Reference no: EM132496697

PMAN 635 Quantitative Methods in Project Management Assignment - University of Maryland Global Campus, USA

Please do any ten of the following questions.

Q1. You are estimating costs for installing undersea cable in the Persian Gulf (aka the Arabian Gulf). You have the following information concerning installation costs:

The material cost per kilometer for cable is $200,000.

You are installing 100 kilometers of cable.

The cost per kilometer for installation depends on the sea conditions (sea state).

Sea State	Cost/kilometer
I	$25,000
II	$100,000

a. What would be the estimated cost of the project if you knew with certainty that, during the time you were installing the cable, you would encounter sea state I 75% of the time and sea state II 25% of the time?

b. Run a Crystal Ball calculation of the total estimated cost of the project, assuming the probability of sea state 1 is normally distributed with a mean of 75% and a standard deviation of 5%. Only sea states I and II are possible. Post your result, including your cost forecast.

c. What is your mean expected cost?

d. What estimated cost provides you 90% assurance that your actual cost will be less than that amount?

Q2. Identify the risk response strategy (Note that the PMBoK lists Acceptance, Avoidance, Escalation, Mitigation, Transference) in each of the following situations:

a. You are concerned about a fixed price contract with a new customer. The potential reward is a profit of $5Million but the potential loss is $3Million. After evaluating the various probabilities of success, you feel your expected profit is $600,000. As a new employee managing your first project, your authority is limited to potential loses of no more than $4 (and change). You decide to discuss this with your program manager in case she would like to assume the risk or has another project management team foolish enough to accept the risk.

b. You are concerned about currency exchange rates for an international project, so you decide to purchase currency rate insurance.

c. You are concerned about a fixed price contract with a new customer, so you decide not to bid the contract.

d. You are concerned about a fixed price contract with a new customer, but you decide to bid on the contract anyway.

e. You are planning the budget for your project and you are concerned that your team may have underestimated the work involved in designing the software, so you add a schedule and budget reserve to your initial estimate.

Q3. A project is in its 50th week and has an actual cost of $900,000 for the work performed to date. The budgeted cost of that work is $600,000. It expected to have completed $2,000,000 worth of work by this time. The budget for the entire project is $10,000,000. What is the:

a. CV

b. SV

c. CPI

d. EAC (provide two possible values. Show the formulas you use in calculating each)

Q4. You have completed estimating the durations for all tasks on your project and prepared the MS Project Plan shown in the attachment. Strangely, you notice that all your tasks take 5 days. Having struggled through PMAN 635 during your days as a UMUC student, you decide to use an optimistic time for each task of three days and a pessimistic time for each task of ten days. You feel that this will account for 90% of all the possible outcomes for each task. To save time, you export the tasks to the file "Project problem 4" (attached) and use the "Flash Fill" feature to fill the column for "m", the most likely times. Then you enter your optimistic and pessimistic times.

How much schedule reserve (days) should you add to your initial estimate in order to have a 90% chance of success?

Use the Z-table or the Excel formulas to develop your solution and post your calculations with your solution.

Q5. You are preparing a project to lay fiber optic cable. The first task is to mobilize the team. You estimate this will take one week and cost $4000. The second task is to lay the cable. This will take three weeks and will cost $30,000. The total length of the cable is 15 miles. The last task, which will take one week, is to terminate and test the cable. You budget $6000 for this. At the end of the first week, you have completed mobilization, but it cost a total of $4500. At the end of the third week, you have completed five miles of cable at a total cost of $28,000 (installation only). It takes you a total of 10 weeks to complete the entire project, for a total cost of $75,000.

a. At the end of week 1:

i. What is your SPI?

ii. What is your CPI?

iii. What is your EAC?

b. At the end of week 3:

i. What is your SPI?

ii. What is your CPI?

iii. What is your EAC?

c. At the end of the project:

i. What is your SPI?

ii. What is your CPI?

iii. What is your EAC?

Q6. Identify which of the following statements is true and which is false:

a. The primary purpose of project evaluation is to give feedback to senior management for decision and control purposes.

b. The original criteria for selecting and funding a project are largely irrelevant for project evaluation.

c. The timing of an audit does not depend on the purpose of the audit.

d. It is best for the project manager and the project team to make the termination decision.

Q7. Your project is to provide facilities for the 2020 Olympics. You are on a cost reimbursable contract. Your project is considered (pick one):

a. Risk constrained

b. Schedule constrained

c. Budget constrained

d. Performance constrained

Q8. A task has a normal duration of 9 days and a crash duration (the minimum duration) of 6 days. Its normal cost (total for 9 days) is $6000 and its crash cost is $12,000 (total for 6 days). What is the crash cost per day?

a. $14000

b. $7000

c. $5000

d. $2000

e. $1000

Q9. Identify which of the following statements is true and which is false:

a. The actual project duration will be known with certainty when the project is completed.

b. The difference between EST and LFT is called slack.

c. The shortest time to complete a network is equal to the duration of the longest path through the network.

d. The start to finish linkage is normally used in situations where it is desirable for two or more activities to finish at the same time.

Q10. A task is expected to take 10 hours of labor at $100 per hour (direct cost). The required material cost is $500. The organization adds a fee of 20% to all direct labor costs to account for overhead. It does not add any fee on top of material costs. The total task cost is:

a. $500

b. $1,100

c. $1,250

d. $1,300

e. $1,700

Q11. Using MSP, develop the project plan described in the attached file "FINAL QUESTION 11". Calculate and enter TE for task durations when developing your plan.

a. Submit your resulting MSP file.

b. What is the expected duration?

c. What is the expected cost?

Q12. Throughout the course, Professor Hall presented a number of Web Seminars on project management. Based on these seminars, I have concluded:

a. Professor Hall should be on TV.

b. Professor Hall should be on TV and in the movies.

c. When I grow up, I would like to be just like Professor Hall.

d. All of the above.

Note - Please do all Questions as follow and show all calculation in word and excel doc.