Project Management: Scope, Scheduling, and Human Resources

Comprehensive review flashcards covering Gantt charts, WBS, scope baselines, PDM, CPM, PERT calculations, organizational structures, and PMI human resource management processes.

What is a Gantt chart and what does it display?

It is a project management tool formatted as a table with activities in rows and time on a horizontal scale, using bars that start at the scheduled start date and end at the scheduled finish date to clearly visualize project phases and timeline progression.

What key project aspects can be visualized using a Gantt chart?

It allows visualization of the minimum total project time, the exact sequence of phases, which activities can occur simultaneously, the current progress status, and key events or milestones.

What is a project milestone (hito) and what are its key characteristics?

A milestone is an important or critical reference event for project timing with clearly identifiable and defined results; it serves as a communication tool and requires an adequate quantity across the schedule for effective control.

What are the four types of milestones used in project planning?

Contractual (deadlines for client commitments), internal (internal activity deadlines requiring deliverable submission), intermediate (used to evaluate activity progress objectively), and interface (connecting operational relationships across different organizations, such as suppliers).

How does the Project Scope differ from the Project Charter?

The difference lies in the level of detail: the Project Charter contains high-level, general information, whereas the Project Scope provides a detailed breakdown of all project components, deliverables, and boundaries.

Which components are included in the Project Scope Description?

Product, service, or result specifications; deliverables; success criteria; acceptance criteria; project exclusions; constraints; milestones; and assumptions.

What is a Requirements Traceability Matrix?

A table that links product requirements from their origin to the specific deliverables that satisfy them, tracking each requirement throughout the entire project life cycle.

What criteria must project requirements meet to serve as the foundation of the WBS?

They must be unambiguous, measurable, testable through verification, traceable, complete, and consistent and acceptable to key stakeholders.

Which three approved documents constitute the Scope Baseline?

The Project Scope Statement, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), and the WBS Dictionary.

What is a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)?

A graphical, hierarchical tree-like decomposition of the project work whose root represents the overall project objective; it organizes work into deliverables without depending on time or cause-and-effect relationships.

What is a Work Package (WP) in a WBS?

The lowest-level element of the WBS composed of basic activities that can be associated with a deliverable, scheduled with start and end dates, estimated for resources and costs, and assigned to a single responsible individual.

What information is documented in the WBS Dictionary?

Code identification, work description, assumptions and constraints, responsible organization, schedule milestones, required resources, cost estimates, quality requirements, acceptance criteria, technical references, and contractual information.

What is the Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)?

A hierarchical structure that assigns responsibilities to project activities, identifies required competencies, and outlines decision-making processes across levels such as Project Management (PM), supervisors, and executors.

What methods are used to estimate the duration of work packages?

Analogy (historical data from similar packages), expert judgment, productivity of professional resources (often using a safety coefficient greater than $1$), and three-point estimation.

What are the four precedence relationship types in the Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)?

Finish-to-Start (FS), Finish-to-Finish (FF), Start-to-Start (SS), and Start-to-Finish (SF).

What are the definitions of Early Start (ES), Early Finish (EF), Late Start (LS), and Late Finish (LF)?

ES is the earliest possible time an activity can begin; EF is ES plus the activity duration; LF is the latest an activity can finish without delaying the project; and LS is LF minus the activity duration.

What is activity float (slack), and what is its value on the critical path?

Float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the overall project completion date; activities on the critical path have a float of $0$.

What is the primary difference between CPM and PERT regarding duration estimation?

CPM uses deterministic duration estimates without modeling uncertainty, whereas PERT treats durations as random variables with estimated probability distributions.

In what historical contexts were CPM and PERT developed?

CPM was created in $1957$ by chemical company Du Pont for plant maintenance, while PERT was developed in $1958$ for the U.S. Navy Polaris project during the Cold War to minimize development time.

What are the two common network diagram representations in CPM and PERT?

Activity on Arrow (AOA), where arrows represent activities, and Activity on Node (AON), where nodes represent activities.

What is the difference between a lead and a lag?

A lead is the amount of time a successor activity can be advanced relative to a predecessor, whereas a lag is the amount of time a successor activity must be delayed relative to a predecessor.

What is the PERT expected duration ($t_E$) formula presented in the lecture?

$t_E = \frac{t_O + t_M + t_P}{3}$, where $t_O$ is the optimistic duration, $t_M$ is the most likely duration, and $t_P$ is the pessimistic duration.

How is the total variance of a project calculated in PERT?

By calculating the sum of the variances ($\sigma^2$) of only those activities that lie on the critical path.

In the lecture's numerical example with critical path $A-C-E-G-H$, what is the project variance and standard deviation?

The total variance is $0.11 + 0.11 + 1 + 1.78 + 0.11 = 3.11$, and the standard deviation is $\sqrt{3.11} \approx 1.76$.

How is the standard normal variable ($Z$) calculated to evaluate the probability of finishing a project on time?

$Z = \frac{\text{Target Completion Date} - \text{Expected Duration}}{\text{Standard Deviation}}$. In the lecture example: $Z = \frac{16 - 15}{1.76} = 0.57$, yielding a $71.57\%$ completion probability.

What is the difference between fast tracking and crashing?

Fast tracking compresses the schedule by performing sequential activities in parallel, while crashing adds extra resources or measures to reduce activity durations, typically increasing costs.

How do resource leveling and resource smoothing differ?

Resource leveling adjusts start and finish dates to balance resource demand against constraints and can change the critical path, whereas resource smoothing adjusts activities within float limits and aims not to alter the critical path.

What is the difference between project-driven and project-dependent organizations?

Project-driven organizations carry out their primary day-to-day operations through projects using permanent staff, whereas project-dependent organizations create temporary (often matrix) structures where team members are borrowed from functional units.

What defines the four project management methodology approaches (predictive, iterative, incremental, adaptive)?

Predictive defines goals upfront and follows a sequential plan; iterative revises objectives over time; incremental releases partial usable solutions progressively based on user feedback; and adaptive (agile) combines iterative and incremental methods for high uncertainty.

What does each role represent in a RACI matrix?

R = Responsible (the person who completes the work), A = Accountable (the person who approves the work), C = Consulted (subject matter experts providing input), and I = Informed (individuals updated on progress).

What are the four processes in Project Human Resource Management according to the PMI?

1) Plan Human Resource Management, 2) Acquire Project Team, 3) Develop Project Team, and 4) Manage Project Team.