Writers Den

IT Project Management
(95808)

HW #1 DUE:
Nov 30, 2016

1.
John
Ringold, Jr., just graduated from a local university with a degree in
industrial management and joined his father’s company as executive
vice-president of operations. Dad wants
to break John in slowly and has decided to see how he can do on a project that
John Sr. has never had time to investigate. Twenty percent of the company’s
sales are derived from the sale of above-ground swimming pool kits.

Ringold’s does not install the pools.
John Sr. has asked John Jr. to determine
whether or not they should get into that business. John Jr. has decided that
the easiest way to press Dad and get the project done is personally to estimate
the cost to the company of setting up a pool and then call some competitors and
see how much they charge. That will show whether or not it is profitable.

John Jr. remembered a method called the
work breakdown structure (WBS) that he thought might serve as a useful tool to
estimate costs. Also, the use of such a tool could be passed along to the site
supervisor to help evaluate the performance of work crews. John Jr.’s WBS is
shown in Table A. The total cost John Jr. calculated was $185.00, based on
12.33 labor-hours at $15.00/labor-hour. John Jr. found that, on average,
Ringold’s competitors charged $229.00 to install a similar pool. John Jr.
thought he had a winner. He called his father and made an appointment to
present his findings the next morning. Since he had never assembled a pool
himself, he decided to increase the budget by 10 percent, “just in
case.”

Table A. Pool Installation WBS

Works Tasks Labor-Hours (estimated)

Prepare ground
surface 2.67

Clear 1

Rake 1/3

Level 1

Sand bottom 1/3

Lay out pool frame 2.50

Bottom ring 1

Side panels 1/2

Top ring 1

Add plastic liner 0.50

Assemble pool 1.66

Build wooden support 3.00

Layout 1

Assemble 2

Fill and test 2.00

———————————————————————–

Total 12.33

Questions: 10
points

1a)
Is John Jr.’s WBS projection reasonable?

1b) What aspects of
the decision will John Sr. consider?

2. Nina is trying to decide in which of the four shopping
centers to locate her new boutique. Some
locations attract a higher class of clientele than others, some are in an
indoor mall, some have a greater customer traffic volume than others, and, of
course, rent varies considerably from one location to the other. Because of the nature of her store, she has
decided that the class of clientele is the most important consideration, the
higher the better. Following this,
however, she must pay attention to her expenses and rent is a major item,
probably 90 percent as important as clientele.
An indoor, temperature controlled mall is a big help, however, for stores such as hers where 70 percent of
sales are from passersby slowly strolling and window shopping. Thus, she rates thus as about 95% as
important as rent. Last, a higher
traffic volume of shoppers means more potential sales; she thus rates this
factor as 80 percent as important as rent. As an aid in visualizing her
location alternatives, she has constructed the following table. A “good” is scored as 3, “fair” as 2 and
“poor” as 1. Use a weighted score
model to help Nina to come to a decision.

10 points

	Location
1	2	3	4
Class of Clientele	Fair	Good	Poor	Good
Rent	Good	Fair	Poor	Good
Indoor Mall	Good	Poor	Good	Poor
Traffic Volume	Good	Fair	Good	Poor

3.
Identify the critical path for the following network for a
small MIS project (all times are in days; network proceeds from node 1 to node
10): 10pts

	Network
Job Activity	Initial Node	Final Node	Estimated Time
A	1	2	2
B	1	3	3
C	1	4	3
D	2	5	3
E	2	9	3
F	3	5	1
G	3	6	2
H	3	7	3
I	4	7	5
J	4	8	3
K	5	6	3
L	6	9	4
M	7	9	4
N	8	9	3
O	9	10	2

:

4.
Given the following
activities required to complete a programming project before a certain date

a) Construct an AON diagram

b) Determine the most likely completion time for the game

c) Based on the critical path what completion date are you 80%
confident of achieving? 40% confident?

d) Will 1-day delay be serious?

20pts

ACTIVITY	Time (days)
Predecessor	a	m	b
1	—	2	4	6
2	—	5	5	5
3	2	3	5	7
4	1	7	10	13
5	1	11	12	13
6	2 , 4	5	6	7
7	3	9	10	11
8	3 , 6	5	7	9
9	4	7	9	11
10	5	3	3	3
11	7	15	17	19
12	8	6	8	10
13	9 , 10	7	8	15
14	7	12	14	16
15	12 , 13	16	17	18

5. Find the schedule
and cost variances for a project that has an actual cost at month 22 of
$540,000, a schedule cost of $523,000 and an earned value of $535,000. 10 points

6. The following
project is at the end of its sixth week.
Find the cost and schedule variances.
Also find the CPI, SPI and EAC for the project. 15 points

Activity	Predecessor	Duration (wks)	Budget ($)	Actual Cost ($)	% Completed
a	—	2	300	400	100
b	—	3	200	180	100
c	a	2	250	300	100
d	a	5	600	400	20
e	b, c	4	400	200	20