Project Management Resource Scheduling session 6

Summary

This session delves into resource leveling and schedule compression in project management. It explains the concept of resource leveling to balance resource allocation and prevent inefficiencies, introducing schedule compression techniques like fast tracking and crashing. The instructor guides through a hands-on activity, assigns homework for practical application, and emphasizes the importance of understanding risks and probability in project completion. The session prepares participants for a deeper dive into project risk management in subsequent lectures.

Takeaways

• 📈 Resource leveling is a technique used to balance resource allocation throughout a project to avoid peaks and valleys in usage, aiming to use resources more effectively without changing the project end date.
• 📊 Schedule compression includes two methods: fast tracking, which involves doing activities in parallel, and crashing, which is about reducing activity durations by applying more resources or changing the approach.
• 🔍 The critical path in a project is the sequence of activities with zero slack time that determines the project's overall duration, and managing it is crucial for resource leveling and schedule compression.
• 📚 Understanding the probability of completing a project within a certain timeframe is important for project managers, often requiring statistical knowledge to calculate variance, standard deviation, and confidence levels.
• 🛠 Tools like Excel can be used for resource leveling to help visualize and manage resource allocation over time.
• 🔑 Resource leveling can free up space for resources such as employees, machinery, or meeting rooms, allowing for more efficient use of available assets.
• 🚧 Risk management is an integral part of project management, and resource leveling and schedule compression can introduce new risks that need to be identified, prioritized, and mitigated.
• 💡 The concept of crashing a project involves increasing costs to reduce the project duration, but it must be analyzed carefully to ensure that the time saved justifies the additional expense.
• 📉 Crashing a project can lead to various risks, including decreased quality, increased errors, fatigue among workers, and potential safety issues.
• 📈 A crash cost graph is a useful tool for visualizing the relationship between the cost of crashing activities and the time saved, helping to make informed decisions about which activities to crash first.
• 🔑 The session also covered a hands-on activity and homework assignment to apply the concepts of resource leveling and schedule compression, reinforcing learning through practical application.

Q & A

What are the main topics covered in session six of the project management sessions?

Session six focuses on resource leveling and schedule compression, including an introduction to resource leveling, different types of schedule compression such as fast tracking and crashing, a hands-on activity, and a homework assignment to apply the learned skills.

What is resource leveling and why might it be necessary?

Resource leveling is the process of smoothing out the allocation of resources over time to eliminate peaks and valleys in resource usage, ensuring effective utilization without changing the project end date. It's necessary to manage resources efficiently and address issues like over-allocation or under-allocation of resources.

What is the critical path in a project network diagram?

The critical path is the sequence of activities in a project network diagram that determines the longest possible duration of the project. It's called 'critical' because any delay in these activities will directly impact the project's overall completion time.

How can resource leveling be implemented using simple tools?

Resource leveling can be implemented using simple tools like an Excel spreadsheet, which can help in visualizing and adjusting the allocation of resources over time to achieve a more balanced resource usage.

What is the purpose of schedule compression in project management?

Schedule compression is used to shorten the project duration without reducing the project scope. It involves techniques like fast tracking and crashing to identify ways to perform activities in parallel or to reduce the duration of critical activities.

What are the potential risks associated with schedule compression?

Risks associated with schedule compression include increased fatigue and reduced motivation among team members, potential for errors and quality issues, additional costs, and the possibility of needing to find additional resources, which can further impact the project timeline and budget.

What is the difference between fast tracking and crashing in schedule compression?

Fast tracking involves performing activities in parallel that were originally planned sequentially, while crashing involves reducing the duration of critical activities by applying additional resources or changing the approach, which usually incurs additional costs.

How can the critical path method (CPM) help in determining the project duration and identifying risks?

The critical path method helps in determining the project duration by calculating the longest path of activities through the network diagram. It identifies risks by highlighting activities that, if delayed, would impact the project's overall timeline, allowing for better risk management and mitigation strategies.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Resource Leveling and Schedule Compression

This paragraph introduces the session's focus on resource leveling and schedule compression techniques within project management. The session aims to explain what resource leveling is, its purpose, and how it can be executed using simple tools like Excel. It also covers the concept of schedule compression, which includes fast tracking and crashing, and sets the stage for a hands-on activity and homework assignment. The importance of understanding resource usage, critical path analysis, and the potential questions from stakeholders regarding project completion probabilities are highlighted.

