Project Management A Systems Approach To Planning Scheduling And Controlling 7th Edition Harold R. Kerzner - Solutions

Unlock the full potential of your project management skills with the comprehensive solutions to "Project Management A Systems Approach To Planning Scheduling And Controlling 7th Edition" by Harold R. Kerzner. Access complete answers and solutions online with our exclusive solution manual. Dive into solved problems and detailed step-by-step answers that are perfect for students and professionals alike. Whether you're looking for a test bank or chapter solutions, our resource provides an instructor manual and textbook solutions key. Benefit from the convenience of free download options for solutions in PDF format, ensuring you have the guidance you need at your fingertips.

Process Perspective: What must we excel at in order to satisfy our customers? How do we meet their needs consistently?
People and Learning: What resources, skills, training, and support must staff have to work effectively? What organizational culture is conducive to strong people performance?
Describe the project portfolio selection process using a traditional approach and a lean or agile approach
Discuss the program selection process and approaches to creating programs
Explain two different approaches to the project planning process—a predictive approach and an agile approach—and compare the roles of product managers versus program or project managers
Do you have any suggestions for future project managers, such as any specific preparations they should make, skills they should learn, etc.?
What suggestions do you have for working with sponsors and senior managers? Can you share any examples of situations you faced related to this topic?
What are some steps a project manager can take to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of a team? How does a new project manager gain the respect and loyalty of team members? Can you share any examples of situations you faced related to this topic?
What are some of the tools, software or otherwise, that you use, and what is your opinion of those tools?
What are some of the opportunities and risks you have encountered on projects? Please describe any notable successes and failures and what you have learned from them.
What do you feel is the most important thing you do as a project manager? On what task do you spend the most time each day?
Did you have any training or special talents or experiences that qualified you to be a project manager? Are you certified or have you thought about becoming certified as a PMP®?
Briefly explain the reason for your rating. What do you enjoy most and what do you like least about being a project manager?
If you had to rate the job of project manager on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, how would you rate it?
How did you get into project management?
Go to www.indeed.com or another job search site and search for jobs as a "project manager" or “program manager” in three geographic regions of your choice. Summarize your findings, including the number of positions, qualifications, salary, and other information of interest to you.
Research information about earning and maintaining PMP®and CAPM®certifications. How long do you think most people study for the PMP® exam? Review Google’s project management certification. Do you think it is valuable? Do you think that having a certification makes you a more successful project
Research recent studies about project success, especially those that focus on benefits realization. Summarize your findings, citing at least two references from the past year.
Watch at least three videos of PMI's Project of the Year Award winners from PMI's website. Summarize key points from at least two of the videos. What did the project teams do to ensure success? What challenges did they face, and how did they overcome them?
Review information about various project management software tools. Also, investigate smart phone apps for project management. Summarize your findings.
Find an example of a real project with a real project manager that was completed in the past year. Feel free to use projects mentioned in the media related to sporting events, entertainment, business, healthcare, etc. or a project from your work, if applicable. Describe the project in terms of its
Review PMI’s website (www.pmi.org) and read and summarize two articles from PM Network (a monthly magazine – under Learning, Publications). Summarize key information and your opinion of the articles.
What types of software can assist in project management?What are some of the most popular tools on the market today for both agile and predictive project management? What unique functions can you perform with these tools perform?
What types of certifications are available in project management? Why do you think the number of people earning project management certification keeps increasing?
What are suggested skills for project managers? What is the talent triangle? What skills do you think good project managers possess?
What is agile? What is an agile mindset? What are the main differences between predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches to project management?
Discuss the project management principles and project performance domains described in the PMBOK®Guide -Seventh Edition.
What is project management? Briefly describe the project management framework based on the PMBOK®Guide - Sixth Edition, providing examples of stakeholders, knowledge areas, tools and techniques, and project success factors.
What is a project, and what are its main attributes? How is a project different from what most people do in their day-to-day jobs? What is the triple constraint? What are other project constraints? Provide examples of projects and their constraints.
Why is there a new or renewed interest in the field of project management? What statistics presented would motivate someone to begin a career in project management?
