The History Of The Strength Of Ccm

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02 Nov 2017

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This project is being undertaken to create a new residence for Jane & John Smith. The residence will be a stick-built, single family dwelling located on four acres of land at 555 Wayside Terrace, Nowhere, NC 55555. The home is to be built in compliance with local, applicable building codes.

Primary features of the home include the following:

1 story ranch with covered front porch

Home will be 3,000 heated sq. ft. built on a slab foundation

2 Car attached garage

Landscaping included for ½ acre of land

Concrete driveway with brick border included

Exterior siding will be brick

Rear deck & screened porch included

Using the sample scope statement, how would you estimate durations and cost for this project if you didn’t have a WBS and only had the above scope statement? Who would be involved with this process? How reliable do you believe the estimates would be? What are some techniques you might use to mitigate variances in the estimate and manage the uncertainty associated with it?

If you had a WBS, explain how you would apply each of the four primary estimating methods covered in the lectures. Be sure to explain who would be involved in the process and why.

Which of the four estimating approach do you feel will provide the most accurate estimates? Why would it be more accurate and the others less accurate?

Answer 1:

1) In project management field, there are a number of techniques that we can use to estimate project cost and duration. The two main systems used for estimation are recognized as top-down and bottom-up approaches (G & L, 5e, p 127). Since we do not have a project WBS which is useful to estimate project durations and cost, I do believe that the project manager can use Top-down approach in this situation

Top-down approach is suitable for small projects, because most of the information needed to make our estimation of cost and duration is not available and also, we do not have project WBS. This technique uses different method such as Ratio Method which project manager can use to estimate cost and duration of this project. It uses expert judgment –someone has experience of working construction field by estimating square ft or segment and portions. We can also use Consensus Method which by pooling the whole expert ideas into estimation of the cost and duration for each deliverable of the house and then add them up into a final price for the project.

Involving several people in the estimation usually helps for careful consideration and results in more reasonable and realistic estimation (G & L, 5e., P 130). The involvement of some key important figures is important in order to produce a better estimation. The project manager should include in the discussion process key players for instance, clients, stakeholders, and technical managers, SMEs, financial manager, line manager and so on.

The reliability of the estimates depends on the techniques used and the availability of the project information. Something must be clear, we can’t say our estimation is 100% reliable, but I do believe that our estimation is closer to the reliability for some reasons. We are using expert opinion to estimate project cost and duration. The information we gather from experts enables us to produce a reasonable and ballpark estimate.

In order to avoid surprises and mitigate variances associated with the project, the project manager has to gather all related information to the project by looking past records of the similar projects and consulting with experienced people.

2).Having a project WBS, our project manager could use bottom-up approach estimation for more reliability and accuracy of the cost and duration of the project and also reduce uncertainties resulting from using top-down approach. In bottom-up estimation process, many key figures would be involved in order to produce reasonable and realistic estimates. For example, participants who could contribute this process include: stakeholders, line managers, people who are working in the production line, experts who can bring their experience to this field as well as other developers. Using bottom-up approach to achieve the desired output, we strongly need the involvement of line managers and Subject matter experts because they have enough information about the specifications of the product and they are the best players when it comes to estimate project tasks and its duration, cost and the resources needed to complete those tasks. By using bottom-up approach estimating, project team will divide the work into pieces (smallest units), then, they would be able to determine each deliverables and assign cost and duration to finish them.

3). Bottom-up estimating is an extremely helpful technique in project management as it allows for the ability to get a more refined estimate of a particular component of work. In bottom-up estimating, each task is broken down into smaller components. Then, individual estimates are developed to determine what specifically is needed to meet the requirements of each of these smaller components of the work. The estimates for the smaller individual components are then aggregated to develop a larger estimate for the entire task as a whole. In doing this, the estimate for the task as a whole is typically far more accurate, as it allows for careful consideration of each of the smaller parts of the task and then combining these carefully considered estimates rather than merely making one large estimate which typically will not as thoroughly consider all of the individual components of a task. In general, the smaller the scope, the greater the accuracy is. (PMBOK)

Bottom-up approaches are more accurate and reliable than top-down approaches in estimating cost and duration for a project that has a clear scope. Top-down approach estimating does not take into account or consideration the time and cost required to finish a particular task which is more important Bottom-up approach tends to create a more accurate estimation because the estimations are made considering all the tasks and their inter-connection with WBS. As the detailed hierarchy and network of the tasks are estimated with accuracy and by and expert mind, the estimation of the house project becomes more reliable cost. In comparison, other approaches depend on mostly guesses for duration and cost of the project scope or any part of it.

Question 3:

Define what the critical path of a project is; explain why the critical path is important for project managers; discuss limitations of managing a project only using the critical path as a metric for progress.

Answer 3:

Critical path method is a technique in analysis and finding those tasks which are on the critical path. CPM shows the longest duration path through a network of activities that determines the shortest time to complete the project.

