This is a scheduling problem that will look at how things change when using critical chain (versus critical path) and some ways of considering the management of multiple projects. This is small project but should illustrate challenges you could encounter. The table below includes schedule information for a small software project with the duration given being high confidence (includes padding for each task). Assume the schedule begins on 3/1/21. Task ID Predecessors Resource Duration 6 1 Jan 20 2 1 Joe 30 3 2 Jack Jill 20 4 2 Task Name Scope project Analyze requirements Develop module 1 Develop module 2 Develop module 3 Integrate system Write documentation Test system Training Release 20 2 Jack | 10 Tom 4,5 2 10 7 Joe 40 8 6 Kim 10 9 Sam 6,8 9 0 10 a) Develop a project network or Gannt chart view for the project. What is the finish date? What is the critical path? Assume that multi-tasking is allowed. b) Develop a critical chain view of this schedule. Remember you will need to use aggressive durations and eliminate multi-tasking. Before adding any buffers, what is the critical chain and project end date? Now add the project buffer and any needed feeding buffers. What is the end date? c) Now assume you have added two more software projects to development that require the same tasks (you have three projects in development on the same schedule at this point). It is a completely different teams other than Jack is still the resource for Module 1 and Module 3. Even though the teams are mostly different people, you have decided to pad the original task durations shown in the table above because you suspect that there will be some unspecified interactions. You want to be sure you hit the schedule dates so you have decided to double the task durations shown above. So Scope project is 12 days, Analyze requirements is 40 days, etc. Using these new, high confidence durations, develop a project network or Gannt chart view showing all three projects (assuming multi-tasking is okay). What is the finish date? d) We now want to develop a critical chain view of this schedule. You need to use aggressive durations and eliminate multi-tasking. Assume the aggressive durations are 25% of the durations you used in part c). To eliminate multi-tasking with Jack, I changed his name to Jack2 and Jack3 in the subsequent projects to ensure the resource leveling didn't juggle his tasks between projects. In other words, I want Jack focused on a project at a time. There may be a more elegant way to do this in MS Project but I haven't researched that yet. Add in the project buffer and any needed feeding buffers. What is the end date now to complete all three projects? e) Using your schedule from part d), add in a capacity buffer between projects assuming that Jack is the drum resource. Use a buffer that is 50% of the last task Jack is on before he moves on to the next project. The priority of the projects is Project 1, Project 3, Project 2. What is the end date now to complete all three projects? f) You are running into significant space issues and need to reduce the size of your test lab. This means that you can only have 2 projects in test at one time. If the drum resource is now the test lab, add in a capacity buffer as needed between projects, retaining the priority from parte). Size the buffer and document your assumption for what you did. What is the end date now? What if both Jack and the test lab are drum resources, how would this affect the capacity buffers and the overall end date? g) What observations can you make about this exercise? How does your organize handle scheduling multiple projets or deal with multiple tasking? Write at least a couple of paragraphs