Week 4 Assignment: Case Study

12813Week 4 – Future Technology Data Center Case Study (continued)

See the Case Study Rubric for grading criteria.

Time and activity estimates. Critical Path.

Marion Hassing, VP of Operations, emails Charles, Project Manager, and asks him how long the project will take. Charles knows to get that answer he must begin building out the schedule and to identify the Critical Path activities.

Charles wants to use mathematical modeling to improve his time estimates to make them more realistic. He seeks out the experts who will be working on the project because he wants to better understand the work and get their input into the activity duration. Brian recognizes that sometimes the work is fast and there are no problems. Other times, it takes longer than expected to get the job done. Charles chooses to use the weighted average approach to get more realistic estimates for the activity durations. He talks with the experts and records each activity’s most likely duration, Optimistic duration, and Pessimistic Duration.

Step 1. Given activity three points estimations, calculate the weighted average activity duration.

Use the formula below and calculate the weighted average (te) for each activity.

Step 2: Using the calculated te, draw a network diagram.

What activities are on the critical path? What is the project duration?

Step 3: Using Microsoft Project (or software of your choice), build the Gantt Chart.