Tabish Imam

1311130

Dynamics of Project Management

The inbuilt project model of Vensim was executed with the parameter – ‘maximum
workforce’ being varied. parameters of 1000, 300 and 150 persons respectively for 3
simulations. The corresponding result graphs for project completion time and cumulative
cost are shown below. From the graph, its pretty clear that the scenario taking the longest
time for completion and being the most expensive is one with maximum workforce of 150
persons. The project completion time for scenario with maximum workforce of 1000 and
300 was 10.75 months while the project completion time for scenario with maximum
workforce of 300 was 12.8125 months. At the same time, the cumulative cost for scenario
with 1000 persons was $ 8.853 million, scenario with 300 persons was $ 8.8298 million and
scenario with 150 persons was $ 9.376 million.

This is not expected based on simple logic as the scenario with 1000 persons workforce
should ideally be the most expensive based on extended labour cost. However, the results
may be due to the fact that the workforce of just 150 persons is overburdened and stressed
due to higher workload and hence the productivity of the individuals comes down as
compared to the case of 1000 or 300 persons. Due to lower productivity, the project
completion time gets increased and hence the costs also increase.
As can be seen from the graphs below, the productivity keeps reducing, fatigue keeps on
increasing and the overtime required is consistently high for Scenario 3 with 150 persons.
Due to all these factors the overall project completion time and cumulative costs for
scenario 3 are the highest.
Tabish Imam
1311130