Problem: Project Scheduling at Blanque Cheque Construction (A)
Joe has worked for Blanque Cheque Construction (BCC) for five years, mainly in administrative positions. Three months ago, he was informed that he was being transferred to the firm's project management group. Joe was excited because he realized that project management was typically the career path to the top in BCC, and everyone had to demonstrate the ability to "get their feet wet" by successfully running projects. Joe has just left a meeting with his superior, Jill, who has assigned him project management responsibilities for a new construction project the company has successfully bid. The project consists of developing a small commercial property that the owners hope to turn into a strip mall, directly across the street from a suburban college campus. The size of the property and building costs make it prudent to develop the property for four stores of roughly equal size. Beyond that desire, the owners have made it clear to BCC that all project management associated with developing the site is BCC's responsibility. Joe is sitting in his office at BCC trying to develop a reasonable project plan, including laying out some of the important project activities. At this point, he is content to stick with general levels of activities; that is, he does not want to get too specific yet regarding the various construction steps for developing the site.
Questions: 1. Develop a project network consisting of at least 20 steps that should be done to complete the project. As the case suggests, keep the level of detail for these activities general, rather than specific. Be sure to indicate some degree of precedence relationship among the activities.
2. Suppose you now wanted to calculate duration estimates for these activities. How would you make use of the following approaches? Are some more useful than others?
a. Expert opinion
b. Past history
c. Mathematical derivation
3. Joe is trying to decide which scheduling format to employ for his planning: AON or AOA. What are some of the issues that Joe should first consider prior to choosing between these methods?