05:02

🛠️ Understanding Resource Leveling and Its Application

The speaker delves into the specifics of resource leveling, emphasizing its goal to smooth out resource requirements without extending the project's end date. Using a sprinkler system installation as an example, the paragraph illustrates the process of creating a work breakdown structure and transforming it into a PERT network diagram. It discusses the identification of critical path, slack time, and the potential issues that may arise from uneven resource allocation, such as the need for more personnel than available on certain days.

10:02

🔍 Analyzing Resource Allocation and Identifying Bottlenecks

This section uses an Excel spreadsheet to demonstrate the allocation of resources to various activities in a project. It explains the concept of slack time and how it can be used flexibly to adjust the schedule. The paragraph identifies a specific issue where more tasks are scheduled on the same day than can be handled by the available workforce, indicating a need for resource leveling to resolve such bottlenecks.

15:07

🚀 Exploring Schedule Compression Techniques

The paragraph introduces schedule compression as a strategy to expedite project completion, discussing methods such as eliminating unnecessary activities, substituting less time-consuming components, parallelizing activities, and revisiting duration estimations. It also touches on the potential to increase work hours and the concept of crashing the project, while cautioning about the associated risks and costs.

20:08

⚠️ Risks and Considerations in Schedule Compression

Here, the speaker outlines the potential risks associated with schedule compression, such as fatigue, decreased quality, and motivation issues among team members. It also discusses the financial implications of finding additional resources and the potential for a vicious cycle of problems that can arise from not monitoring the project closely enough. The importance of understanding the crash versus cost relationship is emphasized, as is the need to make informed decisions about which activities to crash first.

25:12

📉 Crash Cost Analysis and Decision Making

The paragraph provides a detailed example of crash cost analysis, explaining how to calculate the cost associated with crashing activities on the critical path. It illustrates the decision-making process with a step-by-step guide on how to determine the order of crashing activities based on cost-effectiveness and the potential time saved. The example includes a crash cost graph as a visual aid for making these decisions.

30:15

📝 Assignment on Crash Cost Graph and Risk Management

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker assigns the task of plotting a crash cost graph as homework, encouraging students to apply the concepts learned. The session's focus shifts to the importance of risk management in project management, with a preview of upcoming topics that will cover defining risk, managing it, and developing response strategies. The speaker emphasizes the inevitability of risk in projects and the importance of early identification and prioritization.

Keywords

💡Resource Leveling

Resource leveling is a project management technique aimed at smoothing out the allocation of resources over time to avoid peaks and valleys in usage. It is essential for effective resource utilization and can be done using tools like an Excel spreadsheet. In the context of the video, resource leveling is introduced as a method to balance resource requirements without extending the project's end date, ensuring efficient use of resources such as manpower, machinery, or even meeting rooms.

💡Schedule Compression

Schedule compression is a method used to shorten the project duration without changing the project scope. It includes techniques like fast tracking and crashing. Fast tracking involves performing activities in parallel that were originally planned sequentially, while crashing adds resources to critical activities to reduce their duration. The script discusses schedule compression as an alternative when resource leveling is not sufficient to meet time constraints, emphasizing the different types and their implications on the project timeline.

💡Critical Path

The critical path in project management is the sequence of activities that determines the longest possible duration of a project. Activities on the critical path have zero slack time and any delay in these activities will delay the entire project. The video script uses the critical path to illustrate the importance of timely resource allocation and the impact of delays on project completion.

💡PERT Network Diagram

A PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) network diagram is a graphical representation of a project schedule, showing the sequence and duration of project activities. It helps in identifying the critical path and the slack time for non-critical activities. In the script, the PERT network diagram is used to estimate durations and find the critical path, which is crucial for resource leveling and schedule compression discussions.

💡Slack Time

Slack time refers to the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without affecting the project's overall completion date. In the script, slack time is mentioned in the context of the PERT network diagram, where it is used to determine the flexibility in scheduling activities that are not on the critical path.

