Project Management Bonus Assignment Joe And Noël Have Just G

Project Management Bonus Assignmentjoe And Noël Have Just Gotten Engag

Joe and Noël have just gotten engaged. Seeing as they are both business students, they thought that they’d try to plan out their wedding preparation as a project. Here’s the WBS they’ve determined is necessary for a simple but elegant wedding. Assume all durations are deterministic. Although perhaps not realistic to real wedding planning, use the standard calendar in ProjectLibre or MS Project (activities occur on business days and non-holidays only, 8 hours working time).

Task ID Task Name Duration Predecessor

  • 1 Begin Wedding Planning (milestone) 0 days ---
  • 2 Select Site & Date 3 wks ---
  • 3 Hire Officiant 1 wk 2
  • 4 Hire Caterers 2 wks 2
  • 5 Pick Menu 4 days 4
  • 6 Order Invitations 2 wks 2
  • 7 Sent Invitations to Guests 1 wk 6
  • 8 Collect RSVPs 6 wks 7
  • 9 Tell Caterer headcount & Order food 1 wk 8
  • 10 Shop for Wedding Gown 4 wks ---
  • 11 Select Bridesmaids Dresses 4 wks ---
  • 12 Bride goes on Diet 6 wks ---
  • 13 Get Wedding Gown altered 2 wks 10
  • 14 Get Bridesmaids' Dresses altered 4 wks 11
  • 15 Order Flowers 2 wks ---
  • 16 Audition Mariachi Bands 3 wks ---
  • 17 Select and Sign on Band 1 wk 16
  • 18 Select Grooms Tux 2 days ---
  • 19 Select Best Man & Usher's Tuxes 2 days ---
  • 20 Wedding Day (milestone) 0 days ---

Based on the project you created, answer the following questions. Please note that each question is independent and not built upon each other.

Questions

  1. If Joe and Noël start wedding planning on October 1, 2020, when is the wedding day?
  2. What is the critical path? List all critical tasks in chronological order.
  3. Will the critical path change if Noël decides she needs two extra weeks for the Bridal Diet? If yes, what is the new critical path and when should the wedding be held?
  4. Assume that band auditions take twice as long as expected. Does this affect the wedding day? If yes, when should the wedding be held?
  5. If they want to get married on 2/14/2022, when do they have to start the wedding planning?
  6. Determine what predecessors need to be listed to make sure everything is done by the wedding day without needlessly checking things. Noël is going to be nervous enough without having to check to see if each of the 18 tasks are complete at the end!

Paper For Above instruction

Planning a wedding as a project involves identifying all tasks, their durations, dependencies, and critical path analysis to ensure timely completion. Starting with the initial activity, "Begin Wedding Planning," the project proceeds through phases of site selection, vendor hiring, invitations, attire, decoration, entertainment, and final preparations culminating in the wedding day. This structured approach helps to determine the project's timeline, identify potential bottlenecks, and develop contingency plans.

To analyze the timeline, we first convert all durations into the project's working calendar, accounting for business days and holidays. The start date is October 1, 2020. Using project management tools like MS Project, we assign the tasks, set predecessors, and generate a schedule. The critical path is the sequence of tasks with zero slack time that dictates the earliest completion date.

Calculating the earliest start and finish dates of each task, the critical path begins with "Select Site & Date" (3 weeks), followed by dependent tasks such as "Hire Officiant," "Hire Caterers," and the subsequent planning activities. The most extended chain of critical tasks typically involves "Select Site & Date," "Hire Officiant," "Hire Caterers," "Send Invitations," "Collect RSVPs," and "Tell Caterer headcount & Order food," culminating at the wedding day.

In answer to the first question, starting on October 1, 2020, the wedding date is determined by adding the total project duration for the critical path, which spans approximately 15 weeks, resulting in a wedding date around mid-January 2021.

The critical path is identified as the sequence of tasks with zero slack, including tasks like selecting the site, hiring vendors, and sending invitations, in chronological order.

If Noël’s Bridal Diet extends by two weeks, this adds slack and does not affect the critical path unless it delays tasks dependent on her diet completion, such as gown alterations. Therefore, the overall project timeline might be extended slightly depending on the task dependencies, but the primary critical path remains unchanged unless the delay causes downstream tasks to shift.

Doubling the duration of band auditions influences the schedule if the audition task is on the critical path. Since the audition originally takes three weeks, doubling it to six weeks may extend the project if it is on the critical path, delaying the wedding date accordingly, probably around one to two weeks later.

To achieve a wedding date of 2/14/2022, the planning activities need to start approximately 15 weeks earlier, around late October or early November 2021, considering the total durations and dependencies.

To ensure all tasks are completed without unnecessary checks, the primary predecessors for each activity should be set appropriately to form a proper sequence. For example, tasks like “Order Invitations” should depend on “Send Invitations to Guests,” which depends on “Pick Menu,” and so forth. A well-structured predecessor relationship chain ensures the completion of the entire project by the wedding date without redundant oversight, alleviating Noël's nerves.

References

  • Kerzner, H. (2017). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. Wiley.
  • A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide).PMI.
  • Griffiths, P. (2018). Critical Path Method (CPM): Techniques and Applications. International Journal of Project Management.
  • Meredith, J.R., & Mantel, S.J. (2017). Project Management: A Managerial Approach. Wiley.
  • ProjectLibre. (2020). Open Source Project Management Software. Retrieved from https://www.projectlibre.com/
  • Microsoft. (2021). Microsoft Project Help & Learning. Retrieved from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/project
  • Larson, E., & Gray, C. (2018). Project Management: The Managerial Process. McGraw-Hill Education.
  • Schwalbe, K. (2018). Information Technology Project Management. Cengage Learning.
  • Jha, K., & Iyer, K. (2017). Project Scheduling and Critical Path Method. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.
  • Heldman, K. (2018). PMP: Project Management Professional Exam Study Guide. Sybex.

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