Discuss the below:
There are a variety of tools and techniques used to monitor, control and report the progress of a project. There are typically points in the project where a project health review is conducted to form a confidence level of the project completing as planned. If your project is more concerned about schedule vs. cost, what tools and/or techniques would be most valuable in determining your project's health? Provide an example to illustrate your point.
EXAMPLE:
I have this exact issue come up all the time at Walgreen's. I work as a certified photo specialist, and I take care of customer orders everyday while there. I have a prime example of this problem with dealing with customers, taking care of their photo orders, older photo's, and quality of their photos. Many customers have older photographs that are slightly damaged, faded, ripped, torn, or have little tiny crackle marks in them as well. Some of my customers photos may be 100+ years old. I personally recommend to them that if their picture is worth a lot to them, that they scan it into our system, and send their photo electronically to our Yes Video vendor company which in turn will send back to us a perfectly restored picture in an 8X10 of their photo. Almost any picture can be saved, and I have seen as much as a whole 1/4 of a picture missing, and the picture looks like it was just freshly taken and it is not distorted, it is perfectly clear, and high quality. The only problem with this process is that it generally costs $39.99 to perform, and it takes up to 2 weeks to get their picture back. On occasion, we offer a coupon for $19.99 photo restoration deal. A lot of time, customers don't want to wait for 2 weeks to get their photo, and they don't want to pay $39.99 or even $19.99 for a photo restoration. However, if the picture holds a great deal of emotion, sentimental value, or high interest level to them it is worth it to them and highly recommended to them. Many older people purchase a photo restoration of their deceased parents and siblings saving their memories, refreshing the good times they had with their loved ones, and passing the photos down to their younger generations for years to come.
EXAMPLE:
For me, my example would be with the car repair industry. I manage an auto repair shop and we have this exact situation come up. The car repair industry is a very competitive industry and customers want their cars as soon as humanly possible. They are still concerned with the price, however, time is a major factor for them. The sooner we get the car finished the happier the customer will be and the higher the chance they will come back as repeat customers. This also comes up with insurance claimed cars. Insurance companies determine where to send cars based on customer satisfaction and completion rate. The faster the car is finished for the customer the better for the insurance company. We tend to give ourselves a couple of extra days as a deadline in case we find other damage to the car that may need an extra day or two to repair or if anything went wrong on our end we always have the leeway of that extra day or two. Any problem can arise to finding new damage or parts taking too long to be delivered. In order to keep costs down we shop for the cheapest possible price for parts, without compromising the quality, and finish the job as soon as we can so that we have room to work on another project.