💡Fast Tracking

Fast tracking is a schedule compression technique where activities that would normally be done sequentially are performed in parallel to save time. The script introduces fast tracking as an alternative approach when resource leveling is not enough to meet a project's time constraints, allowing for the simultaneous execution of certain tasks.

💡Crashing

Crashing is a schedule compression method where additional resources are added to critical activities to reduce their duration, thereby shortening the overall project timeline. The script discusses crashing in the context of increasing costs and potential risks, such as decreased quality and increased errors, when resources are added to expedite project completion.

💡Risk Management

Risk management in project management involves the processes of identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risks. The script touches on risk management towards the end, emphasizing the importance of understanding and mitigating risks associated with schedule compression techniques like crashing and fast tracking.

💡Confidence Level

In the context of project management, a confidence level refers to the probability that a project will be completed within a certain timeframe or budget. The script mentions confidence levels when discussing the likelihood of completing a project within specific durations, such as 42 hours or 32 hours, and the need for project managers to communicate these probabilities to stakeholders.

💡Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

A Work Breakdown Structure is a hierarchical decomposition of the work involved in a project into smaller components. It is used for estimating time, cost, and resources required for each component. The script provides an example of a WBS for a sprinkler system installation project, illustrating how it helps in organizing tasks and identifying the sequence of activities.

Highlights

Introduction to resource leveling and its importance in effective resource utilization.

Explaining the concept of schedule compression, including fast tracking and crashing.

Hands-on activity and homework assignment to apply learned skills.

Understanding the critical path in project management and its impact on resource leveling.

The use of Excel spreadsheets for simple resource leveling tasks.

Calculating the probability of project completion within given timeframes.

The importance of statistical knowledge in project management for variance and standard deviation.

The connection between resource leveling and the critical path in project scheduling.

Strategies for leveling resource peaks and valleys without extending the project duration.

Example of a sprinkler system installation project to illustrate resource leveling.

The role of work breakdown structure in resource leveling and schedule compression.

Risks associated with resource leveling and schedule compression.

Differentiating between crashing and fast tracking in schedule compression.

The financial implications of crashing activities in a project.

Crash cost analysis and decision-making for project schedule compression.

Understanding the relationship between crash cost and project completion time.

Preparing for risk management in project scheduling for the upcoming session.

Transcripts

hello

hi everyone welcome back to project

management sessions

for the summer

this is session six

and we are continuing today with

resource leveling and schedule

compression

so today's agenda is we're going to look

into the resource leveling what it is

and how can it be done

i'm going to introduce you schedule

compression

and you know it it appears in some

different types

so one is fast tracking and the other

one is crashing

and then i'm gonna do uh one hands-on

activity with you and then i'll assign

you a homework

uh to be able to apply the skills that

you learned today

at home

so i want you to think about just one

minute what is resource leveling and why

may you need it

so

in the previous sessions we came up with

our breakdown structure and we

transformed it into a pert network

diagram

and in this network diagram we estimated

the durations

and we were able to find out the overall

duration of the project

in this

applications we also find out the select

time zero

and when we combine those

zero select times we find out the

critical path

right at this moment this critical path

is you know really critical that's why

we call it critical path

so you got to find out the risks okay

and how you're

how you're using your resource if

there's peaks and valleys a lot in your

resource usage then you want to level

them so

you can effectively use your resources

that's basically what is resource

leveling

there's uh you know different tools that

you can use but you can use as simple as

an excel

spreadsheet

so think about it you know in the

previous example we we looked at you

know let's say that you can complete the

project in 42 hours

what were some of the uh questions that

you know might arise

what is the probability of completing

the project in 42 hours or less

you know ceo your manager your program

manager may ask you this question

or what is the probability of completing

the project in 32 hours or less

can you have this question

asked to you

sure because

maybe the customer is waiting your

delivery you know not in 42 hours but 32

hours so your manager wants you

to state if you can complete or what

kind of confidence level what is the

percentage of your confidence level that

you can complete your project

under 32 hours

or if your ceo your program manager is

really knowledgeable about the project

and how the projects are run

then they may ask you what is the

probability of completing the project

less than

i mean more than 95 percent probability

confidence level okay so they want you

to

give them a time a duration a completion

date that

95 percent they can be sure that the

project will be completed

and you needed to some statistics

refresher

that's why

in the previous session we we used our

calculators and we refreshed you know

get the dust out of your

old knowledge

about statistics

and we find out

over an example what is the variance

what is the standard deviation and we

learned for a target date how to

complete the z value and how to look it

up the z table

okay

and then find out the probability of

uh success and i'm gonna really go fast

if this slide is not making sense to you

i really encourage you to go look it up

the previous session

recording okay

because

next week we're gonna do the

[Music]

