Project Management Framework 1st Edition D.G. Carmichael - Solutions

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4 What would appropriate success measures be for the project?
3 How might a project office be of use in this case?
2 There are many projects that will be taking place in the process of opening the new campus. How might running them as a programme help the chances of success?
1 What are the strategic objectives for each of the organisations involved? Are there any conflicts in these objectives?
Taking this further, the emphasis in many business projects today has shifted to excellence being defined in terms of real performance, expressed as:What is the shortest possible project duration?What is the lowest cost?What is the highest level of quality that can be achieved?
10 Explore the possibilities for gaining professional qualification and recognition in project management, through both APM and PMI. How well would these fit with your own intentions regarding your profession?Can the project be guaranteed to deliver on time?Will the project finish within
9 Write a commentary on the bodies of knowledge, and how they could relate to your own work environment both now and in the future.
8 Show how developing a new product, for example a new range of vehicle engines, could benefit through the analysis of previous development projects.
7 Identify the criteria for success or failure of the projects that you discussed in question 1 and question 2.
6 Why is it necessary to consider the continuous improvement of the processes by which projects are carried out?
5 Identify the likely complexity of the following projects:the development of a new office block;the development of a new office complex where a radical new design is proposed;a project to put a new telescope in space by the European Space Agency;implementing a robotised assembly line in a
4 Why is it necessary to define the complexity of a project?
3 How would you describe the competitive environment of the following organisations?automotive industry;construction industry;banking;further/higher education?What constraints does this place on projects being carried out in such an environment?
2 Taking the example of a personal project that you have recently completed (as for question 1), identify the inputs, outputs, constraints, and mechanisms for the project. What is the importance of defining the nature of constraints on a project prior to starting work on it?
1 Identify a personal project that you have completed in the recent past - this may be a piece of coursework, a DIY project, etc. Consider the way in which the project was planned, carried out, the results analysed and then acted upon. What would you do differently if you were doing it all over
2 Evaluate the complexity of the project. What are the implications for project management of your assessment of the complexity?
1 Using the 4-D structure, describe the activities that you would undertake at each stage in the process. How might this help you to structure your work?
5 How might the application of one of the bodies of knowledge help in this scenario? Use the web addresses provided to find out more about the bodies of knowledge to help you answer this question.
4 What is the complexity of this project? Try to estimate it on the scales suggested in this chapter.
3 Show how the 7-S would help identify the issues that needed to be tackled in each phase.
2 Using the 4-D model of the project, identify the work that the team should be undertaking in each phase within the indicated timescale. Suggest an appropriate period for each phase of work.
1 What are the inputs, outputs, constraints, and mechanisms for the project?
7 'A project manager should not have other managerial responsibilities.' Discuss.
6 Find examples of projects that fit into each of the categories of project - first-timers, as . .. but . . . s, and painting by numbers. Briefly discuss how the category would influence how you would expect to manage the particular project.
5 Select a sector of interest. For this sector, identify the likely pressures on project managers and the implications for them as a result of these.
4 What are the benefits and problems with the 'one best way' approach to project management?
3 Explain the differences between project and general management. In what you are doing at the moment which parts are project and which are ongoing?
2 The Sydney 2000 Olympics were considered to be a great success by most people. Carry out a search of the news of the time and the relevant websites to identify the characteristics of the project management that led to the success. Compare with the example of 'The Big Dig' given above and the
1 Carry out a search using a library or a good Internet search engine to find more examples of project failure. From your search, are there any common themes in the failures? What are the costs of these in each case? How widespread would you say that the problem of failure was?
2 Suggest how the 500 per cent-plus overrun might have come about.
1 How might the project be considered a technical success but an economic, political, and project management disaster?
3 Describe the desirable characteristics of each project manager using the set of skills and attributes as a starting point.
1 Identify the title which might be given to the project management role in each case.Describe the role of the project manager in each of the cases.
Most people say that risk increases on fast-tracked projects compared to conventional projects. What is the ingredient of risk that increases – the level of exposure (extra cost and time, unacceptable quality), or the uncertainty, or both?
When people speak of fast-tracking, they commonly refer to overlapping the design and construction phases. Why isn’t more attention focused on overlapping other parts of a project?
