-Background Information

- Analysis - AON Drawing - Table with expected activity time for each activity - Expected activity time and standard deviation for critical path

- Recommendation - Make a recommendation to shorten the Total expected activity time.

322 PART II Tools and Tactical Issues CASE STUDY Global Textbook Publishers Dohan, an MBA fresh from the university, found an Nattractive position with a local publishing com- pany in his town. Global Textbook Publishers (GTP), Inc., is a privately held company (originally named Global Technical Publishers) that was founded by the grandfather of the current president and CEO, Emily Morgan. For a period of over 40 years, GTP mostly printed instruction manuals that typically accompany electronic and household products, such as DVD players, camcorders, toaster ovens, and so on. When Emily returned to take over the leadership of GTP after working as a consultant for many years, she decided to focus her attention on a totally differ- ent market-publishing of textbooks that are used in schools and colleges. While the publication of instruction manuals still continues, Emily intends to phase out of this business as GTP develops more expertise in publishing college textbooks. Because none of the existing staff members at GTP is knowledgeable about the college textbook publishing process, Emily decided to hire the top ranked graduating MBA student, Rohan, and assigned him to develop a project plan for publishing text- books. She assigned Rohan to develop a plan for the efficient production of textbooks and strongly en- couraged him (hinting that his success might mean a very rapid growth in his career prospects). Armed with many tools he learned during the MBA program, Rohan was excited about the opportu- nity and was confident that he could find a perfect recipe for rapidly gearing up GTP for college textbook publishing. He started his research by searching for information at the local library, at the university li- brary (where he still had access as a recent graduate), and on the Internet. Rohan also interviewed several textbook authors, including some of his past profes- sors from the MBA program. He then talked to sales representatives from other publishing companies and attended a conference organized by the Association of American Publishers (http://www.publishers.org). After five months of intense research, he had more information about the textbook publishing process than he could have ever imagined. His one- line assessment was that the process is complicated and quite uncertain, and that the chances of success depend heavily on the project scope/quality, timeli- ness, and budget. Rohan came up with a list of key activities that are necessary to complete a textbook. He identified the interrelationships between the activities and the optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic time esti- mates. He started the final phase of his analysis by putting the information about the activities in a table. Based on the information provided in Table 8.19, calculate the estimated time to complete a textbook project. TABLE 8.19 Precedence Relationships and Time Estimates for Global Textbook Publishers Activity Description Immediate Predecessor Optimistic Time (weeks) Most Likely - Time (weeks) Pessimistic Time (weeks) A Identify the subject for the textbook B Conduct a market assessment Submit the book proposal and get ap- proval from senior management Identify potential authors for the textbook Initiate discussions with the shortlisted authors Select the author team Negotiate contract with the selected authors H Select technical support staff for web materials Select the editorial team Select an advisory board for authors Authors complete Ist batch of chapters PART II Tools and Tactical issues Authors complete 2nd batch of chapters Authors complete 3rd batch of chapters M 0 Review Ist batch of chapters Review 2nd batch of chapters Review 3rd batch of chapters Authors complete the revised versions of each chapter 1,J, O, P, Page proofs are completed Authos cross-check page proofs for content Editors cross-check page proofs for gram- matical and other errors Textbook production Compilation of web materials W X Textbook launched