Source: Project Management

I need help with questions #1 to #7

1)

It is often argued that project management techniques create tradeoffs between effectiveness and efficiency

1. What is meant effectiveness in the context of project management? Use an example to illustrate. (4 pts).
2. What is meant by efficiency in the context of project management? Use an example to illustrate. (4 pts).

2)

Information can either go from source to destination on a schedule or can go from source to destination based on events. For instance, when undertaking concurrent engineering, information from upstream to downstream activity can be passed on weekly (i.e., "on schedule"), or at any time depending on the relevance of information ("on demand"). What is the advantage of one ("on schedule") versus the other ("on demand"). (8 pts).

3)

1. In the context of concurrent engineering, what is meant by the terms "sensitivity of downstream" and "distribution of changes from upstream" (also called "pace of upstream information evolution")? (3 pts + 3 pts)
2. How do these two parameters affect the extent of overlapping feasible in a project? (2 pts).

4)

Best practice suggests that heavyweight teams should have senior executive sponsors, and a cross-functional core team. Why is this important? Given the "costs" of having this core team, wouldn't it make more sense to have more focused core teams that dynamically bring in outside experts if and when needed? (5 pts)

5)

Heavyweight teams impose hidden costs on other projects within the organization. What kind of "hidden costs" are these and where do these costs come from? (6 pts).

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6)

Which of the following statements are true about heavyweight project management and why?

1. Heavyweight project management is most useful when the project has significant novelty (as opposed to when projects are routine) (4pts).
2. Heavyweight project management should not be attempted at the same time as concurrent engineering (and should be attempted only with the more traditional serial "waterfall model") (4 pts).
3. The goal of a project charter in heavyweight projects is to contractually bind the team members to the deliverables (4 pts).

7)

The "theory of constraints" perspective in critical chains argues that we need to identify the constraints (to project performance) and then work to protect/loosen these constraints.

1. What are some of the "constraints" for project duration? (i.e., what are the factors that determine the project duration). (4 pts).
2. How does adding a project buffer/slack help to protect the constraints? (4 pts)