Is it ever possible to say that fast-tracking was the essential ingredient in why a project was successful? Or does the presence of so many variables operating on a project prevent you from saying anything definite about fast-tracking? Does it remain therefore that only opinions on the contribution
What are the components of the extra cost in a fast-tracked project? What are the components in the savings resulting from a reduced time in a fast-tracked project? How do you calculate the extra cost of fast-tracking a project? How do you perform a time-cost trade-off for converting a conventional
Is the culture of a project influenced more by the end-product or by the project personnel?
Which makes the better project manager of a technical project – a person trained in management alone, or a technically trained person with supplementary management skills? Of a non-technical project?
Non-technical people, if left to manage a project under their own devices, seem to approach projects differently to technical people. This may be due to their different culture, education, backgrounds, or way of thinking (brain-part usage). Can you say that this is a better/worse way to go than
Would you expect technical people to convert non-technical projects into a form familiar to technical people? If so, is this advantageous or not, in terms of managing a non-technical project?
What is necessary in managing non-technical projects to deal with intangible end-product requirements and the protection of the project boundaries?
Although those within the movie industry may see the industry as unique, is applying formal project management practices to movie making feasible? Would it be any more difficult than applying these practices within the traditional project arena?
Is it better to identify risk events and attempt to minimise risk rather than simply set aside funding to address risk events as they occur?
What industry specific drivers will force the transition over time to formal project management practices in movie production? What role will the fact that the producer is ultimately responsible for the end-product play in this transition? With schedule and cost overruns common in movie making,
If project management practices are adopted, would there be a need to adjust the processes to allow for the unique creative nature of movie production?
Is it only a matter of time before the practices formally employed in project management are more widely adopted in movie production?
Scope management is not something that many project people think about explicitly.Most people commonly only talk of time, cost and quality. What value do you see in identifying a group of activities under this banner?
If you are a consultant, or deal with consultants, examine a consultant’s brief to which you have access. What else besides a scope statement does it contain?
Some people include the project objectives in a scope statement. A different view is presented here. Which approach do you prefer? Or doesn’t it matter? Justify your view.
List what you believe are the main reasons why the scope of a project changes during its lifetime.Have you ever been involved with a project in which the scope did not change? What were the particular circumstances that enabled this to happen?
Examine a contract to which you have access. How does that contract define scope? Is this definition consistent with the comments here?
Suggest some typical project constraints (other than those given above).
Suggest some typical project objectives (other than those given above).
How realistic are we when we choose weighting functions? Can these weighting functions be substantiated?
What is wrong with stating objectives, either for a project or its end-product, in the following forms:• To satisfy a political undertaking.• To demonstrate a government commitment to development.• To reduce soil erosion.• To ensure availability and continuity of funds.• To keep the
Does it really matter if people don’t know the difference between a project objective and an end-product objective, from an applied project management viewpoint? As a side comment, it is remarked that most people, including many senior project managers, don’t know the difference. Discuss.
Does it really matter if people don’t know the difference between a project and an end-product, from an applied project management viewpoint? As a side comment, it is remarked that most people, including many senior project managers, don’t know the difference.Discuss.
Suggest ways (other than given above) that projects may come about, based on your experience.
For work that comes about through tendering, does this reduce the amount of work in the initiation phase, or does it only change the emphasis on the different activities in the initiation phase? Discuss.
Identify projects in your neighbourhood that have come about through a direct result of political pressure.Identify examples of special legislation that applies to specific projects.
Give examples, of which you are aware, of each of these forms of obsolescence:• Physical obsolescence.• Economic obsolescence.• Functional obsolescence.• Technological obsolescence• Social obsolescence.• Legal obsolescence.
The three fundamental business questions that organisations may ask themselves are:• Where are we now? (Growing awareness of changing customer needs, worsening competitive situation, ...)• Where are we going? (Based on the organisation’s vision, shareholder requirements, identification of
A person is contemplating building a child care centre. What information should go into the opportunity study.
A person is contemplating building campervans for hire to holidaymakers. Before embarking on this project, what information would you need to know about:• Competition.• Market.• Product differentiation.• Profitability.• Seasonal effects.• User characteristics, patterns, requirements.By
Review the strategic plan of your organisation. What projects have resulted from, or will result from, this plan?
The term ‘deliverables’ is only a recent introduction to project management. What term was used before its introduction?
