University PM 504 Final Exam: Project Management Essay Questions

This assignment presents comprehensive solutions to eight essay questions from a project management final exam. The answers cover a wide range of topics, including the project planning sequence, work breakdown structure (WBS), project network diagrams, critical path analysis, earned value management, and scope baseline. The responses delve into the rationale behind project planning steps, the components and applications of WBS, the construction and use of project networks, the calculation and significance of the critical path, the application of earned value metrics for cost and schedule variance, and the importance of project planning. Furthermore, it addresses the significance of the scope baseline. The assignment demonstrates a clear understanding of project management principles and their practical application in real-world scenarios.

EXAM

Question 1:
Answer: Vision - Objective – Scope Definition – WBS –Task Duration - Resources– Cost
Estimating-- Schedule- Network–Critical Path - Earned Value – Project Closeout
 In defining a project, the vision of the project comes first. By definition, a vision
statement "is a future-oriented declaration of a project's / organization's purpose and
aspirations" (Bart, Bontis & Taggar, 2001). The vision communicates the purpose of
the project.
 The objective of the project comes second. This is because an objective is set for use
in determining whether the set strategy for achieving the project's vision is on track.
Objectives outline the specific results that the project has to produce; and is both
specific, measurable and is bound to the given time, quality and budgetary
constraints.
 Scope Definition comes third; defining project scope entails identifying and
describing all activities required to produce the project's final product. Scope
definition guides the rest of the planning of the project.
 The Work Breakdown Structure follows; having identified work required for the
completion of the project, the work is broken down and organized into manageable
sections.
 Task Duration: Having defined the WBS, what follows is the estimation of task
duration for each work package within the WBS. The time duration and effort
informs the required resources for that given work package.
 Resources: Resource allocation comes after estimation of time and effort for work
packages.
 Cost Estimating: Information from the WBS such as time duration for tasks and
resource allocated for the tasks aids in a bottom-up cost estimation for the project.
Therefore, cost estimation comes after resource allocation.
 Schedule: Having identified all tasks, task duration, resources and costs, a project
schedule is generated.
 Network : a project network arises from the scheduling activities and depicts the
sequence in which tasks will be completed and their dependencies.
 Critical Path: a critical path - path with the least slake/float time - can only be
established after generating a project schedule and network.
 Earned Value: Earned Value estimation is placed as the second last activity. This is
because it is a monitoring activity, carried out during a project's execution phase.
 Project Closeout; the last activity entailing bringing the project to a close.
Question 2: Work Breakdown Structure
A Work Breakdown Structure presents a hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by
the project team (P.M.B.O.K, 2004). A WBS is developed to decompose project activities into
manageable pieces, by breaking large activities into work packages. It is mainly used in aiding
allocation of tasks to team members. A WBS helps a project team by reducing complicated
activities to a collection manageable tasks (Fairley and Thayer, 1997). With a WBS, a project team
is able to tackle complex project tasks by working through pieces of work - work packages- which

can easily be allocated to an individual team member. A WBS also plays a critical role in resource
estimation, allocation and budget estimating.
Question 3: Project Network
A project Network is a weighted directed graph that graphically depicts sequence in which activities
and milestones within a project are dependent on each other. A network diagram can be drawn
using a number of ways, key among them being;
 Conditional Diagramming Methods
 Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)
 Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) is the most common method in use. To constructs a
PDM, a Work Breakdown structure is critical, as it outlines all the activities to be carried out. A
project schedule, identifying dependency between activities is also required. The building blocks of
a PDM are therefore tasks, presented in a WBS and dependencies between tasks as presented by a
project schedule (Isaac and Hajdu, 2016). Nodes in a PDM represents activities while dependencies
between activities are represented by arrows.
A Precedence Diagramming Method utilizes four main type of dependencies, namely;
 Finish to Start (FS) : with this dependency, a first activity has to complete first before a
second activity begins. The second activity is therefore fully dependent on the first
activity.
 Finish to Finish (FF): The second activity cannot be finished until the first activity
finishes. The Successor and Predecessor events have to finish simultaneously.
 Start to Start (SS): Two activities [ a Predecessor and Successor ] have to start
simultaneously. The start of the Successor is fully dependent on the start of the
Predecessor.
 Start to Finish (SF): Finish Event of a Successor is dependent on the Start event of
Predecessor, meaning the second activity cannot complete until the first activity starts.
Question 4:

To calculate a project network's critical path, Two ways are employed to determine the early
or late start - forward pass and early or late finish - backward pass - for activities within a
network. With forward pass, one traverses forward through a network, determining a
project's duration and establishing the critical path of the project. On the other hand,
backward pass entails traversing backwards through a network, calculating the late start and
find slack within activities. The two activities are critical in a project as they help in
identifying the critical path activities of a project. The summation of the durations of the
critical path activities helps to inform the overall project duration.
Question 5
a. Duration of the project
 The duration of the project is the sum total of duration of critical path
activities. In this case the duration of the project will consist the activities;
A, C, E, F,H. Therefore the duration will be 14.
b. Critical Path
 The critical path, being the path with the least slake is made up of activities;
A, C, E, F,H.
c. Latest Start time for activity G
 Late start for G is 9; this is because G is not in the critical path, and its
latest start should not compromise the project time.
d. Earliest Start time for activity F : 9; F is in the critical path thus it can only start after
other critical path activities have completed
A C E F
Early Start / Early
Finish
1 2 3 6 7 8 9 12
Duration 2 4 2 4
e. Explain the significance of the calculated slack in Activity E.

