Huntsville Project

Karen Brown PROJ586 Huntsville Project November Term Week Three Question #1 Estimated Completion Time of Project According to the requirements that we have set for this project we will not be able to complete it by the expected date of November 2013. With the amount of resources that we need to complete the project our new projected end date is January 30, 2014. There are a few options that we can take to reduce the amount of time needed to complete this project by the proposed date of November 2013. Proposed Changes to ScheduleWe can expedite the project by reducing the amount of time we have slated for some of our larger tasks. By recalculating and essentially shortening the schedule we can decrease our project by 10%. â€Å"A change in the estimated duration of any activity on that path will cause a corresponding change in the slack for that path. † (Gido and Clements 167). Currently we have several tasks that we can reduce time: * Recruiting & Training Managers 6 weeks (CP ) * Creating Building Design 6 weeks (CP) * Building Construction 40 weeks (CP) Procuring Equipment 24 weeks * Procuring Truck Fleet 8 weeks (CP) Of the five tasks identified, four of these tasks are along our critical path and attribute to 60 weeks or a little more than a year. If we were able to reduce tasks along the critical path by 30% it would provide us an extra 18 weeks or four-and-a-half months to complete the schedule. According to our current schedule we are exceeding our schedule by two-and-a-half months. I am proposing that we reduce all of the aforementioned items by a total of 0% will save us two-and-a-half months on our schedule and should provide adequate time to complete the project in the specified time. Proposed Weekly Allotments * Recruiting & Training Managers 5 weeks (CP) * Creating Building Design 5 weeks (CP) * Building Construction 36 weeks (CP) * Procuring Equipment 21 weeks * Procuring Truck Fleet 7 weeks (CP) Reallocating Resources In order to reduce the amount of time we have for each project, we will also need to change how we currently have our resources allocated.The largest impacts we potentially face are hiring additional staff increasing our costs and scope. In order to complete the building construction in 36 weeks, we will need to hire additional construction workers through our general contractor. The other tasks will require looking at the task leads and reallocating their percentage of responsibility and possibly moving someone to from task to another to complete on time. Question #2 After reviewing the Allocated Resources Reported we are currently over allocated in the beginning phases of the project.The Facility Specialist is has about 110% of responsibilities in the first week of the project. There are a couple of options that we have available to combat this problem. Reassigning Tasks This can be resolved by having the Project Management in a more active role selecting an architect. By increasing the Project Manager s workload to 10% it allows for us to reduce the Facility Specialist load to 50%, leaving him at 100% for the first couple of weeks of the project. Resource Leveling Another approach that we can take to rectify our over allocation is to level the project.Leveling the projects that are over allocated will result in one project being placed on hold until another project is complete (Gido and Clements 234). The task that is over allocated, selecting an architect, has no successors so it will not directly affect any of the other tasks in the Work Breakdown Structure. Resource-Limited Scheduling This option will allow for us to create a new truncated schedule that equally matches our staffing capacities. Instead of spending two weeks to look for an architect we can shorten that timeframe to one week. That additional week will allow for staff to spend time on their other assignments.All of these tasks have a positive slack, meaning they have some time to be completed because they are not along critical paths, and should not change the date in which the project will be completed. Of the three options that are available, Resource Leveling will be the most efficient to achieving our goals an d having the right amount of expertise involved in the project. References Gido, J. & Clements, P. (2011). Successful Project Management, Fifth Edition. South-Western College Pub. , 2011. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), Fourth Edition. Pennsylvania: Project Management Institute, 2008