Importanceof Cost Management –
Ø
IT projects have a poor track record
for meeting budget goals
Ø
The CHAOS studies found the average
cost overrun(the additional percentage or dollar amount by which actual
costs exceed estimates) ranged from 180 percent in 1994 to 43 percent in 2010
A 2011 Harvard Business Review study
reported an average cost overrun of 27 percent. The most important finding was
the discovery of many gigantic overages or “black swans.
What is Cost and Project Cost Management?
Ø
Cost is a resource sacrificed or foregone to achieve a
specific objective, or something given up in exchange
Ø
Costs are usually measured in
monetary units like dollars
Ø
Project
cost management includes
the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within an
approve budget
Ø
Profits are revenues minus expenditures
Ø
Profit margin is the ratio of revenues to profits
Ø
Life cycle
costing considers the total cost of
ownership, or development plus support costs, for a project
Ø Cash flow analysis determines
the estimated annual costs and benefits for a project and the resulting annual
cash flow .
Monitoring and Controlling Projects
Ø
Monitoring
and controlling of project work encompass a process of tracking, reviewing, and
regulating the progress of a project to meet the performance
objectives defined in the project management plan.
Ø
Projects
benefit only from a properly conceived and implemented project controls
strategy.
Ø
Controls
are essential in managing projects to success. and if proper controls are in
place and if the dynamics of the project escalation process are understood,
project managers and executives can learn to avoid failure.
Ø Monitoring a project includes
collecting, measuring, and distributing important information that is
accomplished throughout the length of a project.
The monitoring and controlling
of a project are associated with the following:
Ø
Comparing
actual project factors such as scope, cost, schedule, resources, performance,
and values against the project management plan
Ø
Identifying
new risks
Ø
Analyzing,
tracking, monitoring, and managing already identified risks as well as newly
identified risks
Ø
Making
sure that appropriate risk mitigation plans are being executed
Ø
Providing information to project
plans using the inputs from project teams and other stakeholders
Ø
Forecasting to update current costs,
resource allocations, and schedules
Ø
Monitoring implementation of approved
changes as they occur .
Ø
To
accomplish integrated change control, the inputs are project management plan,
work performance information, change requests, environmental factors, and
organizational process assets.
Ø Work performance information
is essential to the project management plan and includes the following:
Ø
Progress
of projects or status of projects
Ø
Progress
of project deliverables or status of project deliverables.
Ø
Start
status and completed status of project activities
Ø
Budgeted
costs versus actual incurred costs
Ø Resource utilization details.
Integrated change control
continued
The integrated
change control process includes reviewing all change requests, approving or
denying changes, and controlling the approved changes throughout the project
lifespan.
Ø
The change management activities in a
project are part of the integrated change control process.
Ø When a change request is received, the following steps
must be accomplished:
Ø
The requested change needs to be
identified within the project.
Ø The factors that are affected by the change must be
identified.
Acknowledgment: First of all, we as "Planning Engineer" Team would like to thank all of our members who interacted and participated with us through this topic. This document was originally initiated by Planning Engineer website by creating a form to collect member's questions and answers that might face a planning engineer during the interview. Planning Engineer team reviewed questions and answers to remove duplicated ones, added more explanations and graphs to the answers, and produce the final product in a good shape. In this topic you will find the most common Questions and the Model Answers that you may expose to in your Interview for a Planning Engineer Position.
Question No.1: What is a constraint in primavera?
Ans -Constrains in primavera is to fix the
early or late start or finish dates of an activity as per following options:
A-Project Must Finish by B-Mandatory Start / Mandatory Finish C-Start / Finish
On or After D-Start / Finish On or Before E-Start / Finish On F-Expected
Finish.
2.
what is the clause to be refereed in FIDIC when there is entitled for extension
of time .
Clause 20.1, "If the Contractor
considers himself to be entitled to any extension of the Time for Completion
and/or any additional payment, under any Clause of these Conditions or
otherwise in connection with the Contract, the Contractor shall give notice to
the Engineer, describing the event or circumstance giving rise to the claim.
