schedule so that deviations from Analytics Exercise: Product Design Proje You work for Nokia in its global cell phone group. You have been made project manager for the design of a new cell phone. Your supervisors have already scoped the project, so you have a list showing the work breakdown structure, and this includes major project activities. You must plan the project schedule and calculate project duration. Your boss wants the schedule on his desk tomorrow morning! You have been given the information in Exhibit 4.13. It includes all the activities required in the project and the duration of each activity. Also, dependencies between the activities have been identified. Remember that the pre- ceding activity must be fully completed before work on the following activity can be started. Your project is divided into five major subprojects. Subproject "P" involves developing specifications for the new cell phone. Here, decisions related to such things as battery life, size of the phone, and features need to be made. These details are based on how a customer uses the cell phone. These user specifications are redefined in terms that have meaning to the subcontractors that will actually make the new cell phone in subproject "S" sup- plier specifications. These involve engineering details for how the product will perform. The individual components that make up the product are the focus of subproject "D." Subproject "T" brings all the components together, and a working prototype is built and tested Finally, in subproject "V." suppliers are selected and contracts are negotiated 1. Draw a project network that includes all the activities. 2. Calculate the start and finish times for each activ- ity and determine the minimum number of weeks for completing the project. Find the activities that are on the critical path for completing the project in the shortest time. urces? project management information system that is now commonly large projects? mpares the current project schedule with the original baseline ons from the original plan can be easily noticed? e t. . n ar c n c Project 3. Identify slack in the activities not on the project 11 critical path 4. Your boss would like you to study the impact of making two changes to how the project is orga- nized. The first change involves using dedicated teams that would work strictly in parallel on the activities in each subproject. For example, in sub- project P (product specifications) the team would work on P1, P2, P3, and P4 all in parallel. In other words, there would be no precedence relationships within a subproject--all tasks within a subproject would be worked on at the same time and each would take the same amount of time as originally specified. With this new design, all the subprojects would be done sequentially with P done first, then S. D. I, and finally V. What would be the expected impact on how long it would take to complete the project if this change were made? 5. The second change your boss would like you to consider would be to select the suppliers during subproject and have them work directly with the dedicated teams as described in step 4. This would involve adding an additional activity to subproject P called supplier selection and contract negotiation (P5) with a duration of 12 weeks. This new activ- ity would be done in parallel with P1, P2, P3, and P4. Subprojects S and V would be eliminated from the project. What would be the expected impact on how long it would take to complete the project if this additional change were made? 6. Evaluate the impact of making these changes using criteria other than just the time to complete the project. Do you think it would be in Nokia's best at interest to try to make these changes in how it runs this and future cell phone design projects? 11 or 21 11 11 d e cs et 07:03 Search AA a a 124 of 785 . Series want 1 2 3 4 D 1 day day days 7 days days 2 days 7 days days Adara Mon 12 Mon/2112 Tue This Tues W Mon/14/12 Mon 20/12 The 25/12 14 Tue 23/22 wed/30/22 o MP 5 L 4 The 73 6 H 3 For managing very large projects or programs having sever Planner is often the choice. Primavera was the first major vende has possibly the most sophisticated capability In addition to scheduling tasks, a major capability of all thes ing resources to competing tasks and projects. For example, th labor and equipment for a project. Mid- to high-level project mai (PMIS) software can also resolve overallocations through a "c of thumb can be used. You can specify that low-priority tasks s priority ones are complete, or that the project should end before The real action starts after the project gets under way. Actual original, or baseline, planned progress. Software can hold seven you can compare monthly snapshots. A tracking Gantt chart superimposes the current schedule ont are easily noticed. If you prefer, a spreadsheet view of the same Deviations between planned start/finish and newly scheduled : 07:03 Search Q a Projects Chapter 4 95 124 of 785 May Man TINT W T | PHIM T W T F S M T BUT THAT TIP veral projects, Primavera Project ndor of this type of software and hese software packages is assign- e, the systems can schedule back management information systems "leveling" feature. Several rules s should be delayed until higher- ore or after the original deadline. ual progress will differ from your everal different baseline plans, so onto a baseline plan so deviations me information could be output. ed start/finish also appear, and a