PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management



Project Management

Case 1

Harman Ltd is a company which organizes and promotes wine and food evenings. This company works in conjunction with clubs, pubs and restaurants in the South East of England. To promote the organizations services, a wide range of resources are utilized including: radio and press advertisements, special promotions, direct mail, social media, posters, videos, and personal sellers

Introduction

1)Draw the network diagram (use activity on the node).

Ans. Activities, durations and dependencies

Activity

Duration

Resource

Cost

Dependency

A

4

X

2400

-

B

12

Y

18000

A

C

3

X

1800

A

D

13

Y

-

A

E

4

Y

6000

A

G

15

Y

15000

B + C

H

1

X

600

D

I

11

X

8250

D

J

5

X

1500

E

K

15

Y

7500

H + J

Explain how you determined the project duration and the critical path. (6 marks)

1. Durations are in weeks

2. A has no dependency and so is the starting activity.

3. No activities depend on G, I or K so these are end activities.

4. There is no activity F in this table. The activity-on-arrow method requires 'dummy activities'. The activity-on-node method does not require them.

Project time analysis

Time analysis is based on analyzing the activity times. For each activity four times can be calculated:

The earliest time by which the activity can start.

The earliest time by which the activity can finish

The latest time by which it must start, if the overall project time is to be achieved.

The latest time by which it must finish, if the overall project time is to be achieved.

In addition to the listed activities a 'start' activity, of zero duration, is needed to mark the start of the project. This enables other real activities to start. Similarly a 'finish' activity, of zero duration, is needed to bring a set of activities together to mark the end of the project.

A time of 0 is usually assigned to the start activity and by passing through the network the earliest start time and earliest finish time for each activity is calculated. Where more than one preceding activity leads to an activity, the earliest activity start time is the latest of the set of earliest finish times of preceding activities. This is because all incoming activities must be completed for the activity to start.

Earliest activity finish time = Earliest activity start time + activity duration.

When the finish activity is reached the project duration can be determined as the time of the finish activity. Activity times for this analysis are times from start, NOT dates. As a project is implemented it would be normal to state the activity start and finish times as calendar dates.

Using the project duration and passing backwards through the network the latest start time and latest finish time for each activity event are calculated.

Latest activity start times = Latest activity finish times - activity duration.

When the start event is reached its latest time should be 0, the same as its earliest time (if not

Critical Path through a network

A network comprises several paths of activities from its start to its end, one (or more) of which is longer in duration than others. This path determines the project duration and is referred to as the Critical Path. This is the path that causes the project duration to be what ...