Gray, Erik W. Larson, Gautam V. Desai Solution manual pdf docx epub after payment. Table Of Contents. If you want the Test Bank please search on the search box. If you have any questions, or would like a receive a sample chapter before your purchase, please contact us at [email protected] Project Management The Managerial Process 6th Edition Larson Test Bank.
Exercises 1. You …. Modeling monetary economies solutions manual pdf. Sakurai modern quantum mechanics rev ed solutions manual. There are many models for the selection process to choose from as well.
These models could include senior management mandates and regulatory necessities. The analysis may or may not include the time value of money. This model chooses investments that may not be profitable or beneficial in the near future, but will lead to options for the future with a great promise.
Numeric Models: Scoring — These models analyze the potential projects based on multiple criteria the organization selects. The models use numeric scales to rate the projects against the desired criteria. Then the ratings can be analyzed using various techniques to determine the best choices. Numeric Models: Window-of-Opportunity Analysis — This model attempts to determine the cost, timing, and performance specifications of a new technology to understand whether it qualifies as useful and economic.
Having thus estimated the economic impact of the innovation, the decision of whether or not to undertake the development project is much simpler. Numeric Models: Discovery-Driven Planning — Similar to window of opportunity analysis model, this model funds a portion of the project and tries to determine two important aspects about the project: the critical assumptions and the cost of testing each assumption. Analyzing the assumptions enables the management team to find out if a project continues to be as promising as was believed or a change of strategy is required.
Choosing a Project Selection Model — The authors strongly favor using weighted scoring models. Risk Considerations in Project Selection — The text distinguishes between risk and uncertainty.
Risk applies to events that have a known or estimated probability of occurrence. Uncertainty applies to events where there is insufficient data to estimate the probability of occurrence. For effective project management, decisions should be treated as risks rather than uncertainties. That is probabilities of occurrence, if not otherwise known, should be estimated for relevant issues and events. Criteria for measuring prospective projects are established to form the framework for the selection process.
Common categories used for classifying projects are: o Derivative projects — Projects that are only incrementally different from previous efforts. Step 3: Collect Project Data — Collect relevant data and assign scores to prospective projects. Step 4: Assess Resource Availability — Analyze the availability of resources to execute the prospective projects.
Step 5: Reduce the Project and Criteria Set — Use multiple screens to narrow down the number of projects under consideration. Step 6: Prioritize the Projects within Categories — Using the analysis developed, prioritize the projects within the previously identified categories.
Step 7: Select the Projects to be Funded and Held in Reserve — The first task in this step is determination of the mix of projects across the various categories and time periods. Then allocate the categorized projects in rank order to the categories according to the mix desired. Step 8: Implement the Process — The results of the process must be recorded, and then widely communicated within the organization.
Project Bids and RFPs — This section introduces the documentation necessary to present a prospective project to a selection process.
The proposal documentation required by the customer is much different than that needed for the internal analysis. For large military or space projects the preparation costs can run into the millions of dollars. Most students will benefit from in-class examples to make the material come alive. Demonstrating the example in the text with a computer and a projector will help students understand the process and generate a lot of good questions. The other area that requires demonstration is the project selection process.
Students need to see the criteria in action and see how a real scoring model would work. A good way to accomplish these goals is to use the Pan-Europa Case Study as an in-class exercise. There are a couple of ways to approach this. The simpler process would be to have the students read the case in advance.
Then questions 1, 2, and 3 can be discussed with the class as a whole. Questions 4 and 5 can be addressed through pairwise brainstorming discussed in the Teaching Tips for Chapter 1. The student teams would take notes on their answers to these questions to then be discussed with the class as a whole. The result of this discussion would be used to come up with a class consensus view on the screens and criteria to be used for the project selection process.
Then the students could go back to working in pairs preferably the same ones as before to apply the criteria and make their selections. This whole process, depending on the vigor of the class would take hours.
It is important for the instructor to circulate during the small group discussions to keep the students on track and answer their questions. This is particularly important as there are multiple questions embedded in Questions 4 and 5, and students will have a tendency to get hung up on one to the exclusion of the others.
A more elaborate approach to this case would involve students role-playing the members of the Pan-Europa board.
Depending on the size of the class, this technique may not keep enough of the students involved. One way to address this would be to assign a team of students to each board member to assist them in establishing their position. Then the board member becomes essentially a spokesman for the group. A good reference case for this chapter follows: Boeing The Dreamliner Harvard.
This is an excellent strategy case and is so recent that it is reported in the papers and business magazines almost every week.
The owners of the building wanted to show the world that it is possible to make an existing building sustainable by winning a LEED certification. By picking the tallest building in East Asia and succeeding in their endeavor they showed the world that it is possible to make an existing building sustainable rather than starting from scratch. Refitting the tower enhances long-term profitability by significantly cutting costs through strategies such as energy consumption and water usage.
On the other hand, it might be a good idea to choose some of the projects with a higher potential payoff in order to diversify the project portfolio. Part of the problem in this dilemma is defining what the investment is.
Any manager can look good on short term ROI measures by quickly eliminating all these long term investments, but the firm will eventually wither and go bankrupt. Although there may be benefits from monitoring all projects by the CPAG, we might assume that only strategic projects will be monitored since they are the ones that relate to the goals of the CPAG.
A second set of projects may be monitored though, and these would include those projects that are significant in terms of resources required.
Although there might not be a strategic reason for the project, there might be strategic implications for instance, if a large project went significantly over budget.
The smaller, less significant projects may not be fully monitored by the CPAG due to cost-benefit reasons. Question 2: Will all tactical projects be terminated in the future? Where might these be handled or tracked? All tactical projects will not be terminated in the future. They might be handled or tracked by a group different than the CPAG such as the Project Management Office or within the business units. There is historical data that shows how increased executive support, more involvement of stakeholders, etc can significantly improve performance of projects and organizations as a whole.
A proposal should be responsive to the solicitation document that the buyer prepared during the solicitation process. Usually, a technical proposal will contain: 1 the nature of the technical problem and how it is to be approached.
Question 2: By what criteria do you think managers judge selection models? What criteria should they use? Managers often judge selection criteria by their own narrow interests. These could include their own advancement or sub-optimizing the products and processes of their own department. This bias could be to the detriment of the overall corporate goals and well-being.
Some commonly used standards of judgment include: 1 Realism 2 Capability 3 Flexibility 4 Ease of use 5 Cost 6 Easy computerization Question 3: Contrast the competitive necessity model with the operating necessity model. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
Both models are examples of nonnumeric models. Moreover, both models will tend to sustain an existing status quo and are subject to misuse in pursuit of hidden agendas of key stakeholders. The advantage of this model is that it involves little data and fairly obvious decisions. The disadvantage is that relying on it to solve problems may mask a long-term issue that needs to be solved in a manner other than firefighting.
Perhaps, for example, the plant needs to be moved to a different location to prevent frequent flooding.
For example, a video rental chain that operates in physical stores might decide to add an Internet based ordering facility to stay competitive with Internet only operations. The decision making process can seem simple, but the danger is similar to the operating necessity model. Question 4: What is a sacred cow?
Give some examples. Question 5: Give an example of a Q-Sort process for project selection. Q-Sort is a nonnumeric technique managers can use to evaluate comparative benefits associated with a list of potential projects. This type of selection model is useful when a goal has many potential alternatives for implementation. Which archeology projects would best. A company may use this method to evaluate several projects to choose from.
The potential projects could be grouped by the level of strategic importance, then by cost, then by time required to complete. Question 6: What are some of the limitations of project selection models? Models, like projects, have characteristics that influence when a decision-maker should use the model. Models cannot make decisions for its user. Each model will provide a limited viewpoint about the reality it represents. Although not specifically mentioned in the text, the following can be influenced as well: 1 The applicability of a model is one such characteristic that reflects the range of scenarios that the model can reasonably support.
The distortion may happen because many important factors have been left out of the model in order to make it easier to use or more understandable to the user. Bad data will lead to a bad analysis. Question 7: Contrast the real options selection approach with profitability models. Profitability models analyze a potential project using a single criterion—monetary return. Time value of money may or may not be included in this analysis.
Real options models are based on the concept of investing now to create opportunities for the future. What do firms usually find happens? Thus, these kinds of projects neither add value nor help in gaining competitive advantage in accordance with the goals of a firm. Question Describe the discovery-driven planning approach. The discovery driven planning approach model funds a portion of the project and tries to determine two important aspects about the project: the critical assumptions and the cost of testing each assumption.
Question Describe the eight-step project portfolio management process. A portfolio contains projects undertaken to support business goals. Most firms do not score very well in terms of maturity. Of the firms surveyed, about three-quarters of the firms are no higher than level 2 planned and fewer than 6 percent are above level 3 managed.
Which to a firm with high maturity? Question On what basis does the real options model select projects? It attempts to estimate the opportunity cost of implementing the project now versus deferring its execution to sometime in the future. The decisions, once made, are often very expensive to reverse so caution should be exercised when making final decisions.
The cost of the project reduced by deferring it. Question What is the difference between profitability and scoring models? Describe a model that could fit both categories. Profitability models focus on financial considerations only. The scoring models evaluate multiple criteria by converting their values to a normalized scale that facilitates making a holistic decision capable of using both numeric and nonnumeric variables. Any scoring model can include profitability as a criterion, thus getting the best of both worlds.
Question Contrast the window-of-opportunity approach with discovery-driven planning The window of opportunity approach seeks to determine the cost, timing, and performance specification of a new technology in order to determine whether it can be useful to pursue development, while the discovery-driven planning approach funds a portion of the project and determines if the critical assumptions of the project come out to be true. The analysis of these results allows the team to identify flaws in its strategies and make necessary changes before heavy rework has to be done, thus increasing costs and time.
The discovery-driven approach is often used in multiple phases of project development to keep the project on track and under control. Question Discuss how the following project selection models are used in realworld applications. Discounting is a nonlinear algorithm that increases its impact as the duration of a project increases. On long-term capital projects, the discounting models can be quite elaborate and may even drive work plans by delaying one or more expenditures to increase return on investment.
For most applications suitable for such an analysis, the project. Simulation models discussed later can also be used to estimate the probability of completing the project within a given time frame at a given cost.
Some organizations will require that such analysis be included in proposals they receive from prospective bidders. Question Why do you think managers underutilize project selection models? There are several reasons why some managers may underutilize selection models: 1 In many organizations, the project managers are self-taught, so they may be unaware of these techniques.
They believe that they get adequate results with the techniques they currently use. They may not want to give up their perceived power. Question Would uncertainty models be classified as profitability models, scoring models, or some other type of model? Uncertainty models can be classified as one of the variety of models depending on how they are used. This could be cost, cash flow, schedule, customer satisfaction, or environmental catastrophe. The list is endless.
Question Is project management maturity focused on doing better on multiple projects or single projects? Project management maturity measures the ability of an organization to manage projects.
Question Are there certain types of projects that are better suited for nonnumeric selection methods as opposed to numeric ones? When an organization can describe a project in terms of a compelling need for action, and when the called-for action will produce benefits in rough proportion to the costs of executing the project, nonnumeric selection models will often be adequate to approve the project. The compelling reason may be responding to an emergency situation like a flood.
In other cases, numeric value may not be easily obtained to include in these models. In other cases, numeric methods may be more appropriate as in a case where cost estimates can be obtained. Question Identify some of the ethical issues that can arise in a bid response to an RFP.
Deliberately bidding below cost to win the job believing that the real money will be made in charging the customer for changes. Bribes or other favors to the people who choose the winning proposal. Collaborating with the competition or the customer to set the bids to favor a preselected winner. Question What important comparisons does the aggregate project plan in Figure allow? The numbers indicate the order, or time frame, in which the projects are to be or were implemented, separated by category, if desired.
The aggregate project plan can be used for many purposes: To view the mix of projects within each illustrated aspect shape To analyze and adjust the mix of projects within each category or aspect To assess the resource demands on the organization, indicated by the size, timing, and number of projects shown To identify and adjust the gaps in the categories, aspects, sizes, and timing of the projects To identify potential career paths for developing project managers, such as team member of a derivative project, then team member of a platform project, manager of a derivative project, member of a breakthrough project, and so on Question What does the plan of record illustrate that the aggregate project plan does not?
This is not shown by the aggregate project plan. Sustainability not only covers profitability issues but also covers environmental issues and social issues. The metrics are yet to be developed to quantify the profits that sustainability achieves. The company is very concerned about their cash flow. Using the payback period, which project is better, from a cash flow standpoint?
If the required rate of return is 0. Problem 4: What would happen to the NPV of the above project if the inflation rate was expected to be 4 percent in each of the next four years? Problem 5: Calculate the profitability index for Problem 3.
For Problem 4. After the fourth year, the project will have no residual value. Using the most likely estimates of cash flows, conduct a discounted cash flow calculation assuming a 20 percent hurdle rate with no inflation. What is the discounted profitability index of the project?
The profitability index is the sum of the discounted cash flows divided by the initial investment. Problem 7: Use a weighted score model to choose between three methods A, B, C of financing the acquisition of a major competitor.
The relative weights for each criterion are shown in the following table as are the scores for each location on each criterion. A score of 1 represents unfavorable, 2 satisfactory, and 3 favorable. Acquisition time Disruption Cultural differences Skill redundancies Implementation risks Infrastructure. In this example, Method C has the highest score, so the decision-maker would regard it as the best option.
The instructor should emphasize that it is not necessary for the weights to sum to It is only necessary that the model use the same scoring categories to evaluate each option. Would your recommendation change under these circumstances? In addition, the VP has scored the methods on tax considerations as follows: method A received a score of 3, method B received a score of 2, and method C received a score of 1.
How would this additional information affect your recommendation? The grade for cultural differences at Method C had already been set to 2 in the initial evaluation of the problem. Method Options Grade Score Category Weight A B C A B C Consulting costs 20 1 2 3 20 40 60 Acquisition time 20 2 3 1 40 60 20 Disruption 10 2 1 3 20 10 30 Cultural differences 10 3 3 2 30 30 20 Skill redundencies 10 2 1 1 20 10 10 Implementation risks 25 1 2 3 25 50 75 Infrastructure 10 2 2 2 20 20 20 Tax considerations 15 3 2 1 45 30 15 Total Score Due to the insertion of tax considerations, Methods B and C are now the best options.
Problem 9: Nina is trying to decide in which of four shopping centers to locate her new boutique. Some locations attract a higher class of clientele than others, some are in an indoor mall, some have a much greater customer traffic volume than others, and, of course, rent varies considerably from one location to another. Because of the nature of her store, she has decided that the class of clientele is the most important consideration, the higher the better. Following this, however, she must pay attention to her expenses and rent is a major item, probably 90 percent as important as clientele.
An indoor, temperature-controlled mall is a big help, however, for stores such as hers where 70 percent of sales are from passersby slowly strolling and window shopping. Thus, she rates this as about 95 percent as important as rent.
Last, a higher traffic volume of shoppers means more potential sales; she thus rates this factor as 80 percent as important as rent. As an aid in visualizing her location alternatives, she has constructed the following table.
Use a weighted score model to help Nina come to a decision. Mall Options Score 1 2 3 2. Based upon the evaluation of categories, Nina should select Mall Option 1. Problem Referring to Problem 9, develop a spreadsheet to help Nina select a location for her boutique. Questions: How can Ms. Portillo find out if her suspicions are correct? What are her options if her idea is supported? This case is a good lead in to the whole subject of estimates.
The students should, even at the college level, be able to share experiences of estimate being manipulated either up or down to support an agenda. This could be his or her own inflating of how long it will take to get something done, or a supervisor arbitrarily cutting budgets. Portillo has discovered a fundamental truth about estimates, namely that they are always wrong. While the estimates that have been used to base the business decisions on may be technically wrong, she needs to ask whether they have still been useful.
In other words, do the errors and biases cancel each other out enough to still lead to the. Nonetheless, she needs to share her findings with the committee. Here are some things to do to improve the accuracy of the estimates: 1. For the projects that are selected, compare the actual outcomes to the estimates to develop a database of estimating bias.
The techniques for this are described in Chapter 7. Train her managers on a consistent tool set and process for estimating and then follow it. An alternative would be to prohibit the sponsor from taking part in the decision for his or her product. Bring in outside consultants to independently estimate selected projects. Why or why not?
Base your answer on the five criteria developed by Souder and evaluate this model in terms of the criteria. This case is a good opportunity, particularly for college students, to try and put themselves in the place of a company promoting a high visibility project. What are all the factors that must be considered to have both the reality and perception of a successful project? How should these factors be considered in the internal process of selecting a project?
0コメント