progress quiz 2

because this is really a natural break

point for a nice quiz

so there will be questions from

you know these slides and

how to calculate the variance and

standard deviation and the success

completion success and ratio rate

in in network diagram so

if this slide is not making sense to you

please go back and review the previous

week

and one of the examples also i covered

last week was you know ceo might ask you

can't can you complete it earlier

you know whatever is your completion

time they may ask you can you complete

it earlier for whatever reason

maybe the customer wants it earlier

maybe there's a rush to market uh you

know from a business case perspective

you want to be the first to hit the

market

and all of this

how quick or can you deliver can you

deliver 100 on time and

all of these things

let's and we said let's find out the

ceo's question and we work on them

so let's say this is our project okay

starts from activity a and goes all the

way to activated t and you have the

durations associated with the activities

here you have the red arrows and nodes

as critical path okay

and by now you should know

why is critical path is called critical

path

uh

how are the slack time on these uh red

arrows

and you know if something happened like

if you're late or or

or anything on on one of the activities

what happens to project

duration and if you are late on one of

the blue arrows which are not on the

critical path

then what happens to your duration of

the project so you know all these things

so today's topic is resource leveling so

coming from this

to resource leveling

how how what kind of a connection we

should do

okay

so resource leveling is an attempt to

eliminate the manpower peaks and valleys

by smoothing out the period to period

resource requirements

the ideal solution is to do without

changing the end date so when you're

when you're making the resource leveling

you shouldn't be making the project

run more like run longer okay you

shouldn't delay the overall project so

resource leveling is something that you

want to do

to free up some space for some of your

employees maybe some machinery

or maybe some clean labs or some kind of

classrooms

meeting rooms right all of these things

or or trucks

that you do

so you want to

you know

level these resources so you can use

them effectively it's not

when you're doing the resource leveling

it's not desired to you know make the

project run

longer well if

whatever you do the end date moves out

and additional costs are incurred in the

project then that's a different story so

you need to make a

make a new calculation

so let's say i'm installing a sprinkler

system

in my backyard okay

so here's my work breakdown structure

so my system my main system is

installing the sprinkler system

here here you see here you see the

here you see the the masters

which are the acquire equipment and

tools prepare yard

dig trenches install system and finish

job

these are the master

and these are the slave

which for example preparing the yard 1.4

requires you to clear the trash

you know the wheels fill the holes and

break the yard

okay

so this is let's say the work breakdown

structure for my uh sprinkler system

installation project in my

backyard

let's say i'm doing this with a with a

kid like a teenager you know

and myself okay

so we're doing basically two-person

but uh

so if you look at this what do you see

okay think about the different types the

various types that we studied about work

breakdown structure which one is this

one

exactly so this is kind of the time

sequential or time phased or breakdown

structure right

not functional not material

uh that's basically the time because

you know it says finish the job you know

and then right before that you're

installing the system you're doing

trenches preparing the yard and first

acquiring the equipment right so it's

kind of do this do this

do this

thing

so work breakdown structure here is

actually

a time phase one

and when i draw this

i find out i find out this per network

diagram okay

starting from a

to going to t

so here's the activity durations and

here's the critical path actually this

is the same slide that i showed you in a

minute ago

so

i just pulled out the

excel spreadsheet

and

i put out

nicely the activities and then the

masters

okay you see these ones are not

not really the activities they are the

uh what we call these masters

they are kind of a title

kind of a group things together and keep

keep them neat and tidy

so

they don't have

durations associated with them so when

you do this

you come up with this baseline schedule

okay

with the resources okay i'm just looking

from a resource perspective from an

employee perspective so this

i'm installing my sprinkler system in my

backyard

with a teenager and myself right

so

i am basically using

two person let's say okay right i'm not

hiring any contractor i'm not paying

anybody else

so this let me explain you what are the

colors and what are these lines

and what are these

red lines as well so

as i as i mentioned before the the

masters the colored one

doesn't have any

any activity duration associated with