The notice shall be given as soon as practicable, and not later than 28 days
after the Contractor became aware, or should have become aware, of the event or
circumstance".
3- Question
No.3: What is the reasonable range of float you assume while checking the look
ahead work activities?
The float range is varied from a project to
another. However, in my opinion 10% of project duration is the maximum
reasonable float for any project.
Question No.4: What is the Critical Path? How
you identify it and if any activity having negative slack, how can you adjust
the duration?
Ans
- Critical path is usually the activities on the
longest path with zero float. Any delay on these activities will lead to delay
in project duration. Usually critical activities are shown in red color or say
zero float in columns. For reducing duration, you can adjust it by reducing the
duration or changing the relationship between activities. However, planning
engineer should pay attention to maximum resources (resources constrains) while
crashing the critical path. Negative slack is usually resulting from constrains
in the activities. Planning Engineer should follow up the negative float path
and find the wrong relationships or constrains and fix it.
Question
No.5: What is the difference between Planning & Scheduling Engineer?
Ans
- Planning Engineer can work along with the project
team to develop a complete time schedule including cost of resources. Planning
Engineer can lead the team and influence his/her point of view. Scheduling
Engineer can only follow senior planning engineer or project manager
instructions to create logic between project activities, but s/he can't develop
the time schedule alone.
Question
No.6: What is the difference between Retained Logic & Override Logic?
Retained Logic is Invariably that will
produce the longest critical path but if activities have been progressed out of
sequence, there could be some illogical dependencies remaining, in particular
resulting from dependencies with duration. Progress override invariably
produces a shorter critical path and again there could be some illogical lack
of dependencies resulting from activities having been progressed out of
sequence.
Question
No.7: What is the difference between recovery schedule and revised schedule?
Recovery schedule keeps the same finish
date with some corrective actions to recover the delay such as add more
resources and break down some activities and so on... Revised schedule we have
a new finish date because of claims or adding a new scope of work (amendment).
Question
No.8: You are working on a project and somewhere in the middle of the project.
The progress variance was -5% and still you are achieving the contractual
completion date. How is it possible?
Contractor is working on critical path and
delays are on non-critical activities.
Question
No.9: How can you define the Critical Path in primavera?
Simply filter the activities with Zero
Total Float
Question
No.10: As a planning Engineer, "Walk me through a project":
This Project is "Project Name"
and it has a budget of "Project Budget". The Project started in
"Project Start Date" and planned to be finished in "Project
planned finish date". According to the last update date on "updated
date" this project is (ahead/behind) the schedule where the planned % = X
and actual % = Y, therefore the forecast completion date is Z .
Question
No.11: How can you differentiate total float and free float?
Total float represents the number of days
that can be delayed without affecting the completion of the project, whereas
free float determines the number of days that can be delayed without affecting
the successor activity.
Question
No.12: What is Resource levelling and What is Resource Allocation?
Resource levelling is the best scenario to
execute the works with the available resources. To achieve the best scenario,
planning engineer could change the activities durations and/or activities dates
without affecting the project overall duration to maintain best usage of
resources. While Resource allocation is assigning resources to activities,
determine the amount of labour, equipment and money required for any activity.
Question
No.13: If we increase 2 days to the duration of any activity on critical path
that will increase the duration of project by 2 days?
Yes. It is on the critical path which means
it as Zero Total Float and any increasing in its duration will affect the
duration of project.
Question
No.14: Explain what a good schedule means?
Scheduled activities must reflect the
project’s contract scope of work) b) Dates must be in accordance with contract.
c) Meets the contractual requirements /milestones. d) Activity durations are
reasonable: activity duration must be calculated based on quantity of work and
resources available to be applied to the work.
Activity relationships are all defined, as
review must be taking place all relationships have been included and all are
valid and redundancies are eliminated, and no open-ended activities except the
first and last activities. f) The critical path makes sense g) It considers
procurement and material and equipment deliveries h) It must be cost, and
resource loaded I) Must be accessible in proper format, complete, clear, and
convenient. j) Specific must tell about what will done, who will do, when will
do, and what cost will need.