Fundamentally, CPM can determine the longest duration path by making a relationship between predecessor and successor of the project tasks. By estimation forward, we can get the longest duration value and backwards; the shortest value. The difference between these two values determines what we call slack or float.

All tasks that are not on the critical path can be delayed if necessary without delaying the project completion date. The amount by which each can be delayed without delaying the project is known as the slack (or float) for that task. This is an important concept in the critical path method because it allows for flexibility in scheduling and helps act as a resource for adjusting the schedule during project execution. (Mark Gershon Temple, University, Kyle Boelter Liquent, Inc.)

Nowadays, early delivery of the product is very important factor in project management. This is the fact that any delay in the final product will damage the organization for losing customer relationship and competitive advantage in the market. To avoid this problem, the critical path method helps project manager to identify the shortest path to complete the project as early as possible.

Although, CPM is a very important technique used by project managers in order to be able to determine which activities are on the critical path and which activities can be delayed without delaying the project completion date.

The CPM has some limitations:

Since CPM is a complicated method with its estimation mostly made manually, if the estimator makes an error or a mistake in the value(s) of some allocations , it may produce false or inaccurate estimation. This will cause false assumption about the accuracy of the duration measuring and allocation of resources.

Managing project resources is one of the most important parts of project success. In view of this, critical path method does not put emphasis on resources to perform the tasks; instead, it focuses on time/duration aspects of the tasks.

Another limitation regarding the CPM is called Student syndrome or procrastination (G & L, 5e, p 296). In this situation, critical chain method shows the critical path and the slack on the duration of some tasks. The slack time might be used up by the team somehow and this makes the critical path demanding much attention and re-scheduling the task and the path. This might not be one of the inherent flaws in the system, but generally, people tend to relax or waste time when they realize that is it abundant. This might be categorized as a misuse of the model more presenting a flaw in the CPM itself.

Question 4:

Sample Scope Statement:

This project is being undertaken to create a new residence for Jane & John Smith. The residence will be a stick-built, single family dwelling located on four acres of land at 555 Wayside Terrace, Nowhere, NC 55555. The home is to be built in compliance with local, applicable building codes.

Primary features of the home include the following:

1 story ranch with covered front porch

Home will be 3,000 heated sq. ft. built on a slab foundation

2 Car attached garage

Landscaping included for ½ acre of land

Concrete driveway with brick border included

Exterior siding will be brick

Rear deck & screened porch included

You have been selected as the PM for the project manager, and you have just received approval to move forward with planning the project. You have recently attended a seminar on Critical Chain Project Management, and you are trying to decide whether or not use the methodology to plan this project. You asked your boss her opinion, and she has asked for the following information to help her decide:

What are the primary differences between using the critical path method and the critical chain method?

What impact will using the critical chain method have on cost estimates, duration estimates, scheduling, and performance reporting?

Which method do you think will be more beneficial for this project type? Why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of choosing this method?

Answer 4:

The Critical path and the critical chain methods are both schedule network analysis techniques. Both methods are important as they look at all the tasks and identify which one will take the longest path to complete a given stage. The major difference between critical path and critical chain methods is that critical path does not put emphasis on resources to perform the tasks. However, the critical chain method takes resources into consideration right from the beginning to the end so its schedule is based on the available resources. Another difference is the use of slack in the critical path method whilst Critical chain method uses modified method to estimate task duration and resource, and cost buffers to determine project efficiencies instead of using earned value analysis.

The strength of CCM with regards to activity estimating is that activity durations are more likely to be shorter resulting in the shorter project duration. By addressing scheduling conflicts, CCM removes all labor and resource conflicts when developing the project plan to show an accurate project schedule. The project manager will be able to forecast potential resources conflicts and make the necessary adjustments ahead of time. The possible weakness of CCM is that team members might become discontented if activities durations estimates become excessive.

The impact of using critical chain method on cost estimate, duration and scheduling is that it removes all conflict resources from the project schedule. The CCM gives us a more realistic schedule by taking into account resources and removing what is called roadblocks such as "student syndrome". In view of this, critical chain method seems to provide for a more realistic schedule.

The CCPM method uses buffers to monitor project time performance. For instance, if the project is 75 percent complete and you have only used 50 percent of the project buffer, then the project is in pretty good shape. Conversely, if the project is only 25 percent complete and 50 percent of the buffer has already been used, you are in trouble and corrective action is needed (G & L, 5e p. 301).

In a situation where the project team is few, it would be more beneficial to use CCM than using CPM to estimate or plan the project as the latter would cause a delay in the project. I personally would prefer using CCM to CPM. I think the biggest benefit would be the 50-50 activity duration estimation method and taken into account the project resources. Another advantage is that critical chain method identifies the bottlenecks in the longest sequence so that schedule and cost estimation can be done after availability of project resource is considered, which is likely to be more accurate.



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