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THE UNIVERSITY OF THE

SOUTH PACIFIC

IS333: Project Management

Faculty of Science & Technology/School of Computing

Final Examination
Semester I 2019

F2F/Online Mode

Duration of Exam: 3 hours + 10 minutes

Reading Time: 10 minutes
Writing Time: 3 hours

Instructions:
There are 2 Sections and 15 Question in this Exam Paper
Answer All Questions
Write Your Answers in the Answer Sheet Provided

Information:
50% of coursework and overall mark
This examination paper contains 5 pages
This is a closed book final examination

No Materials Allowed
IS333: Project Management Final Examination Questions Trimester 1 2019

Section A Application Questions 25 Marks

Please write your answers in the answer sheet provided. Each question is worth five marks.

1. The new organisation that you have started working for as a Project Manager has started
taking on a lot of projects because of your expertise. Suddenly you are overwhelmed as you
are the only one with Project Management skills. What are the practical steps that you can
take to begin developing a core of project management skills in your organisation?

2. As a part of the on-the-job training for Project Management, you have requested one of your
project team members to prepare monthly scope reporting. What will you explain should be
contained in the monthly scope reporting and what function will it serve?

3. Extreme Programming (XP) is a more aggressive form of Scrum and is a software

development methodology intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to
changing customer requirements. Two of the guiding features of XP are the process of
refactoring and pair programming. What is the motivation for programming in pairs using one
terminal? How can this approach be more productive than having each of the two
programmers at his own terminal?

4. You have decided to use Earned Value Management (EVM) to monitor and control a large
and complex project. Earned Value Management is a popular project management tool,
previously referred to as Earned Value Analysis (EVA). What inputs are you going to use
and which steps would you apply in calculating the Earned Value Management (EMV)?

5. Your project has come to an end and you are required to formally close the project. You are
require to write the project closeout report. Discuss the Seven Elements of the Project
Closeout Management model that you are going to include in your report and describe what
takes place at each step.

Section B Calculation Questions 75 Marks

Write your answers in the answer sheet provided. Mark for each question is indicated.

6. Discounted Payback. Your company is considering a high-risk project that could yield
strong revenues but will involve a significant up-front investment. Because of this risk, top
management is naturally concerned about how long it is likely to take to pay off that
investment so that they can begin to realize profits. This project will require an investment
of $200,000 and your five-year projection for inflows is: Year 1 – $50,000, Year 2 – $75,000,
Year 3 – $125,000, Year 4 – $200,000, and Year 5 – $250,000. Your firm’s required rate of
return is 18%. How long will it take to pay back your initial investment? (5 marks)

7. Net Present Value. Your vice president of MIS informs you that she has researched the
possibility of automating your organization’s order-entry system. She has projected that the
new system will reduce labor costs by $35,000 each year over the next five years. The
purchase price (including installation and testing) of the new system is $125,000. What is the
NPV of this investment if the discount rate is 10% per year? (5 marks)

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IS333: Project Management Final Examination Questions Trimester 1 2019

8. Inatech is contemplating two different projects and decides to perform a financial analysis to
determine which is more financially lucrative. Project A and B have the cash flows as shown
and Inatech uses a required rate of return of 8%. Compute the internal rate of return for both
projects to determine which is worth of funding. (7.5 marks)

Year A B
0 -$500,000 -$400,000
1 $260,000 $200,000
2 $170,000 $100,000
3 $125,000 $100,000
4 $75,000 $50,000
5 $25,000 $25,000

9. Using the information provided below, construct a simple WBS for the project. (5 marks)

Project Outline—Remodeling an Appliance

I.Research Phase
A. Prepare product development proposal
1. Conduct competitive analysis
2. Review field sales reports
3. Conduct technological capabilities assessment
B. Develop focus group data
C. Conduct telephone surveys
D. Identify relevant specification improvements
II. Design and Engineering Phase
A. Interface with marketing staff
B. And so on
III. Testing Phase
IV. Manufacturing Phase
V. Sales Phase