Which of the following statements is false concerning the project management profession?A. Project managers, program managers, and portfolio managers require the same skillset.B. The number of people earning the Project Management Professional (PMP®) has increased in recent years, and several
Which of the following is not an attribute of a project?A. projects are unique B. projects are developed using progressive elaboration C. projects have a primary customer or sponsor D. projects involve no uncertainty Which of the following is not part of the triple constraint of project
Describe the project management profession, including the role of project managers and suggested skills, the role of professional organizations, the importance of certification and ethics, project management careers, and the growth of project and portfolio management software Which of the following
Explain the differences between predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches to project management
Understand important agile concepts
Define project management and discuss key elements of project management using a processoriented approach and a principle-based approach
Referrring to question 18–6, how many units of the follow-on contract must be produced before a profit is realized?
What impact would there be on BCWS, BCWP, ACWP, and cost and schedule variances as a result of the:a. Early state of an activity on a PERT chart?b. Late start of an activity on a PERT chart?
The Jones Manufacturing Company is competing for a production contract that requires that work begin in January 1979. The cost package for the proposal must be submitted by July 1978. The business base, and therefore the overhead rates, are uncertain because Jones has the possibility of winning
Under what kind of projects would each of the following parameters be selected:a. Salary escalation factor of 0 percent.b. Materiel termination liability of 0 percent or 100 percent.c. Materiel commitments for twenty months of a twenty-four-month program.d. Demanning ratio of 0 percent or 100
Answer the following questions with reference to Figure 14–10.a. The base case for a program is priced out at $22 million. The company's chief executive officer is required to obtain written permission from corporate to bid on programs in excess of$20 million. During the price review meeting the
Can Figure 14–21 be used effectively to price out the cost of preparing reports?
With reference to Figure 14–10, under what conditions could each of the following situations occur:a. Program manager and program office determine labor hours by pricing out the work breakdown structure without coordination with functional management.b. Upper-level management determines the price
Consider the work breakdown structure shown in Figure 11–20. Can the project be managed from this one sheet of paper assuming that, at the end of each month, the project manager also receives a cost and percent-complete summary?
Planning is often described as establishing, budgeting, scheduling, and resource allocation.Identify these four elements in Figure 11–1.
The director of project management calls you into his office and informs you that one of your fellow project managers has had a severe heart attack midway through a project. You will be taking over his project, which is well behind schedule and overrunning costs. The director of project management
A major utility company has a planning group that prepares budgets (with the help of functional groups) and selects the projects to be completed within a given time period. you are assigned as a project manager on one of the projects and find out that it should have been started''last month" in
You are the project manager of a nine-month effort. You are now in the fifth month of the project and are more than two weeks behind schedule, with very little hope of catching up. The dam breaks in a town near you, and massive flooding and mudslides take place. Fifteen of your key functional
The project start-up phase is complete, and you are now ready to finalize the operational plan.Below are six steps that are often part of the finalization procedure. Place them in the appropriate order.1. Draw diagrams for each individual WBS element.2. Establish the work breakdown structure and
Paul Mali (Management by Objectives, New York: John Wiley, 1972, p. 12) defines MBO as a five-step process:• Finding the objective• Setting the objective• Validating the objective • Implementing the objective • Controlling and reporting status of the objective How can the work breakdown
For each one of the decision points in Figure 11–14, who makes the decision? Who must input information? What is the role of the functional manager and the functional team member?Where are strategic variables identified?
Where in the planning cycle should responsibility charts be prepared? Can you identify this point in Figure 11–12?
Can activities 5 and 6 of Figure 11–12 be eliminated? What risks does a project manager incur if these activities are eliminated?
What would be the effectiveness of Figure 11–3 if the work packages were replaced by tasks?
Can the specialty product be produced with minimum disruption to existing product lines and manufacturing operations?
Can the specialty product be developed into a product line?
What is the total projected profitability to the company in terms of follow-on contracts?
Figure 10–5 shows the organizational structure for a new Environmental Protection Agency project. Alpha Company was one of three subcontractors chosen for the contract. Because this was a new effort, the project manager reported "dotted" to the board chairman, who was acting as the project
Consider the four items listed on page 137 that describe what happens when a matrix goes out of control. Which of these end up creating the greatest difficulty for the company? for the project managers? for the line managers? for executives?