 The slake time on Activity E increases the overall project time by 1. This is
because Activity E can only start after activity B and C are completed.
Although activity B ends first, E cannot start until C has completed.
Question 6: Three variables used to monitor cost and schedule variance
In any project, ensuring a project remains on the planned schedule and budget is a critical
function of a project manager. Projects therefore have to implement a mechanism of
continuously monitoring costs and schedule variances. The main approach used is the earned
value management. Earned Value Management plays a critical role in informing whether a
project is within budget as well as whether it is on schedule. The approach also helps in
calculating performance indexes and variances such as Cost variance and schedule variance.
Earned Value Management has three main variables; Planned Value (PV), Actual Cost
(AC), and Earned Value (EV).
 Planned Value (PV): The PMBOK Guide defines PV as “...the authorized
budget assigned to work to be accomplished for an activity or WBS
component.”. PV is calculated before the actual work is done and is used as
the baseline budget for the project. A project manager uses PV in
calculating Schedule variance as well as the Schedule Performance Index.
This is because the formula for calculating Schedule variance is; Schedule
Variance = Earned Value – Planned Value.
 Actual Cost (AC): AC is the second variable in Earned value management.
It is the value of total costs that has been incurred to complete the actual
amount of work completed at a given date. The PMBOK guide defines AC
as “...the total cost actually incurred in accomplishing work performed for
an activity or WBS component.”
AC plays a critical role in calculating the Cost Variance of a project.
 Earned Value (EV): Earned Value (EV); the third variable in earned value
management, this is the actual amount of work completed to date. The
PMBOK guide defines EV as “the value of work performed expressed in
A
0 2
B
3
C
4
D
2
E
2
F
4
G
3
H
2
ES ID
SL
EF
DUR LFLS
Legend
A
0 2
B
3
C
4
D
2
E
2
F
4
G
3
H
2
ES ID
SL
EF
DUR LFLS
Legend

terms of the approved budget assigned to that work for an activity or WBS
component.” Earned Value is used in calculating both the Schedule and
Cost Variances, as well as their corresponding Performance indexes.
In calculating Schedule Variance (SV), a project manager uses the EV and
PV, since SV = EV - PV. A positive value of Schedule Variance (SV)
indicates that the project is ahead of schedule. A negative SV means the
project is behind schedule while a value of zero shows that the project is on
schedule.
On the other hand, Cost Variance is calculated from the actual Cost and the
Earned Value; CV = EV – AC. A positive CV indicates that the project is
under budget, a negative value shows that the project is over budget while a
value of zero means the project is on budget.
Question 7
The most significant project management element is project planning. Success of a project is
largely dependent on how well the project was planned. As such, I have appreciated the
importance of thorough planning of a project. As a project manager, maximizing resources and
efforts in the planning of a project. With adequate planning, every other phase of the project is
likely to succeed, since a good plan guarantees a detailed requirement gathering, better scope
definition, resource allocation and efficient scheduling. A good plan also establishes practical
milestones, puts in places measures to monitor the schedule and costs and establishes a clear
communication mechanism as well as an approach to handle change requests within the project.
Question 8: Scope Baseline
The Scope Management plan is not part of a Scope Baseline.
Scope management Plan outlines how a project's scope is to be defined, developed, monitored,
controlled and verified. This is therefore a blueprint outlining the approach of developing a project
scope, but does not actually contain the scope of the project. This is therefore part of the project
management plan and is not part of the Scope Baseline. A Scope Baseline requires that the project
Scope be included, and not just a plan of how the scope is to be derived.

References
Bart, C.K., Bontis, N. and Taggar, S., 2001. A model of the impact of mission statements on firm
performance. Management decision, 39(1), pp.19-35.
Guide, P.M.B.O.K., 2004. A guide to the project management body of knowledge. In Project
Management Institute (Vol. 3).
Fairley, R.E. and Thayer, R.H., 1997. Work Breakdown Structure. Software Engineering Project
Management.
Isaac, S. and Hajdu, M., 2016. The possibilities for better project tracking based on the new
developments of the Precedence Diagramming Method. Procedia engineering, 164, pp.75-81.