Practical assignment 1: Project schedule and resource

planning (10%)
(adapted from https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=585572&d=1476025677)

Part I: for starters…

Team
The assignment must be completed by groups of three students.

Submission of the practical assignment

Each group should submit its solutions to Moodle as separate document for each task. In comments of
the Moodle forum, the names of team members should be identified. Use Gantt Project to draw the
required charts. If needed, use Microsoft Excel (installed on class computers) for calculations. For the
Gantt chart, one activity is one row. To explain how your work satisfies the different tasks described below
(see Part II), explain your work in a report. You will find the template of the report online (Moodle).

Deadline
You have to upload your report on Moodle by January, 30. You should also bring a printed copy of your
report on January, 30.

Structure of the report

Your report should be used to describe how you fulfilled the requirements described by Part II (see
below). To write your report, you can use the report template available on Moodle.

Note that the sections of your report should include: 1) an introduction section; 2) the different sections
describing the work done to address the requirements of Part II; 3) a conclusion section; and 4) a
reference section indicating the different references you have used to complete the assignment.

o The introduction should set the context of the assignment, describe the problems addressed by
the assignment and outline the remaining sections of your report.
o The conclusion should present a summary of the work done to complete the assignment and
reported in the previous sections of your report. The conclusion should also state what you have
learned from the assignment and give the limitations of your work. Finally, the conclusion
should give some recommendations regarding the use of Gantt project and state its limitations
based on the difficulties you have encountered when completing the assignment.

Part II: using Gantt project for schedule and resource management
Description of the situation:
You work as project manager in a company which has made a contract about planning and conducting a
new automatized inventory control system. Scope of the project and work breakdown structure has
already been decided. Names of the different tasks and their contents and durations (in days) as well as
resource requirements are shown in table 1.
Predecessors of tasks imply which tasks are needed to be conducted before the current task can be
started. Now you have to prepare a project schedule, calculate the total duration of the project, define
the resources needed as a function of time and evaluate the project costs. You must assume in this
assignment that people work five days per week (with holidays).

Task 1: gantt chart (2%)

Depict an activity network of the project where expected start and finish times, floats and all other
relevant information is given. The predecessor activity has to be fully concluded prior the following
activity can be started. In other words all dependencies are in FS form (FS=Finish to start).

Mark the critical path to your activity network. Calculate the shortest possible duration of the project.
Compose the Gantt chart compatible to shortest possible duration based on the earliest starting times.
Mark floats to Gantt chart as well.

Describe in your report how you have completed the task. You can use screenshots to illustrate your
statements.

Task 2: resource chart (2%)

Draw a resource chart of the project situation with assumption that labour supply is unlimited. Resource
chart should reflect the work resource requirements of individual tasks.

Describe in your report how you have completed the task. You can use screenshots to illustrate your
statements.

Task 3: gantt chart revisited (2%)

Now you find out that there is a limited labour supply for the project. Your company’s working resources
are presented in table 2.

Compile new resource chart in relation to time according to the above mentioned resource limitations.
Balance resources so that overall duration of the project increases with minimal amount. Notice that the
work resources required in each activity has to be conducted at the same time. Only one employee can
perform each task (Equipment design, Software development, Documentation, etc.) so the duration of
the activity cannot increased or decreased by changing the resources or employees receivable. In addition,
each activity has to be finished once it’s started, so you cannot break activities into pieces.
You should also draw a new Gantt chart based on earliest starting times with floats with assumption that
labour force resource limitations are valid. How the limitations affect the criticality of activities in the new
Gantt chart? Mark to Gantt chart the new critical path and the critical activities which are critical in
relation to timing or resources.

Describe in your report how you have completed the task. You can use screenshots to illustrate your
statements.

Task 4: project costs (2%)

You should also consider the costs of the project. Most of the cost are composed from labour costs. In
cost calculations you have to consider the following costs:

o Daily costs of employees presented in table 2 (if the resource is used)

o Administrational cost $2600/week , from each beginning week
o Component Procurement (activity J) $19000. This cost actualizes when order is delivered and
finished (activity K)
o In documentation you have to use external assistance with a cost $500 per each documentation
day.
o No other costs like inflation or value added tax needs to be considered.

Calculate the cumulative costs of the project when the resource limitations are valid and draft a chart of
the costs in relation to time. Mark the weekly cumulative costs to your chart. You can assume that all
labour costs are realized at the same day the corresponding employee is working. You should also
calculate the evaluated total costs of the whole project.

Describe in your report how you have completed the task. When applicable, you can use screenshots to
illustrate your statements.

Task 5: export (1%)

Find the most appropriate way to export your project using Gantt project.

Describe in your report how you have completed the task. You can use screenshots to illustrate your
statements.

Task 6: team collaboration (1%)

Explore ways to collaborate using Gantt project. Which one of them is the best one?

Describe in your report how you have completed the task. You can use screenshots to illustrate your
statements.

References:
1. https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=585572&d=1476025677
2. https://www.ganttproject.biz/
3. http://www.montana.edu/engcommtoolkit/reports/index.html