them because they're just kind of an

umbrella kind of a grouping uh method

but here

you will see the designing the yard

takes four days

okay

so somebody needs to do this

in one day and then this block let's say

this cube one day

and then this cube another day and then

description

and also

after i designed the yard i purchased

the materials so somebody needs to go

and purchase the material and then

another one

and then

renting the trencher is also happening

this time but what these empty blocks

means are the slab

are the slack time

so i have time

uh i can buy the for example looking

into

purchasing the materials

i can purchase the material either in

these two days which is the fifth and

sixth day

or seven eight nine ten until

let's say 15 16. okay

i should leave i can i can buy purchase

the materials into in these two locks so

i have the select time of this much

okay

and here also renting the trencher i can

do this here

here here or here because i have slack

time

because

uh if you look at the work breakdown

structure i don't want to open it right

now

but

i can dig the trenches well to start

digging the trencher right thinking with

the trencher

i need to acquire them so before

starting to dig with trencher

right before that i can buy this anytime

right

so i can i can rent it to here here

sixth day seventh or eighth day

but i cannot

rent it after

eighth day because

digging with trenchers starts at

cut the point so that's how i come up

with this echelon

so

what is this red line they are the

critical path okay so whatever on this

one they are critical path okay so let's

let's investigate this

okay so everything looks good

but

but it but does it okay is there any

problem

let's look at the fifth

is there any problem on day fifth fifth

think about it so

i am purchasing the material

somebody is renting the trencher

and somebody is purchasing the tools

wait a minute so how many person is this

one two three so if i

if i collapse these blocks at the bottom

oh my god there's three blocks

let's look at here

so somebody needs to let's say i connect

the installer system to

water

and somebody needs to install the timer

and somebody needs to install the pipe

okay that's good

but

how come i do all of this in one day

because

durations are one day right

and i

not two people can do three things so if

you collapse these things

you see there's three people need we

need three people but we don't have

so what can i do well then in this case

i use uh

in this case i use

the resource leveling okay that's where

it comes handy so because i have select

time here okay

for example here in this in this

column i have only one

rake to yard

so

if

i move renting the trencher to somewhere

here

or here

it means that this will only be

two blocks

claps here

and this one one will be 2-2

which is good because i am already two

people so

one one of the you know

one of them can do

one job and the other one can do another

in the same day

so

i'm kind of leveling the peaks here got

it

and then peaks here and and i don't want

to create more time

to finish the project

so take a moment to think about what we

covered on this slide okay and then try

to digest this and

please compare it with the pert diagram

and

work breakdown structure so if you open

up baseline schedule

uh the pert diagram and then the work

breakdown structure if you open up all

of them together it will make more sense

to you

okay but uh which one should i do and

how can i do right so

what if this is not good enough what if

this is not good enough

so you kind of did the resource leveling

but you know maybe there's select time

less than what's required select time

maybe whatever you do there will be

still three blocks

so if this is the case

if this is the case what else can you do

if this is not enough okay so

here schedule compression kicks in

what is that

so you can eliminate some parts let's

say

you know if purchasing the material and

renting the trencher is being done with

two different person

maybe in two different days

maybe you want to eliminate one of them

so that one person go to home depot

louise

and

you know buy the material and rent the

trencher at the same time so you can

eliminate some part of the project makes

sense

okay

maybe you can substitute some less time

consuming

components and activities with something

else

maybe you can parallelize the some of

the activities which i will show you

or you can shorten the activities how

can you shorten them remember

how we came up with the project duration

at the first place

what we did is actually

we did the simpsons rule and we came up

with the duration estimations and then

we add them up

and then come up with the project

duration after we find out the critical

path

okay

but uh maybe you want to revisit

your you know maybe some of the part

some of the activities you want to

revisit

and estimate

the durations

a little bit

uh more realistic

okay

so you can try to shorten the longest

activities

maybe you want to do the easiest

activities first so you can

quickly get rid of them right you may

want to speed up

you may want to use more resources um

[Music]