Question
No.15: How will you make a manpower loading for your schedule?
Manpower loading is based in my company productivity
rates, we calculate the required man hors for each B.O.Q item by using this
formula :
Required Man Hours = QTY / (Productivity Rate)
Question No.16:
What are the involvements of Project Planner and vital Role in Project
Management?
Since Planning Engineer directly involve in project
management activities, project leadership to make decisions concerning the
development of plans, and how work process broken down & the control how it
be managed. Track, review, forecast & give inputs the status of the Project
and product. Further planning engineer should raise the flange to project team
where s/he recognize and potential risks.
Question No.17:
Float belong to the Owner or the Contractor.
It is
a question that you probably will not find a definite answer for.
The
significance of the argument about who owns the float has two
folds,
first its ability to influence the construction directly or indirectly
methodology
and/or sequence once the project execution has started,
and
secondly, the potential entitlement of extension of time (EOT) and the
application of liquidated damages (LDs). There are mainly three
views
of the matter which are presented hereinafter .
1.
The ‘contractor owns the float’ argument -
This
is the traditional view and still has its appeal among many practitioners. This
view implies that the contractor is entitled to utilize float for his own risk events
and recovery rescheduling.
Not
so far ago, a survey in the United Kingdom suggested that 80% of the
respondents assumed that the contractor owns the float; not surprisingly, the
majority of those respondents were contractors .
2.
The client owns the float argument
This
is just the opposite of the view above, the proponents of this view
argue
that the client has paid for the project and the program is one
of
the tools to manage the project and monitor progress, therefore, the
client
should be able to control the float to reduce costs and control
progress,
especially when the program is a contractual requirement
in
which the contractor has developed it for the client’s benefit .
3.
The ‘project owns the float’ argument
This view
basically says float is owned by neither the contractor nor the
owner.
The project owns the float which means “float is not for the
exclusive
use of any of the parties and it serves whoever needs it first”
if it is used in good faith.
Question No.18:
What are the methods of calculating EV (earned value)?
1-Updating
actual cost of activities
2-Updating
the actual budgeted units of activities
3-Updating the actual resources comparing to
budgeted ones
Question No.19:
What is the difference between recovery plan and revised plan?
Recovery plan is made with acceleration to remain
within contractual completion date but revised plans accounts for change order
which may or may not be within contractual dates.
Question No.20:
If the Project Total Float shows negative, does it always follow that the
Performance % Complete is less than Schedule % Complete?
No. Performance % Complete has nothing to do with
the network logic or the critical path. It is possible that certain activities
with high budgeted value might have been progressed better than plan but other
activities that has less value are the ones driving the critical path and
delays the project completion date.
Question No.21:
How to calculate budget man-hours?
In order to calculate budget man-hour, you must have
the budget quantity for each activity, from that and through the standard
man-hour, convert the quantity into man-hours based on organization
productivity rates, the total of these man-hours will be the budget man-hours.
Question No.22:
What do you mean by SDK, & what is its usage in Primavera?
Its stand for " Software Development Kit "
it is used in Primavera to export quickly all the resources, cost etc. from
Excel to Primavera. It is a powerful tool, but it has some limitations with
Excel version, i.e should 32 not 64.
Question No.23:
How do you start planning without any information on hand?
Gather the necessary Materials, such as the Scope
requirements, project start, and finish dates and any documents needed to
produce project objective.
Question No.24:
What is redundant logic?
It means that if successor of A is linked to B and B
is linked to C Also Successor of A linked to C then the link between A to C is
called redundancy.
Question No.25:
Is Quality and Grade are same thing?
No, there is difference, Quality is the performance
of the requirements and fitness to use, Grade is a matter of different
technical characteristic.
Question No.26:
Define the main responsibilities of the planning engineer in each phase
of the project's lifecycle. Please state clearly which information/data you
would need from the Project Manager/Project management team to fulfil your task
as a planner.
