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Exercises Project Management

This document outlines exercises for a project management course. It provides background context and instructions for two sets of exercises to be completed during class and as homework. The first homework involves analyzing data for an advertising campaign project, including drawing a network diagram, finding the critical path, calculating project duration, and exploring crashing activities. The second homework asks students to re-examine their answers in light of new information and assumptions, and discuss how their assumptions could impact the accuracy of their responses.

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Nina Dllo
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78 views

Exercises Project Management

This document outlines exercises for a project management course. It provides background context and instructions for two sets of exercises to be completed during class and as homework. The first homework involves analyzing data for an advertising campaign project, including drawing a network diagram, finding the critical path, calculating project duration, and exploring crashing activities. The second homework asks students to re-examine their answers in light of new information and assumptions, and discuss how their assumptions could impact the accuracy of their responses.

Uploaded by

Nina Dllo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Session I: Project Management

Operations Management - GEST-S-407

Evelyne Vanpoucke
Roman Berlanger

2021

The following exercises were partly elaborated by Charles Hoffreumon.

Some exercises will be solved during the exercise sessions. Others should be solved by
students at home. All exercises are exam material.

Solutions are published on the UV after each exercise session. Feel free to send me an
email ([email protected]) for any question you might have regarding the content
of the sessions.

Supplementary exercises can be found in Heizer, J., Render, B., Munson, C., Operations
management: Sustainability and supply chain management, thirteenth edition.

1 To be solved during the session


1. The project manager of Good Public Relations gathered the data shown in Tables 1 and 2 for
a new advertising campaign.
(a) Based on Table 1, draw the network diagram.
(b) Determine the critical path for this project.
(c) How long is the project likely to take?
(d) What is the probability that the project will take more than 38 weeks?
(e) Consider the path A − E − G − H − J. What is the probability that this path exceeds 38
weeks?
(f) Consider now the data shown in Table 2. Consider there is no uncertainty around the
crashed duration of the activities (we are sure they are going to take the time stated if
we crash them). We want to reduce the duration of the project by 3 weeks. Which of the
activities should be crashed?

1
Activity Optimistic Most Likely Pessimistic Immediate Predecessor(s)
A: gather info 8 10 12 START
B: admin stuff 5 8 17 START
C: recruit team 7 8 9 START
D: IT setting 1 2 3 B
E: collect requirements 8 10 12 A, C
F: produce brand strategy 5 6 7 D, E
G: produce arts 1 3 5 D, E
H: build final report 2 5 8 F, G
I: print arts 2 4 6 G
J: present pitch 4 5 6 H
K: send final report 2 2 2 H

Table 1: Activity Data for the advertising project - in weeks

Activity Crash Time (wks) Cost to Crash (k$)


A 8 2000
B 7 1500
C 8 0
D 1 1800
E 6 4800
F 5 1000
G 2 800
H 4 3200
I 2 1500
J 4 1250
K 2 0

Table 2: Cost-to-Crash for the advertising project

Page 2
2 To be solved at home
1. It turns out that the project manager of Good Public Relations has omitted a series of ele-
ments when gathering the data shown in Tables 1 and 2. You are asked to check whether these
elements might change your answers to previous questions.

(a) Before activity E can actually start, the department in charge of internal communication
must send a notification to confirm that all administrative stuff was effectively carried out
(i.e. that activity B is finished). Sending a notification only takes a few minutes and this
is the reason why your manager assumed that this was not a relevant piece of information.
Do you agree with your manager?
(b) After more careful analysis, it is concluded that recruiting a team (activity C) can be
achieved in just one week, in the best case, but could also take 15 weeks, in the worst case.
The average expected duration of the activity remains unchanged. Your manager is aware
that this activity is not part of the critical path, hence the fact that she did not mention
this earlier. Was she right not to do so?
(c) Activity K could be crashed by one week for a very low cost. Is this option worth consid-
ering?
(d) Your management asks you to provide an additional indicator for the project duration.
Based on Table 1, give the 95% confidence interval for the duration of the project.

2. Lastly, your manager has asked you whether you are confident about the answers you have
provided. As you are prudent and willing to remain employed, you decide to think about it.
Provide three assumptions that your answers rely upon and discuss how those might not hold
and the way they could cause your answers to be inaccurate.

Page 3

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