The executives of a company that produces electro-optical equipment for military use found it necessary to implement project management using a matrix. The project managers reported to corporate sales, and the engineers with the most expertise were promoted to project engineering.After the first
In 1982, an electrical equipment manufacturer decentralized the organization, allowing each division manager to set priorities for the work in his division. The division manager of the R&D division selected as his number one priority project the development of low-cost methods for manufacturing.
The following question was asked of executives: How do you know when to cut off research?The answers given: That's a good question, a very good question, and some people don't know when to cut it off. You have to have a feel; in some cases it depends on how much resource you have and whether you
Gary has been assigned as a part-time, assistant project manager. Gary's duties are split between assistant project management and being a functional employee. In addition, Gary reports both vertically to his functional manager and horizontally to a project manager. As part of his project
Consider a situation in which the project manager (a generalist) is asked to provide an evaluation of a functional employee (a specialist). Can the project manager effectively evaluate the functional employee on technical performance? If not, then on what information can the project manager base
Some executives feel that evaluation forms should not include cooperation and attitude. The executives feel that a functional employee will always follow the instructions of the functional manager, and therefore attitude and cooperation are unnecessary topics. Does this kind of thinking also apply
Richard is a department manager who must supply resources to four different projects.Although each project has an established priority, the project managers continually argue that departmental resources are not being allocated effectively. Richard has decided to have a monthly group meeting with
Minnesota Power and Light establishes priorities as follows:Level 0: no priority Level 1: to be completed on or before a specific date Level 2: to be completed in or before a given fiscal quarter Level 3: to be completed within a given year How do you feel about this system of establishing
Jones Construction Company has recently won a $120 million effort for a local company. The effort includes three separate construction projects, each one beginning at the same time. Two of the projects are eighteen months in duration and the third one is thirty months. Each project has its own
As a good project manager, you try to plan for conflict avoidance. You now have a lowintensity conflict with a functional manager and, as in the past, handle the conflict with confrontation. If you knew that there would be a high-intensity conflict shortly thereafter, would you be willing to use
Consider the responses made by the project managers in Figures 7–5 through 7–7. Which of their choices do you agree with, and which do you disagree with? Justify your answers.
The conflicts shown in Figure 7–1 are given relative intensities as perceived in project-driven organizations. Would this list be arranged differently for non–project-driven organizations?
Explain how the relative intensity of a conflict can vary as a function of:a. Getting closer to the actual constraintsb. Having only two constraints instead of three (i.e., time and performance, but not cost)c. The project life cycled. The person with whom the conflict occurs
Contract negotiations can easily develop into conflicts. During a disagreement, the vice president of company A ordered his director of finance, the contract negotiator, to break off contract negotiations with company B because the contract negotiator of company B did not report directly to a vice
Mr. X is the project manager of a $65 million project of which $1 million is subcontracted out to another company in which Mr. Y is project manager. Unfortunately, Mr. X does not consider Mr.Y as his counterpart and continually communicates with the director of engineering in Mr. Y's company. What
During an interchange meeting from the customer, one of the functional personnel makes a presentation stating that he personally disagrees with the company's solution to the particular problem under discussion and that the company is "all wet" in its approach. How do you, as a project manager,
The customer has asked to have a customer representative office set up in the same building as the project office. As project manager, you put the customer's office at the opposite end of the building from where you are, and on a different floor. The customer states that he wants his office next to
Below are several problems that commonly occur in project organizations. State, if possible, the effect that each problem could have on communications and time management:a. People tend to resist exploration of new ideasb. People tend to mistrust each other in temporary management situations.c.
During a crisis, you find that all of the functional managers as well as the team members are writing letters and memos to you, whereas previously everything was verbal. How do you account for this?
One of your functional people has been assigned to perform a certain test and document the results. For two weeks you "hound" this individual only to find out that he is continually procrastinating on work in another program. You later find out from one of his co-workers that he hates to write.
