the earlier parts of the schedule. For this type of project, the project manager should set the expectation that the baseline is only reliable for the parts of the plan for which there can be any reasonable level of certainty.
This is often a formal part of the organization’s project methodology, usually referred to as rolling wave planning . In this approach, a time period, or planning horizon , for detailed planning is defined. For example, the organization might decide that six months is a realistic length of time for detailed planning—beyond six months, only a high-level plan would be required.
A Caution on Automated Project Management Tools
Today’s powerful computers and complex software can produce some awesome outputs, especially graphics. But don’t be satisfied with a plan that looks good just because it was produced by a tool. As the saying goes, “A fool with a tool is a faster fool!” If it used to take you three hours to build a plan that won’t work, you can now do it in 15 minutes and print it on a color printer. Project plans produced using color Gantt Charts are still failing at an unacceptable pace.
Project management software will not make you a better planner; you still have to know how to plan to build a solid project plan.
6.3 Resource Planning and Acquisition
Since resources have such a profound effect on the project plan and schedule, the project manager must be aware of methods and processes relevant to resource management that are available for use.
Resource Planning
The PMBOK Guide defines a process called resource planning , which involves determining what resources (i.e., people, equipment, and materials) should be used to perform project activities and what amount of each resource is required by each activity. This is closely connected to cost estimating.
This process will be affected by another process defined by the PMBOK Guide called organizational planning . Organizational planning involves identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
Organizational planning is often tightly linked with communications planning, since the project’s organizational structure will have a major effect on the project’s communications requirements. Clearly, the project manager cannot perform resource planning without an awareness of the organizational structure and style that will be imposed on the project and its structure.
Role and responsibility assignments – Project roles (who does what) and responsibilities (who decides what) must be assigned to the appropriate project stakeholders. Most roles and responsibilities will be assigned to stakeholders who are actively involved in the work of the project, such as the project manager, other members of the project management team, and the individual contributors.
Staffing management plan – The staffing management plan describes when and how human resources will be brought onto and taken off the project team. The staffing plan may be formal or informal, highly detailed or broadly framed, depending on the needs of the project. It is part of the overall project plan.
Organization chart – An organization chart is a graphic display of project reporting relationships, which may be formal or informal, highly detailed or broadly framed, depending on the needs of the project.
Staff Acquisition
Staffing management plan – This includes the project’s staffing requirements.
- Staffing pool description – When the project management team is able to influence or direct resource assignments, it must consider the characteristics of the potentially available staff. Considerations include, but are not limited to
Previous experience – Have the individuals or groups done similar or related work before? Have they done it well?
Personal interests – Are the individuals or groups interested in working on this project?
Personal characteristics – Are the individuals or groups likely to work well together as a team?
Availability – Will the most desirable individuals or groups be available in the necessary time frames?
Recruitment practices – Recruitment practices of the organizations involved in the project also constrain the staff acquisition process.
The project manager (and project team, if possible) will usually have to negotiate for human resources, either with functional managers (especially in a matrix organization) or with other project management teams in the organization that share scarce or specialized resources.
In a projectized organization, the project manager may have the responsibility of procuring resources specifically for the project. Procurement is required when the organization lacks the in-house staff needed to complete the project.
6.4 Team Development
Once the resources for the team have been identified and assigned, the next process defined by the PMBOK Guide is team development. Team development includes improving the ability of individuals to contribute to the project as well as enhancing the ability of the team to function as a unit. Individual development is a necessary requirement of any job for growth and morale, while development as a team determines the project’s ability to meet its objectives.
Team development on a project is often complicated when individual team members are accountable to both a functional manager and the project manager. Effective management of this matrix relationship is a critical success factor for the project and the project manager. Team development continues throughout the project.
Team building activities include management and individual actions taken to improve team performance. Activities such as establishing ground rules for dealing with conflict may improve team performance. Specific team building activities can vary from a five-minute agenda item in a regular review meeting to a multi-day off-site meeting focused on improved interpersonal relationships among key team members.
Reward and recognition systems are formal management actions that promote or reinforce desired behavior. To be effective, such systems must make the link between performance and reward clear, explicit, and achievable.
Projects often have their own reward and recognition systems. For example, willingness to work overtime in order to meet an aggressive schedule objective should be rewarded or recognized; needing to work overtime as the result of poor planning should not be.
Reward and recognition systems must also consider cultural differences. For example, developing an appropriate team reward mechanism in a culture that prizes individualism may be very difficult.
Collocation refers to placing the project team members in the same physical location—such as a “war room”—where the team congregates or leaves work items.
Training includes all activities designed to improve the skills, knowledge, and capabilities of the project team. Training may be formal (e.g., classroom training, computer-based training) or informal (e.g., feedback from other team members).
6.5 Cost Estimating and Budgeting
Cost Estimating
The PMBOK Guide identifies two additional processes which are used in the planning process: cost estimating and cost budgeting . Cost estimating involves developing an estimate of the costs of the resources needed to complete project activities.
Cost estimating involves an assessment of how much it will cost to provide the product or service desired. Pricing, on the other hand, is a business decision—how much the organization charge will for the product or service—that uses the cost estimate as well as other considerations.