This question is tricky because it tests your
understanding of the whole planning process throughout the project's different
phases. Moreover, you should fully understand the specifications and legal
documents related to the project in question. However, you will not find it
difficult to answer this question if you have been involved in the
responsibility of only one completed project from inception to hand over.
Question No.27:
What are the monitoring skills?
Ability to sort data, checking authenticity of data,
Analyse and Predict data, Generate Reports.
Question No.28:
Could you chase Project Managers for information's and not just be a
keyboard Junkie?
An answer for this question could be that I have
developed very good interpersonal and communication skill which accords me the
ability to politely yet consistently pull for the needed answers I require to
get my own side of the job going and yet maintaining a healthy rapport within
My team of busy PM's.
Question No.29:
What is the best software for planning?
No software for planning, it is only for scheduling,
the planning process only done in brain. However, oracle primavera is the best
planning tool that helps to create time schedules.
Question No.30:
What would you submit if your consultant / client asks you to submit a
matrix report?
It is an incomplete request. I must know which
matrix you need, resource matrix, cost matrix, authority’s matrix,
engineering/procurement matrix etc. else that would be a wide report containing
more than 50 columns of P6.
Question No.31:
Mention 4 reasons cause -ve float in primavera:
Using
project must finish by
o
Using Constraints
o
Using different calendar in one project
o Using relationships with other project
Question No.32:
What is the difference between Float and Slack?
There is no difference between float and Slack. It
is two different words of same meaning.
Question No.33:
What is the difference between negative lag & lead?
There is no difference. It is two different words of
same meaning.
Question No.34:
How do you explain project delay if earned value is more than planned
value?
The contractor has performed better in areas which
are not on longest path "The Critical Path". In another words, the
contractor executed the right quantity in the wrong place.
Question No.35:
How are early and late dates determined?
Forward Calculations determine early Dates in a
network And late dates is determined by backward Calculations.
Question No.36:
What are three methods of measuring project progress?
Key Performance Indicators "KPI's", Cost
Performance Index "CPI", Schedule Performance Index "SPI".
Question No.37:
What is the best way to be professional planning engineer?
Understand the project management concepts, tools,
and techniques. -Practice doing real projects and get comments/review from
expects. -Continuous improvement by learning new tools that would help to
increase the accuracy of decrease the time required for tasks.
Question No.38:
What are SV and CV?
Schedule Variance (SV) & Cost Variance (CV) in
Project Cost Management. Schedule Variance and Cost Variance are two important
parameters in earned value management which help you analyse the project's
progress. Schedule variance (SV) = Earned value (EV) – Planned value (PV) Cost
variance (CV) = Earned value (EV) – Actual cost (AC) .
Question No.39:
What is the way to resolve the delay in project time?
Fast
Track: Reduce activities duration, resequence, reschedule without affecting the
project total duration, fast tracking has a problem regarding the quality
issues if it is applied in a wrong way.
Crashing:
Reduces activities durations, resequence, reschule but with additional cost to
achieve better results. this additional cost could be:
-Acceleration
Costs to subcontractors.
-Bonus.
-Additional costs result from less productivity due
to increasing the manpower in workplace.
Question No.40:
If Budgeted cost of works is more than actual cost of works, how do you
consider the performance of Project? Optimum, Bad or Good?
Good. Since we are spending less money than planned,
but we also need to check if we are on schedule or not.
Question No.41:
What is Project Management?
Project management is the application of processes,
methods, knowledge, skills, and experience to achieve the project objectives.
General. A project is a unique, transient endeavour, undertaken to achieve
planned objectives, which could be defined in terms of outputs, outcomes, or
benefits.
Question No.42:
What does it mean if "SPI" greater, lesser, or equal to one?
SPI greater than one means ahead of schedule, less
than one means behind the schedule & equal to one means as per schedule.
Question No.43:
Could we have more than one critical path?
Critical path is a dynamic path where it could be
changed every time we update the schedule, change durations, or relationships.
However, the critical path of a project is one path that could have too many
activities underneath. Therefore, the project has only one critical path.
Question No.44:
Scope is known partially, then how to plan for future?