Referring to Problem 5–43, during contract negotiations between company Q and company Z, you, as project manager for the subcontractor, are sitting in your office when the phone rings. It is company Q requesting information to support its negotiation position. Should you provide the information?
You are a subcontractor to company Z, who in turn is the prime contractor to company Q.Before any design review or technical interchange meeting, company Z requires that they review all material to be presented both in-house and with company Q prior to the meeting. Why would a situation such as
Phase I of a program has just been completed successfully. The customer, however, was displeased because he always had to wait three weeks to a month after all tests were complete before data were supplied by the contractor.For Phase II of the program, the customer is requiring that advanced
Last month, Larry completed an assignment as chief project engineering on project X. It was a pleasing assignment. Larry, and all of the other project personnel, were continually kept informed(by the project manager) concerning all project activities. Larry is now working for a new project manager
Projects have a way of providing a "chance for glory" for many individuals. Unfortunately, they quite often give the not-so-creative individual an opportunity to demonstrate his incompetence.Examples would include the designer who always feels that he has a better way of laying out a blueprint, or
John is a functional support manager with fourteen highly competent individuals beneath him.John's main concern is performance. He has a tendency to leave scheduling and cost problems up to the project managers. During the past two months, John has intermittently received phone calls and casual
Below are four statements: two statements describe a function, and two others describe a purpose. Which statements refer to project management and which refer to functional management?
Functional employees are supposed to be the experts. A functional employee makes a statement that the project manager does not believe is completely true or accurate. Should the project manager support the team member? If so, for how long? Does your answer depend on who the remarks are being
Below are three broad statements describing the functions of management. For each statement, are we referring to upper-level management, project management, or functional management?a. Acquire the best available assets and try to improve them.b. Provide a good working environment for all
A functional manager says that he has fifteen people assigned to work on your project next week (according to the project plan and schedule). Unfortunately, you have just learned that the prototype is not available and that these fifteen people will have nothing to do. Now what? Who is at fault?
How should a functional manager handle a situation where the project manager:a. Continually cries wolf concerning some aspect of the project when, in fact, the problem either does not exist or is not as severe as the project manager makes it out to be?b. Refuses to give up certain resources that
The company has just hired a fifty-four-year-old senior engineer who holds two masters degrees in engineering disciplines. The engineer is quite competent and has worked well as a loner for the past twenty years. This same engineer has just been assigned to the R&D phase of your project. You, as
One of your people comes into your office and states that he has a technical problem and would like your assistance by making a phone call.a. Is this managing or doing?b. Does your answer depend on who must be called? (That is, is it possible that authority relationships may have to be considered?)
For each of the following remarks, state the possible situation and accompanying assumptions that you would make.a. "A good project manager should manage by focusing on keeping people happy."b. "A good project manager must be willing to manage tension."c. "The responsibility for the success or
As a project nears termination, the project manager may find that the functional people are more interested in finding a new role for themselves than in giving their best to the current situation. How does this relate to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and what should the project manager do?
Should the amount of risk and uncertainty in the project have a direct bearing on how much authority is granted to a project manager?
Your project has grown to a point where there now exist openings for three full-time assistant project managers. Unfortunately, there are no experienced assistant project managers available. You are told by upper-level management that you will fill these three positions by promotions from within.
A company has a policy that employees wishing to be project managers must first spend one to one-and-a-half years in the functional employee side of the house so that they can get to know the employees and company policy. What do you think about this?
Top management generally has two schools of thought concerning project management. One school states that the project manager should be used as a means for coordinating activities that cut across several functional departments. The second school states that the project management position should be
A major utility company begins each computer project with a feasibility study in which a costbenefit analysis is performed. The project managers, all of whom report to a project management division, perform the feasibility study themselves without any functional support. The functional personnel
A major utility company is worried about the project manager's upgrading functional employees. On an eight-month project that employs four hundred full-time project employees, the department managers have set up "check" people whose responsibility is to see that functional employees do not have

Showing 200 - 300 of 6087

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Last

Project Management A Systems Approach To Planning Scheduling And Controlling 7th Edition Harold R. Kerzner - Solutions

Step by Step Answers