so these two things are critical right

you want to have more resources

maybe you want to add more resources

when we say

resources in the project management

don't only think about money

you can think about machinery

you know a space like an inventory space

you can be employee

money time maybe a clean lab that

everybody needs to use or you have a

you know one testing or one software or

one

you know uh top secret computer network

that you you know you need to use in by

it needs to be used by different

departments

and people so these are all you should

think as resources

increasing the number of work hours per

day just tell everybody hey you know we

are

we're running out of time in the project

we're gonna be late so everybody will

work you know not 18 8 hours but 12

hours or 10 hours every day or

come back come back on saturday

or sunday for an eight hour shift okay

can you do that well you can

but uh what are the consequences okay

everything has some consequences

so you want to crash the project okay so

this is called crashing

what are some of the risk to

compression okay what are some of the

risk to compression

think about it for a minute well if you

tell people

to work you know another four hour after

five every day or every saturday

then there will be you know some tests

there will be a fatigue people will be

you know working hungry and

people will be working like

not motivated and

there will be some

you know injuries and people forget to

do some you know important tasks

so quality will go down motivation will

go down everybody will be you know tense

and intense and angry so

be ready for those kind of stuff if you

want to really really like crash with

giving you know over time

quality issues errors but people will

make more errors right

more time

finding additional resources than time

saved

so especially as a project manager

you'll go out and try to find some

additional resources which will decrease

your time monitoring the project and

progress

then uh

there will be

like a visual cycle there will be more

problems you will need more money so you

will try to go out and find money

then you will you know again decrease

your time monitoring your project get

your progress

and you know guiding your people

then

uh you will have problems again

new team members are not up to speed

there will be rework and safety issues

a lot of questions about job safety and

product safety others sure

you know please make you know under

comments please write if you have any

other if you observe if you experience

in other problems

with

you know doing the compression either in

your project or

a project you were

working in

made compression and

you had some problems

we need to understand the crash versus

cost relationship

that's very critical and think about it

because

think about it for a while so if you

wanna shorten an activity if you wanna

shorten a project crash a project you

need money but what's the relationship

you know which activity should i

uh crash how much money should i need

whereas where should i start

should i crash everything what do i do

let's see how this can be done

let's say you have a this kind of a

network diagram all right it's starting

and then you have activity d activity f

activated g and then the project is

ending

how can you fast track this

can you fast track can you do some

activities in parallel

there may be a few solutions to this but

my solution for you is

you know if you can do it you can do f

and g in parallel at the same time

and if you have

resources if you have experts engineers

to do this if you have technicians

operators

if g can start after d and if g can be

conducted in you know

processed in parallel in conjunction

with f

then you can change your

pert

with a fast tracking and now you will

save time

correct

for example for this one

now remember this was in your homework

and you sold this

how long is this project

remember that look at your notes

and then which of the activities may

make sense to fast tracking there may be

a lot of activities

can they that can be done in parallel

so think about it which cans which which

one of these can be fast tracking

okay

so let's do an example now

so here's the compression uh crash

versus pro cost let's say

your project is starting in zero and

then

a b c d e f these are the activity notes

that you are doing

and the numbers are the durations on the

arrows okay

so where to start so first of all

let's give an answer to this question

how long is this project

you're gonna find out

how much is this project

okay

please do this on your own

these are the days okay four days six

days two days

seven days does it change the length of

the project if an activity

g

is added between c and e

with a duration duration of 24 hours

which is duration of one day

so if i add an activity g

in between c and e

what is the duration what is the overall

uh project completion delay

okay what is the schedule slip observed

so i want you to do this on your own

and and you can share it in the comments

section

so you can see others answers as well

and also you can share your philosophy

how you did it your method your way of

doing it thinking about it

okay

so basically what it's saying is you

want to add a g

between cne

okay

so let's go back to the original one

so let's investigate the cost associated