Through the life of the project as more information
is available more work to be planned called agile management. Accordingly, we
can use agile management to plan the known part of the project only and keep
the scope of work until we have more information about it.
Question No.45:
What is concurrent delay?
Concurrent
delays have two meanings:
o
When two events of delay on critical path are occurring at the same time, one
affecting activities on Contractor's risk and the other affecting activities on
Employer's risk.
o OR two or more events of delay on project critical
path that belongs to one only of these parties contractor or client .
Question No.46:
What is a Baseline?
Baseline is the value or condition against which all
future measurements will be compared. The baseline is a point of reference. In
project management there are three baselines – schedule baseline, cost baseline
and scope baseline.
Question No.47:
What is the Difference
between Bar chart & Network Diagram?
Bar charts and network diagrams are used to display
visually the complexities and dependencies of project work. Network diagrams
display the project work as linkages through the chronological flow of work
from start to finish. Gantt charts visually display primarily the work
breakdown and the associated durations. Both charts graphically show work
breakdowns, enabling managers and workers to easily identify conflicts,
co-dependencies and determine the effect of change in the system .
Question No.48:
What is Thresholds in project Management?
It is the project management technique in which
lower and upper values of a parameter are specified against which project data
can be evaluated and monitored. It could be applied on WBS level as well as
activity level.
Question No.49:
What is difference between crashing and fast tracking?
There
are basically two techniques that can be used to shorten the project duration
while maintaining the project scope. These techniques are fast tracking and
crashing.
Crashing
is the process of adding resources to one’s project to be able to finish it
faster. It has cost impact.
Fast Tracking, on the other hand, is the process of
performing tasks in parallel to be able to finish the project sooner. It does
not have any cost impact, but increases the risks.
Question No.50:
What is the normal productivity of welder for Carbon steel material per
day?
This question is to test your knowledge of
productivity rates. However, you shouldn't memorize all the answers in your
mind, your answer could be "I don’t memorize all productivity rates since
it is vary from an organization to another and from worker nationality to
another. However, i have some standards that I refer to when the organization
productivity rate is not available.
Question No.51:
What is the difference between free float and total float?
Total
float is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying
the project completion date. On a critical path, the total float is zero.
Free float is the amount of time that an activity
can be delayed without delaying the Early Start of its successor activity.
Question No.52:
For an activity, if the free float is negative whereas the total float is
positive. Is this possible to happen and what's the impact?
It may happen depends on the activity flow, but that
doesn't mean this free float will affect the completion of the project since
the total float is positive.
Question No.53:
Define critical path:
A critical path is the sequence of project network
activities which add up to the longest overall duration, regardless if that
longest duration has float or not. This determines the shortest time possible
to complete the project.
Question No.54:
Does primavera loads cash in and cash out in same schedule?
Primavera deals with cost of the project only (cash
out) but you can work around with making a resource called cash in/out to view
cash in/out .
Question No.55:
How to reduce critical path?
A-
Compressing schedule by fast tracking, crashing, reduce scope, Cut quality.
B-
Fast tracking: Results in rework, increase risk, requires more attention and
communication.
C-
Crashing: increase cost, increase management time
D-
Reduce scope: negative impact on customer satisfaction
E- Cut quality: increase risk, requires good
matrices.
Question No.56:
What is the normal total float allowed for a new project?
Total float should be not greater than 10% duration
of the total project duration. (This percentage is subjective).
Question No.57:
What are the duties of a planner?
Assigned in overall/master schedule, look-ahead
targets, and accomplishment reports and monitoring.
Question No.58:
What is Baseline Program?
An agreed Program that use to compare the actual
result to measure performance of project or product against what was planned.
Question No.59:
What is SF dependency? Any example. Have you ever used this?
A
logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a
predecessor activity has started. Example: The first security guard shift
(successor) cannot finish until the second
security
guard shift (predecessor) starts.
I don't think I have ever used this, but I have
generally thought of a Start - Finish dependency as being used where an agree
period of handover is required between two activities.