Given that the early work done in a project has the most ability to influence the cost of a project, why is it then that examples continually occur of projects proceeding without thorough preparatory work?Is there a false economy here of project owners saving money initially in the belief that the
Consider an everyday event in your life, for example, crossing a street busy with cars.The risk relates to your getting injured or even possibly killed.What practices can (i) you personally adopt, and (ii) the road authorities/legislators adopt, with respect to pedestrians, to:• Remove the
Evaluation or assessment is based on previously established criteria. How do you deal with the situation involving multiple criteria? Or are multiple criteria not possible in the risk management process? If they do exist, give some examples of possible multiple criteria.
Think about previous projects or work matters with which you have been involved.List some of the things that went wrong or astray because the consequence was not foreseen in magnitude or type.
In what circumstances would you anticipate that a qualitative analysis by itself would not be sufficient? At what point does a quantitative analysis become essential?
Gross movements in currency values. As part of doing business with other countries, selection of the preferred currency of payment and sensitivity analysis to movements in the value of the currency are standard decisions and actions that are taken.What is not usually considered is the impact of
Why is it that people can quite happily use the terms ‘risk’ and ‘risk event’ interchangeably, when they clearly mean different things? How rigorous are you in your usage of terminology?
Objectives or criteria result from value judgements. How are these established for organisations, as opposed to individuals?
Certain people in life appear to be good risk managers. What are the characteristics of a successful risk manager?
The risk management process represents a special case of the problem solving process.How do such special processes come about? Why do not people start with the existing and more generic problem solving process and either use this or specialise this? Or do people have trouble starting with the
Consider a project or work matter with which you are currently involved. What exposures would you anticipate?How would you estimate the probability of occurrence of the sources of the exposures that you have anticipated?How would you deal with such exposures?
Projects are comprised of phases. Do later project phases inherit all the risks from previous phases, such that risks accumulate as the project goes along?
Safety factors have been and are used in engineering design. For example, in structural design, a factor of 1.5 for dead load and a factor of 1.8 for live load were commonly used.How do safety factors express the underlying uncertainty in loads and material characteristics?Why is a larger safety
Australians use the term ‘no risk’ in everyday language to imply assent. ‘to take or run a risk’ implies proceeding without regard to the possibility of the danger involved. Are these proper usages of the word ‘risk’?What do ‘a calculated risk’ and ‘to take unnecessary risks’
There is much confusion in the literature and public discussion on a definition of risk.Interestingly it doesn’t seem to bother practitioners and many academics. Why is this the case? Is a rigorous definition not important? How can people talk to each other meaning different things for different
Write your understanding of the term risk.What is the dictionary definition of risk?Is there a difference between a lay person’s use of the term risk and the one adopted here?
A FAST diagram proceeds from left to right based on the question HOW? and from right to left based on the question WHY? Does this imply some relationship between HOW and WHY?
In group problem solving, what would be a recommended number of people? On what factors does the choice of number depend?
What is ‘value’? Why is the term ‘management’ used in the technique called ‘value management’?
Why do people need to introduce glorified titles, such as value management? Why not treat it as no more than problem solving? Are people deficient in their education, and hence don’t realise they are reinventing the wheel? Or is there a cynical commercial motive at the base of every new fancy
What approaches (other than those mentioned above) to selecting the best alternative can you suggest?
Of all the alternatives generated, most will be rejected in any particular problem solving situation. Is there any value in taking note of these rejected alternatives for future problem solving activities, or is it better to start the creative thought processes from anew each time?Should any review
Why is it important to keep the analysis step separate from the next (evaluation) step?Or doesn’t it matter?
How much creativity is exhibited by people, or is it the case that most of the time people copy off someone else’s ideas or experiences?
Suggest some ways (other than those given above) alternatives could be generated.
Do individuals know their own value systems well enough to explicitly state their objectives?
Would you expect objectives to be more readily stated for an organisation or an individual?
Many people confuse objectives and constraints. Why is this?
How do you get the correct balance between too broad a problem definition – and hence many solutions – versus too narrow a problem definition – and hence too few solutions?
What is your view on spending 50% of the problem solving time on problem definition?
How do you know that you have identified the correct problem, as opposed to a near or related problem? In particular, do hidden agendas affect the problem definition activity?
What might be used as indicators of a problem existing?
‘Management by objectives’/management by projects. The term ‘management by objectives’ (MBO) has been around for several decades now. It refers to an approach that has been practised in different disguises for much longer but lacked public appeal because it didn’t have a trendy title. The

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