In order to calculate project costs, the project manager will need to reference two artifacts for each resource: the work breakdown structure helps to organize the cost estimates and to ensure that all identified work has been estimated; and the unit rates should be referenced for information such as staff cost per hour and bulk material cost per cubic yard. If actual rates are not known, the rates themselves may have to be estimated.
A chart of accounts—which describes the coding structure used by the organization to report financial information in its general ledger—is often used to ensure project cost estimates are assigned to the correct accounting category.
Top-down estimating is similar to the “analogous estimating” approach to estimating duration. As covered in Section 6.2, “Determining Logical Relationships of Tasks in Your WBS,” top-down estimating uses the actual cost of a previous, similar project as the basis for estimating the cost of the current project. It is frequently used when there is a limited amount of detailed information about the project (e.g., in the early phases) or when the projects are essentially repetitive (e.g., building homes).
Bottom-up estimating involves estimating the cost of individual work items, then summarizing or rolling up the individual estimates to get a project total. Bottom-up estimating is commonly used when there is little historical data or the project involves a great deal of uncertainty (e.g., research).
Cost Budgeting
Cost budgeting involves associating the overall cost estimates with individual work items to establish a cost baseline for measuring project performance. The cost estimates developed earlier, the WBS, and the project schedule will be used to carry out cost budgeting.
This process will result in a cost baseline , a timephased forecast that will be used to measure and monitor cost performance on the project.
Cost baseline display
End of Chapter Quiz Questions
- 1.
What is a WBS?
- 2.
What are some of the questions that you should consider before beginning a detailed discussion of developing a project planning summary?
- 3.
True or False: You can validate work plan templates by seeing that it has lots of detail.
- 4.To start activity definition, the project manager should consider what four major items?
- 1.
________________________________________________
- 2.
________________________________________________
- 3.
________________________________________________
- 4.
________________________________________________
- 1.
- 5.Which of the following are examples of WBS that contain the appropriate level of detail?
- a.
A plan with three phases that contain 1000 hours each
- b.
A plan that contains 3000 tasks, each documenting one hour of effort
- c.
None of the above
- d.
Both A and B
- a.
- 6.
What is the “Rule of 80”?
___________________________________________________________
- 7.
True or False: If you look only at the list of deliverables to build the WBS, there are some tasks you may miss.
- 8.Which of the following is not a type of scaffolding task category?
- a.
Deliverable
- b.
Support
- c.
Project management
- d.
Administrative
- a.
- 9.What are the four basic types of task dependencies?
- 1.
________________________________________________
- 2.
________________________________________________
- 3.
________________________________________________
- 4.
________________________________________________
- 1.
- 10.
Fill in the blank: When tasks overlap, they are said to have ________ time.
- 11.
Fill in the blank: When there’s a delay between dependent tasks, they have ________ time.
- 12.
What is activity sequencing?
- 13.
What are external dependencies? Provide an example to make your point.
- 14.
What is the critical path?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
For questions 16–19, use the following project activity network:
- 15.
Fill in the blanks in the following table:
Path | Length |
|---|---|
1-3-4-6-10 | ____ days |
1-2-5-7-10 | ____ days |
1-8-9-10 | _____ days |
- 16.
Which of the preceding paths are on the critical path? _________________
- 17.
What is the slack for Tasks 3, 4, and 6? _____________________
- 18.The slack for Tasks 1, 2, 5, 7, and 10 is
- a.
1 day each
- b.
2 days each
- c.
3 days each
- d.
None of the above
- a.
- 19.
Fill in the blank: _________is a process in which a probable outcome is evaluated based on a best-case, expected-case, and worst-case scenario.
- 20.
True or False: Critical path is an estimate because its analysis requires several assumptions.
- 21.
Fill in the blank: The most important application of CPM is to realize a late task on the critical path will cause the project ________ ________ to change.
- 22.What are some of the items the project manager and project team should consider in developing task estimates (list at least three)?
- 1.
________________________________________________
- 2.
________________________________________________
- 3.
________________________________________________
- 4.
________________________________________________
- 5.
________________________________________________
- 1.
- 23.What are some of the items the project manager and project team should consider in the schedule development process (list at least three)?
- 1.
________________________________________________
- 2.
________________________________________________
- 3.
________________________________________________
- 4.
________________________________________________
- 5.
________________________________________________
- 1.
- 24.
Fill in the blank: The entire project plan and schedule revolves around the estimated ________ for each task.
- 25.
Explain the difference between effort and duration.
- 26.What are some of the different ways of estimating work (list at least three)?
- 1.
________________________________________________
- 2.
________________________________________________
- 3.
________________________________________________
- 4.
________________________________________________
- 1.
- 27.
Fill in the blank: The first challenge in resourcing a project is to decide what ________ will be needed to complete it.
- 28.
What is resource leveling?
___________________________________________________________
- 29.
What is resource leveling by task?
___________________________________________________________
- 30.
What is leveling by resource? What problem can it present?
___________________________________________________________
- 31.
What is resource planning?
- 32.
What three things do the project manager and project team have to consider in order to make sure that the available resources will meet project requirements?
_________, _________, and _________
- 33.
When is procurement required?
___________________________________________________________
- 34.
What are some ways to foster team development?
___________________________________________________________
- 35.
What are the two approaches commonly used for cost estimating?
___________________________________________________________