Question No.60:
Are all activities with negative total float drive the project completion
date?
Not all negative float activities drive the project
completion date. Only the chain of activities driven by their dates and logical
relationship drive the completion date and it is called the longest path.
Question No.61:
What is meant by recovery schedule?
Recovery schedule is a revision of the Program's
Master Schedule updated on a certain data date. The Engineer requested the
Contractor the recovery schedule to show on how the contractor he'll be going
to recover the incurred delays up to date.
Question No.62:
What do you mean by "EPC", "TIA" &
"EOT"?
EPC
stands for "Engineering, Procurement & Construction "
TIA =
Time Impact analysis
EOT= Extension of Time
Question No.63:
How do you get information to populate and update your schedule?
Organize a planning workshop with all the Subject
matter experts in attendance, plan all your questions needed for you to make up
a plan and schedule. Extract all information from them, develop a high-level
initial schedule and populate the WBS and activity lists. Later on planner
should develop forms to be filled by project team in weekly basis.
Question No.64:
What is the standard deviation of the activity equal?
standard deviation for activity is = (Pessimistic
duration - Optimistic duration)/6
Question No.65:
Suppose you have a conflict with the project consultant/ owner
representative about a schedule update you have submitted recently. You believe
that you have the right to reflect some time delays in the schedule in favor of
your company, but the owner wouldn't accept that. The conflict escalated and
the consultant hold the monthly payment till you agree on the update according
to his perspective. He's also implicitly threatening to kick you out of the
project unless you are "cooperative". What's should you do?
Unfortunately, this case is very common in the
middle east. The power of consultant is over estimated, and engineers,
especially juniors, will find themselves in similar situations in one way or
another. My answer would be that you should communicate with your Project
Manager immediately. It's not enough to have a casual conversation during the
tea break; you should do that in "WRITTEN" format only. You should
clearly explain the situation; why you think you have right in your claims;
what would be the consequences in case you agree with the requirements of the
consultant; and what are your concerns regarding the situation. In most of the
cases, if the project manager is strong enough, he will exclude you from direct
contact with the consultant till he solves the issue; and it might be necessary
to consult the company's lawyer for assistance.
Question No.66:
What does it means If my free float is positive?
It means I can delay this activity without delaying
the project end date.
Question No.67:
What to look for when a contractor sends their tender program to be
awarded?
Tender schedule is summarized by natural. However,
it should tell the contractor strategy of exciting the project and the project
overall planning.
Question No.68:
What is an S–Curve?
S-curve is a graph showing cumulative cost or value
(measured in terms of money or man-hours) against time.
Question No.69:
How De-watering works could affect your schedule?
That based on calculation of building own weight to
be equal to or more the uplift force. Dewatering is required to reduce the
uplift force of underground water. When this force is less than the weight of
building, then dewatering activity could be finished. Planner should check with
the project team when it is recommended to stop the dewatering and plan
accordingly. Normally dewatering will hold the backfilling and external works
around the building.
Question No.70:
Every project plan has two type of dates, the early start early finish
and the late start late finish. Late start always starts after early start but
finish with the early finish, Why?
Late start denotes the total float of the activities
which allows the activities in the early stage of the project to get as late as
possible while in the late time of the project there are mostly critical
activities are left which does allow the late dates to pass over.
Question No.71:
What is the major difference between Cost variance and Schedule variance?
Schedule variance=Earned value-Planned value. It is
related to the time or data date. Cost variance=Earned value-Actual cost.
Question No.72:
Why negative lag/lead is not recommended in a good schedule?
Because other relationship types can serve the same
purpose. For example, instead of using FS relationship with negative lag, you
can use SS relationship with positive lag.
Question No.73:
What does variance in s curve indicate on both axis?
Variance on Y-axis represents the value of (Money,
ManHrs., etc.), while X-axis represents time variance .
Question No.74:
What is an open-end activity?
An open-ended activity is an activity that can end
at the last day of the project without delaying the overall projects. An open
end activity is normally not followed by any other activity and its completion
can be delayed (within the project life) in order to focus on more important
activities have successors (activities which can start only at the end of the
earlier ones).
