Group No.

Name: Nguyễn Trần Thanh Nguyên (100%)

ID: BABAWE17388

Group homework for chapter 1

Introduction of Project Management

Question 2 – Page 26: Describe the life cycle of a project in terms of (1) the degree of project
completion; (2) required effort.

Answer: (1) the degree of project completion:

As we can see in the Figure 1-3, at the beginning, which is start-up phase, the project is born and
a manager is selected, the project team and initial resources are assembled, and the work is organized.
After that, the work gets under way and momentum quickly builds. However, completing the final tasks
seem to take an inordinate amount of time, partly because there are often a number of parts that must
come together and partly because team members “drag their feet” for various reasons and avoid the
final steps.

(2) required effort:

For figure 1-4, which is project effort cycle, usually in terms of person-hours or resources expended per
unit of time (or number of people working on the project) plotted against time, where time is broken up
into the several phases of project life. Minimal effort is required at the beginning of the project and in
the part of planning, scheduling, monitoring, and controlling the effort has its peak level and will be
decreasing until the end project.

Question 3 – Page 26: Describe the limitations of project management.

Answer: In each project, there will be always happened bureaucracy situation, and a simple creation of a
project can need an admission from the parent organization and its managers cannot accomplish the
desired oucomes through the functional organization. Hence, the project management must depend on
the goodwill of managers in the parent organization for some of the necessary resources.

Question 4 – Page 26: List the seven main characteristics of a project and briefly describe the important
features of each.

Answer:

1) Importance: The most crucial attribute of a project is that it must be important enough
in the eyes of senior management to justify setting up a special organizational unit
outside the routine structure of the organization.
2) Scope: It can be divided into subtasks that must be accomplished in order to achieve the
project goals. The project is complex enough that the subtasks require careful
coordination and control in terms of timing, precedence, cost, and scope.
3) Life Cycle with a Finite Due Date: Like organic entities, projects have life cycles. From a
slow beginning they progress to a buildup of size, then peak, begin a decline, and fi nally
must be terminated by some due date.
 4) Interdependencies: Projects often interact with other projects being carried out
simultaneously by their parent organization.
5) Unique: Though the desired end results may have been achieved elsewhere, they are at
least unique to this organization.
6) Resources: Projects have limited budgets, both for personnel as well as other resources.
7) Conflict: The members of the project team are in almost constant confl ict for the
project’s resources and for leadership roles in solving project problems and the manager
need to conciliate his boss and stakeholders’ desires.

Question 10 – Page 26: What are some sources of conflict the project manager must deal with?

Answer: Project compete wih functional departments for resources and personnel. More serious, with
the growing proliferation of projects, is the project-versus-project conflict for resources within
multiproject organizations. The members of the project team are in almost constant conlict for the
project's resources and for leadership roles in solving project problems. The project manager need to
deal with conflict for resources within multiproject organization, with project teamconflict, with the
leadership roles in solving project problems and reconcile the stakeholders and the parent organization'
interests.

Question 19 – Page 27: Discuss why there are trade-offs among the three prime objectives of project
management.

Answer: There are tradeoffs between the three prime objectives of project management, starting with
the first set of trade-offs being required to preserver some balance between the project time, cost, and
scope goals. The trade-offs can vary based on the stages of the projects. During the formation stage all
three objectives are equal in importance. The buildup stage has time schedule as the most important
followed by scope then cost.

Scheduling and scope are of high importance during the main stage of the project lifecycle while ahead
of cost. In the final stage, phase out, scope is significantly more important than schedule (time), which is
significantly more important than cost. Another example of tradeoffs are concerns sacrificing
smoothness of running the project team for technical progress. Nearing the end of the project, it could
be necessary to have team members working on different aspects that they are not trained on. Other
tradeoffs can include Project Managers working on server projects and not showing favoritism for any
project of others.

Question 20 – Page 27: Why is the life cycle curve often “S” shaped?

Answer: The “stretched-S” pattern of slow-rapid-slow progress toward the project goal is common, which
is usually slow at the beginning. The process are just begin, team members are researching the industry or
just deal with the first phase of execution, which can be slow before working out the kinks. At this initial
stage can be take longer than expectation before they encounter problems that must be resolved.

As more progress is made, the growth accelerates rapidly—creating that upward slope that forms the
middle part of the “s.” This point of maximum growth is called the point of inflection. During this period,
project team members are working heavily on the project, and many of the major costs are incurred.
After the point of inflection, the growth begins to plateau, forming the upper part of the “s” known as
the upper asymptote—and the “mature” phase of the project. This is because the project is mostly
finished at this point and is winding down — typically only tasks such as finishing touches and final
approvals are left at this point.