10. After 6 months, your project team is still not cohesive and performing as expected. Upon
being question about this by the Project Sponsors, you respond that the normal group
development process has failed, but Gersick’s Model of Punctuated Equilibrium would push
your project team on track. Explain Gersick's model of punctuated equilibrium and support
it with an appropriate graph complete with labels. (5 marks)

11. Assume the following information for an IT Project. (5 marks)

Consequences of Failure Probability of Failure

Maturity = .7 Cost = .9
Complexity = .7 Schedule = .7
Dependency = .5 Performance = .3
Client Concerns = .5 Future Business = .5
Programmer Skill = .3

a. Calculate the Overall risk factor for this project.

b. Would you assess this level of risk as low, moderate, or high? Why?

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IS333: Project Management Final Examination Questions Trimester 1 2019

12. As the manager of the IT group at your insurance firm, you have been asked to develop a
cost estimate for upgrades to the computerized accident-reporting and claims adjustment
system you have in place. Your system is basic, without many features, but it needs some
general modifications, based on complaints from customers and claims adjusters at your firm.
You know that your programmer is capable of handling 3 function points in a person-month
and your programmer makes $60,000, so her cost is $5,000 per month. The costs for the
project are based on the following requirements: (7.5 marks)

Function Number of Screens Complexity

Input 9 Medium
Output 4 Low
Interfaces 7 Medium
Queries 7 High
Files 12 Low

The complexity weighting for these functions follows a standard formula:

Function Low Medium High Total

Number of Inputs 1 _____ 2 _____ 3 _____
Number of Outputs 2 _____ 6 _____ 10 _____
Number of Interfaces 10 _____ 15 _____ 20 _____
Number of Queries 3 _____ 6 _____ 9 _____
Number of Files 1 _____ 3 _____ 5 _____

a. Calculate the total estimated number of function points for this project.
b. What is the total expected cost of the project?

13. Assume you are a project cost engineer calculating the cost of a repetitive activity for your
project. There are a total of 20 iterations of this activity required for the project. The project
activity takes 2.5 hours at its steady state rate and the learning rate is 75%. Calculate the
initial output time for the first unit produced, using the learning curve formula: (5 marks)

14. Using the following information about Project Alpha, its activities and predecessor activities
as in the table below: (25 marks)

Activities Predecessors
A --
B A
C A
D A
E B
F C, D
G E, F
H F
I G, H
J I

a. Create the Activity Network Diagram using the (AoN) technique. (3 marks)
b. Label all the nodes appropriately (0.5 mark)
c. Identify the merge activities (0.5 mark)
d. Identify the burst activities (0.5 mark)

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IS333: Project Management Final Examination Questions Trimester 1 2019

The following table contains the pessimistic, likely, and optimistic estimates for how long
activities are estimated to take for Project Alpha.

Activity Pessimistic Likely Optimistic

A 9 7 4
B 7 5 4
C 16 10 8
D 22 12 8
E 10 5 5
F 12 7 5
G 14 8 6
H 18 8 7
I 15 5 4
J 10 3 2

e. Calculate the time estimates (TE) for each activity. (4 marks)

f. Calculate the variance (s2) (4 marks)
g. Convert the TE to whole integers and place them in the network diagram for each activity.
h. Identify the critical path. (1 mark)
i. Do the forward pass and calculate ES and EF. (2 marks)
j. Do the backward pass and calculate LS and LF. (2 marks)
k. Determine the Slack or Float for each activity. (2 mark)
l. Is the critical path the same as in (h)?
m. What is the project’s standard deviation? (2.5 marks)
n. What is the probability of project completion? (3 marks)

15. Consider the following project activity table, identifying each activity, its normal duration and
cost, and expedited durations and costs: (5 marks)

Normal Crashed
Activity Duration Cost Duration Cost
A 3 days $1500 2 days $2000
B 5 days $3500 4 days $5000
C 4 days $6800 3 days $7500
D 5 days $2500 3 days $6000
E 7 days $4200 6 days $5400
F 4 days $2000 3 days $2700

a. What is the cost per day to crash each of the activities?

b. Assuming that only activities A, C, and E are part of the critical path, which activities should
be crashed first?

All the Best.

The End.

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