Reference no: EM132315726
Textbook - Product Design and Development, Fifth Edition, Author - Karl T. Ulrich by Steven D. Eppinger. ISBN 978-0-07-340477-6.
Chapter 18 - Managing Projects
Exercises -
1. The tasks for preparing a dinner (along with the normal completion times) might include:
a. Wash and cut vegetables for the salad (15 minutes).
b. Toss the salad (2 minutes).
c. Set the table (8 minutes).
d. Start the rice cooking (2 minutes).
e. Cook rice (25 minutes).
f. Place the rice in a serving dish (1 minute).
g. Mix casserole ingredients (10 minutes).
h. Bake the casserole (25 minutes).
Prepare a DSM for these tasks.
2. Prepare a PERT chart for the tasks in Exercise 1. How fast can one person prepare this dinner? What if there were two people?
3. What strategies could you employ to prepare dinner more quickly? If you thought about dinner 24 hours in advance, are there any steps you could take to reduce the time between arriving home the next day and serving dinner?
4. Interview a project manager (not necessarily from product development). Ask him or her to describe the major obstacles to project success.
Thought Questions -
1. When a task on the critical path (e.g., the fabrication of a mold) is delayed, the completion of the entire project is delayed, even though the total amount of work required to complete the project may remain the same. How would you expect such a delay to impact the total cost of the project?
2. This chapter has focused on the "hard" issues in project management related to tasks, dependencies, and schedules. What are some of the "soft," or behavioral, issues related to project management?
3. What would you expect to be some of the characteristics of individuals who successfully lead project teams?
4. Under what conditions might efforts to accelerate a product development project also lead to increased product quality and/or decreased product manufacturing costs? Under what conditions might these attributes of the product deteriorate when the project is accelerated?