Question No.75:
If you are loading the cost in Primavera, Which cost will you select
either in price in BOQ or your Budget amount or Both?
It depends, if this schedule is for the consultant,
then the budget amount (selling price) should be loaded. However this is a case
where the contractor would like to monitor the actual cost, in that case actual
cost could be loaded. However, cost control is better in excel than primavera.
Question No.76:
What does trend analysis means?
A trend analysis is an aspect of technical analysis
that tries to predict the future movement of a stock based on past data.
Question No.77:
A project shows actual performance is matching the planned performance.
The Project is in delay also. What could be the reason?
The reason is, the progress is made on the
non-critical activities than on the critical activities.
Question No.78:
What is the difference between flag and milestone activity in primavera?
Milestone
& flags both are events rather than activities. Some client likes to use
flags rather than milestone due the following differences.
1.
With the use of flags the logic of main event can be easily tracked as these
cannot be created without predecessor as standalone allocating the constraint.
Whereas milestone can.
2.
Flags cannot update manually as Primavera automatically update the status
whereas milestone can be update manually.
3.Flags cannot be constraint only driven by
predecessor whereas milestone can.
Question No.79:
How do you estimate activities durations?
By generating meetings & follow ups with
contractors and other persons related to construction, this is also related to
the contractual milestones. Normal activities can be estimated from experience.
Special activities can be estimated by having meetings with project team and
experts in this field. However, the project overall duration is the main
constrain that might affect all other estimations.
Question No.80:
What does it mean if "CPI" greater, lesser or equal to one?
CPI greater than one means over budget, less than
one means under budget & equal to one means same as per budget .
Question No.81:
What is needed for a successful project plan?
Contract document, drawings, B.O.Q as primary &
other planning tools as secondary support. Furthermore, the involvement of
project team in the planning, estimation, and sequence of work would result
more accurate project plan.
Question No.82:
We hire the team in execution, then who planned for the project?
The planning of the project is made during the
project life cycle with different level of details. For example, during the
tender stage, the tender team is responsible for the high level of planning.
However, when the project is awarded the project team is responsible for the
planning and breakdown .
Question No.83:
How often you update your Project Baseline?
It varies from project to project, depending on
reporting/progressing periods. However, the working schedule should be updated
on a continuous basis, as each activity is started or finished.
Question No.84:
What are BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP?
These
three acronyms are earned value terms that stand for Budgeted Cost for Work
Scheduled (planned value, or PV in the PMBOK Guide’s in my opinion ill-advised
neologisms), Budgeted Cost for Work Performed (earned value, or EV), and Actual
Cost for Work Performed (actual cost, or AC.)
BCWS
is what was budgeted for each work package as scheduled .
BCWP
is the sum of the budgets of all completed activities/milestones.
ACWP is the sum of what it cost to complete each of
the work packages/milestones.
Question No.85:
What is a constraint?
A
limitation that reduces the efficiency with which a project can be
accomplished.
Resource
availability is a type of constraint that can delay a project’s schedule and
efficiency.
In general, constraints should not be input to the
schedule until after the schedule has been optimized through critical path
analysis.
Question No.86:
What is activity & What is WBS ?
Activity
is a task or process to be accomplished in a set period as part of working
toward a larger project goal. An Activity can be assigned to a resource(s) and
have an associated cost. Activities are ordered with logic links
Work breakdown structure, a hierarchical format for
identifying, displaying, reporting, and changing project work. Since the WBS is
the “skeleton” of work on which the resource, cost, schedule information is
draped, it is the principle tool for implementing scope/cost/schedule
integration.
Question No.87:
What is a milestone? What are the types of milestone?
A milestone is an event. Activity-driven milestones
are usually entered PM software as activities with durations of zero. Since
milestones have no duration, once they are reached, they are immediately in the
past. It is therefore good practice to name activities using the past
participle of the verb (i.e., “Test component” = activity; “Component tested” =
milestone.
0 Comments: