Viva Roma!

Case: -
Brief Introduction of Case
Robert Curtis had just hired into his first academic job as an assistant professor of classics at Topeka state
university. One day in September 2020, not long after Robert had started his department head Bob assigned a task
to gather details for summer study abroad program in Rome Plan on about 15 to 20 students. The program usually
lasts about a month, going from mid-June to mid-July, but the college is usually flexible on the exact dates. Robert
start by listing all the different activities that had to take place to get the trip planned in time. Robert wanted to post
the complete information packet by March 31, 2018 and the May 15 registration deadline.

Q.1 What are the important time milestone for this project?

Ans:
o Concept Phase (To organize the Summer Training Camp)
Activity Time in Weeks Predecessor Phase
s
Negotiate the exact start and end dates, cost 1 None Project Definition
and departure & arrival of students (A) Phase

Daily schedule of sites to visit (B) 3 A Planning

Airport Arrangement (C) 1 B Planning
Local Transportation (D) 1 B Planning
Select the pensions to stay in during the trip 3 B Planning
(E)
Finalize any loose ends (F) 3 C, D, E Performance
Post the information (G) 1 F Post Completion
total weeks 13
Assumption why we made 3 weeks in Activity F
3 weeks is ideal to assume as this week are the worst case scenario as most of the task are continuous and unpredictable it better to
keep 3 weeks as the safe game. For example, this program he has to consider various aspects like some of the visits in Rome were
closed for repairs and for gathering the necessary information for local transportations.

Q.2 Given these time milestones when should Robert start on the project? Draw a network diagram and determine the earliest
and latest starting and finishing times for all activities. From a scheduling perspective, which activities are critical?

Ans:

Roughly under the assumption that Robert is going to start by September 2020 (even though the exact date is not given) we can
assume that it involves

September, 2020 = 1 weeks (sparing 3 weeks for Robert to understand the exact Project)
+ October, 2020 = 4 weeks
+November,2020= 4 weeks
+December,2020= 4 weeks
+January,2021 = 4 weeks
+ February,2021 = 4 weeks
+March, 2021 = 4 weeks
j

25 weeks in total

Starting project month:

 Since the overall activity itself takes 13 weeks, Robert has around 4.8 months’ rough to spare. Hence it’s better to start around
December since he will have 16 weeks to finish the task. Plus, the total critical /lead time is 11 weeks.
 Activities Time (total) Slack Delay
Negotiate the exact start and end dates, cost and departure 1 5 0
& arrival of students
Daily schedule of sites to visit 3 5 0
Airport Arrangement 1 7 0
Local Transportation 1 7 0
Select the pensions to stay in during the trip 3 5 0
Finalize any loose ends 3 5 0
Post the information 1 5 0

 Since there is a lot of time there is no room for DELAY and the slack in the critical activities =LATE START-EARLY
START which all the (red) activities have. *
 Since the cost per activities is not given & no delay there won’t be any schedule costs that might occur in case of delay. And
this program is feasible under the assumed month of December. *

Activities Schedule Limits Schedule Decisions

Bucket 1 weeks Early Late Early Late Activity Sched. Sched. Perc.
Index Sort Name Description Time Start Start Finish Finish Slack Delay Start Finish Finished
Completion Time 1 1 Start Activity Start 0 0 5 0 5 5 0 0 0 0%

Negotiate the exact

Negotiate the exact start and end start and end dates,cost
dates,cost and departure & arrival of and departure & arrival
Due 16 weeks 2 2 students of students 1 0 5 1 6 5 0 0 1 0%
Daily schedule of sites
Max Delay 0 weeks 3 3 Daily schedule of sites to visit to visit 3 1 6 4 9 5 0 1 4 0%
Delay Unit Cost 1 /weeks 4 4 Airport Arrangement Airport Arrangement 1 4 11 5 12 7 0 4 5 0%
Scheduled 11 weeks 5 5 Local Transportation Local Transportation 1 4 11 5 12 7 0 4 5 0%
Select the pensions to stay in during the Select the pensions to
6 6 trip stay in during the trip 3 4 9 7 12 5 0 4 7 0%
7 7 Finalise any loose ends Finalise any loose ends 3 7 12 10 15 5 0 7 10 0%
Schedule Costs 8 8 Post the information Post the information 1 10 15 11 16 5 0 10 11 0%
Delay 0 9 9 End Activity End 0 11 16 11 16 5 0 11 11 0%

Feasibility
Late 0
Schedule 0
Feasible TRUE
Activities that are critical (revised)* Reasons to be critical *
Negotiate the exact start and end dates, cost and departure & arrival of This is the initial phase of the program without
students this other activity cannot be initiated as you
assigned the task dates, and the students journey
records.
Daily schedule of sites to visit This is the planning phase where you decide
what to do in the trip of month hence cannot be
crashed.
Airport Arrangement This is required to be booked only after you
know the number of students travel within the
given week you don’t have to work about this
hence non critical
Local Transportation This also requires exact numbers by which you
can book tickets hence non critical
Select the pensions to stay in during the trip This requires the quality assessment of the
student’s accommodation doesn’t need an exact
number but based on the previous year’s
program he can roughly book rooms but check
the service is important thus critical.
Finalize any loose ends This is needed to check post evaluation phase
which needed just in case if there are any
changes that needs to be taken care prior to the
announcement.
Post the information This is the delivery of information /detailed
description to the students so that they can
decide on the trip hence this has to be a critical
activity.
Crashing possibilities?

As a whole project yes it’s possible since the program itself is on mid-June to mid-July and the information needed to be posted can
also be crashed because it’s on 31st March, 2021 and we are beginning the project around December. There won’t be major problem
that could arise by crashing them.

Crashing only certain activities yes, then accommodation can be crashed for temporarily from the critical path.
However, in general crashing is unnecessary, in this project but there is unknown details about the cost that is incurred or the budget
for this program is not given hence under those scenario crashing is valid.

Crashing possibilities based on the month?

Months Possibility (as the whole )

September Yes
October Yes
November Yes
December Yes
January Yes, because your still around the
planning phase.

February Maybe, depends on the cost we incur

March No
Q.3 comment on the time estimates for the various activities. Should Robert give himself more time? What are the pros and cons of
doing so? Are there any pitfalls to starting too early? Where might he get good estimates these times?

Activity Comments//
Time in Weeks
Negotiate the exact start and end 1 Since this is the initial phase it’s better to add one more week in
dates, cost and departure & arrival of deciding the dates and traveling schedule to first set. So that the
students agenda /task can be placed or planned according to the date
convenience.
Daily schedule of sites to visit 3 This requires three weeks as it involves the quality of the summer
program hence spending time on the places to visit, 3 weeks is
reasonable time.
Airport Arrangement 1 To check and revise, and to find the cost efficient flight tickets for the
students also not compensating the air travel experience 1-2 weeks is
enough to do some research about it.
Local Transportation 1 Since the students are going to spend some time there, this should
require at least 2-3 weeks so that Robert can find the best transport,
one is easy to communicate, their services, budget, timing available,
review of other customers should be researched properly. Hence 1
week is too short coming.
Select the pensions to stay in during 3 3 weeks are fair no. of days to decide on the accommodation of the
the trip students.
Finalize any loose ends 3 3 weeks is ideal to assume as this week are the worst case scenario as
most of the task are continuous and unpredictable it better to keep 3
weeks as the safe game
Post the information 1 1 week is reasonable. However, it’s better to have an additional week
so that the management approval is required and that might take a
week considering how early this program been planned , then the task
 had to summed up and give the catalogue to the students in the next
week if at all any corrections had to be made

No, Robert shouldn’t give himself more time.

Pros:
1. 3 weeks before 31st march is an ideal period to assess the unexpected possibilities.
2. Risk of failure of the plan /program is lower
Cons:
1. Since it’s a post evaluation process, any sudden changes in the critical activities (especially the ones that have 3 weeks) Robert
had will have delay in posting the details.

Robert shouldn’t start too early because of the following reasons:

1. Some of the activities involves situational problem like air travelling (depends upon the climate), daily site seeing (depends
upon location or any up roaring situations), that also include local transport, accommodation as well.
2. Backing out of students on an average there are 15-20 students for the program may be due to any medical emergencies or
other unexpected situations that might befall on the students thus planning too early is risky.
3. If there is any major changes in the critical activity or the dates have been rescheduled to another month or the period of the
stay has been extended or there are more no=number of students have enrolled then it’s better to wait for some more time
before planning anything to see the changes and thus give some cooling period to decide on anything.

PERT model would give Robert to have a good time estimates as it divides into three-point estimate.

Project Manager
K Rudresh

Project Leader
M Harish Vardhan
Project Members
M Malvika
M Hima bindu
Lellian Christiana