Case – The Graduation Party

Part 1
“Let’s plan a graduation party for our seniors,” suggested Jim Teacher, president of the Delta Mu
Zeta fraternity at State U. Everyone on the fraternity council thought that it was a good idea, so
they agreed to brainstorm ideas for the party.
“First, we have to pick a date,” suggested Joe. “It’ll have to be after final exams
are over, but before graduation.”
“That narrows it down pretty quickly to June 8, 9, or 10. The 11th is a Sunday and
the 12th is graduation day,” said Jim. “I propose that we try for Thursday the 8th, with the
alternate date of Friday, the 9th. We’ll have to take a vote at the fraternity meeting tomorrow.”
“Now, let’s list things that have to be done in order to get ready for the party,”
suggested Amber.
They quickly produced the following list (not in any order): Pick date. Plan menu.
Get food delivered. Estimate costs. Locate and book a hall. Determine budget. Select music. Hire
a DJ. Plan decorations. Set up, decorate hall. Determine how much can be paid from treasury and
what the cost of the special assessment will be for each member. Design and print invitations. Set
up mailing list. Dress rehearsal (day before party) “dummy activity.” Mail invitations. Plan
ceremony for seniors. Rehearse ceremony. Plan after-party cleanup and bill paying. Have the
party. Cleanup and pay bills.
Next, they selected Joe as the “project manager” based on his prior fraternity
party planning experience and because he was taking a quality management course and was
studying the seven management and planning tools.

Assignment:
1. Put yourself in Joe’s position. Develop an interrelationship digraph for the party planners.
Draw arrows from one activity to the next one that must occur. Note that the activities that have
the most arrows going into them will tend to be the long-range results. Activities having the most
arrows originating from them will tend to be the initial activities.
2. What can you conclude from the graph? How would this digraph help make the job of
organizing the party easier for the project team?
Part 2
Jim Teacher was able to get some estimating information from the president of another
fraternity that had planned and carried out a similar party for graduating seniors last year. They
had not kept financial information, but they did have the actual hours that it took to complete
each activity. From these data, Jim obtained the following time estimates for Delta Mu Zeta.

Pick date 1 day

Plan menu 2 days
Get food delivered 1 day
Estimate costs 3 days
Locate and book a hall 5 days
Determine budget 3 days
Select music 2 days
Hire a DJ 3 days
Plan decorations 2 days
Set up, decorate hall 1 day
Determine how much can be paid from treasury and what
the cost of the special assessment will be for each member 1 day
Design and print invitations 3 days
Set up mailing list 5 days
Dress rehearsal (day before party) “dummy activity” 0 days
Mail invitations 1 day
Plan ceremony for seniors 2 days
Rehearse ceremony 1 day
Plan after-party cleanup and bill paying 2 days
Have the party 1 day
Cleanup and pay bills 1 day

Assignment:
1. You are Joe, the project manager. Use the interrelationship digraph developed in Part 1 to
draw an arrow diagram, making sure that activities are sequenced in the correct order.
2. If you are familiar with PERT/CPM through other courses, use the preceding data to calculate
the minimum time that the project will take; that is, compute the critical path.