11.1 What are the practical implications internally (in terms of team motivation) and externally (for the customer) of making overly optimistic project delivery promises?
11.2 In considering how to make a big change in organizational operations (as in the case of switching to CCPM), why might it be necessary to focus on changing the organization’s current culture? That is, why does a shift in project scheduling require so many other linked changes to occur?
11.3 Why are traditional project planning methods insufficient when project deliverables are subject to changing requirements or continuous input from the project client?
11.4 What are the advantages and disadvantages of the waterfall planning model for project development?
11.5 What are the advantages and disadvantages of Agile PM?
11.6 How are the duties of the Scrum Master like a project manager? How do they differ?
11.7 Why is a focus on project features and user stories important when developing requirements?
11.8 What would be the difficulties in using Extreme Programming (XP) to develop projects? What types of projects would be best suited to employing XP?
11.9 How does aggregation of project safety allow the project team to reduce overall safety to a value that is less than the sum of individual task safeties? How does the insurance
industry employ this same phenomenon?
11.10 Distinguish between project buffers and feeder buffers. What is each buffer type used to accomplish?
11.11 It has been said that a key difference between CCPM safety and ordinary PERT chart activity slack is that activity slack is determined after the network has been created, whereas critical chain path safety is determined in advance. Explain this distinction: How does the project team “find” slack in a PERT chart versus how they use the activity buffer in Critical Chain Project Management?
11.12 What are the steps that CCPM employs to resolve resource conflicts on a project? How does the concept of activity late starts aid this approach?
11.13 What key steps are necessary to employ CCPM as a method for controlling a firm’s portfolio of projects?
11.14 What is a drum resource? Why is the concept important to understand to better control resource requirements for project portfolios?
11.15 Assume the network diagram shown in Figure 11.19. Megan is responsible for activities A and C. Use the critical chain methodology to resource-level the network. What are two options for redrawing the network? Which is the most efficient in terms of time to completion for the project? Show your work.
11.16 Consider the following activities and their durations. The original project schedule, using early activity starts, is shown in Figure 11.20. Reconfigure the network using critical chain project scheduling.
a. What is the critical path?
b. How much slack is available in the noncritical path?
c. Reconfigure the network in Figure 11.20 as a critical
chain network. What is the new duration of the project? How long are the project and feeder buffers?
Activity Duration
A 5 days
B 30 days
C 10 days
D 10 days
E 15 day
11.17 Reconfigure the network in Figure 11.21 using the critical chain approach. Remember to reconfigure the activities to late start where appropriate. What is the original critical path? What is the original project duration? How much feeder buffer should be applied to the noncritical paths? What is the length of the project buffer? Assume the 50% likelihood is exactly half the duration of current project activities.
FIGURE 11.22
Joe
Feeder
Buffer
Feeder
Buffer
Joe
Joe
CRITICAL PATH
FIGURE 11.20
A (5) B (30)
C (10) D (10)
E (15)
Slack
50 Days
11.18 Assume the network in Figure 11.22 with resource conflicts. How would you redraw the network using a critical chain to eliminate resource conflicts? Where should feeder buffers be applied Why?
FIGURE 11.21
E (10) H (15)
B (10)
G (15)
D (8)
A (12) C (15)
11.19 Consider the project portfolio problem shown in Figure 11.23. You are required to manage resources to accommodate the company’s current project portfolio. One resource area, comprising Carol, Kathy, and Tom, is responsible for all program debugging as new projects are completed. Four projects have activities that need to be completed. How would you schedule Carol, Kathy, and Tom’s time most efficiently? Using buffer drum scheduling, reconfigure the following schedule to allow
for optimal use of the resource time:
Priority: Project X
Project Y
Project Z
Project Q
Where would you place capacity constraint buffers? Why?
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