Week 9 Group Assignment – Group #6

Schedule Compression and Resource Leveling 

Team members 

Sana Kapur, Shuang Tai, Abdul Shoaib Mohammed, Sreekanth Reddy, and Naga Srinivas Guntupalli

Part 1 Questions (20 points)

1. What is the purpose of a staffing management plan? What does it address?

The main purpose of a staffing management plan is to assign roles and responsibilities and give a clear indication of what is expected from the project team members. It gives an overview of the skill sets required by each team member, and the duration of their role on the project. The staffing management plan will give a snapshot of the staff requirements for the project, the expectations from each team member and the length of time they will be working on the project. 

2. Whom should the project manager consult when performing resource leveling?

The project manager should consider the following team members:

– Sponsors

– Resource manager

– Experts in the particular project field

– Management

– Other project managers

3. Describe the two primary techniques for compressing a schedule?

Schedule compression techniques are applied in cases where the project is not on track with the schedule or behind the allocated timeline. These techniques are applied to primarily compress the schedule without altering or modifying the project scope. If the project scope and deadline are not being modified, it is important to compress the project schedule.

Below are the two key techniques for compressing a schedule:

1. Fast-tracking 

In this technique, those phases or activities that are normally done in a sequence are then performed in parallel for a certain time frame of their project duration. Here, activities on the critical path are performed in parallel instead of series. However, one cannot undertake fast-tracking if the execution of the activities are dependant on the completion of the previous activity. For example, one cannot perform a quality check on a product before its production. If the activities on the critical path depend on each other because of resources, it is still possible to undertake fast-tracking in this instance and speed up the process.

2. Crashing

Crashing can be used to reduce the entire project schedule duration for the lowest additional cost by allocating additional resources. This can be successful as activities are sped up using the extra resources allocated to them. 

4. When crashing a project schedule, describe the two criteria that are considered when considering which activities will be sped up.

The first criteria will be to identify which activities will be along the critical path. Since the critical path is the longest path for the activity and determines how long it will take for each activity to be completed, speeding up activities on the critical path will not result in a change in project schedule.

The second criteria will be evaluation the cost of activities and identifying which activity has the lowest per day cost to speed up. It is not economically beneficial for the project to add further financial resources to speed up activities that cost more (Kloppenborg, 2015). 

Part 3 Resource Leveling (40 points)

Using the data below

Activity ID

Activity

Immediate Predecessor

Duration in days

Resource

Work Hours per Day

A

Evaluate freezers

2

Alcides

6

B

Chart temperatures

6

Joan

4

C

Review service record

2

Alcides

D

Consult with HVAC engineer

A, B, C

3

Alcides

E

Develop construction plan

D

10

Joan

F

Complete IC assignment

E

2

Alcides

G

Complete ROI analysis

E

5

Joan

H

Conduct regulatory review

E

4

Joan

I

Obtain construction approval

F, G, H

2

Alcides

a. Create a project schedule in MS Excel ensuring that it reflects the predecessor/successor relationships identified in the table.

b. How long will it take to complete the project?

It will take 26 Days to complete the project.

References:

– Kloppenborg, T.J. (2015).Contemporary Project Management (Third edition). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. Pg 222.