with the activities that are to be

crashed

so

this is your critical path

four

six

seven and

six

as you can see these arrows are

different colors so this is your

critical path

so

to to analyze which nodes can be

you know should be crashed first you

want to go back you want to have such a

table

a table that says the activity what is

the time

what is the you know target crashing

time what is the cost what is the weekly

cost and you should come up

you should have such a such a table how

can you find that well maybe you have

this in your project maybe you maybe you

know it maybe you experience it if you

ask experts okay

you should come up with some kind of

this table i just obscured these numbers

because i want you to do it along with

me

i made red these reds are the critical

path

a b e and e are critical path

okay

so which one

do you wanna attack first

well first of all you want to attack

the ones that are on the critical path

correct

you don't want to spend time and and by

the way this is 8 000 i believe

i apologize for this so this is eight

dozen so you wanna you don't wanna crash

the black ones right because they're not

on the critical path they're not on the

so even though you crash them and you

make you

you conduct them you know you complete

them in in shorter shorter amount of

time

the project duration will not change

because project duration is decided by

the critical path so first of all

you want to eliminate c and d you're

looking for something on a b

e and f

okay

so here are the target crash times

and this is the cost like a normal cost

and this is the crash cost so

read it like that so normally activity

four is four days

you know i wanna i wanna crash

to two days and

the normal cost for activity a is ten

thousand

if i wanna crash it two weeks

the new cost will be fourteen thousand

okay

so this is just activity a so you wanna

do the same for b

not c and d

and this is 8000. i apologize

and

here it's enf you want to come up with

these numbers okay

then how do i decide which one to crash

then i wanna open up one more column for

you which is

crash

cost per week

okay

so

i am crashing two weeks in activity a it

cost me 14 minus 10 is 4 000

divided by 2 is 2 000.

i am crashing in activity b i am

crashing one week so i'm saving i'm

shortening it to one week

and it cost me from thirty thousand to

forty two thousand five hundred

then my crash week is

crash cost minus normal cost divided by

the

crash amount crash weeks okay which is

twelve thousand

so now you do this for enf

so i want to ask you which one

would you go first

looking at this crash cost time

which one would you go first

and why think about the answer

can you plot it on a crash cost graph

can you can you plot it on a crash cost

graph because it's easier to understand

if we put on if you put this table

uh on a plot

okay

so would you like to start with this one

like activity b

uh oh yeah i can hear you saying no

because it's it's twelve thousand five

hundred just to crash it one week

well if i can crash

something with

with 2000 for a week then why not start

from there right

so that's the financial analysis that

you want to do

so if you want to put the program cost

here

and

program completion time

okay

and here is the normal operations

so

if you want to start with crashing a

okay

you'll crash two weeks and you will only

spend this much money

and then which one do you want to do

second

i can hear what you're

saying you want to continue with f

because with f

you can

crash three weeks

and three thousand per week

okay

so it brings you all the way to

139

okay

so which one would you like to go next

you want to go with e

and you want to go with b

well what happens after b well then

so a b e f so if you go back

a b e f so you all you covered all the

critical path activities

so

would you like to crash

so if you wanna if you wanna crash it

totally like do let's say you have money

and you wanna do you know everything you

can

so the minimum cost to total crash is

around 160 000

okay

what's your

save time

you can save i believe from 23 weeks all

the way to 15 which is eight weeks

let's go back and uh

calculate here two plus one

is three plus two is five

plus three is eight yeah you can save

eight weeks

as you can see it came from 23 down to

15.

doesn't make sense now

so you can easily present this to your

program manager and say

no sir ma'am

you know i can save two weeks with uh

this much money

and then if we still have money or if we

still need to crash the project

uh if the customer wants it really early

then i want to go with the crashing f

activity f

and you can easily analyze then and show

this to your supervisors

okay if you

here's the final things

if you want to do even more crashing

which means if you want to include cne c

and d then

then what does that mean

all activities crashed

so if you crash all activities your

program cost will rise up to here

but what's happening with your project

completion time the project duration

yeah you got it

it's not really shortening the project

so if i'm not saving any weeks why am i

spending money right so i don't want to

do this

i want to save time

and spend some money

save more time and spend more money

until

until the time and i'm done with the

activities that

even though i spend money i cannot

shorten anymore okay

so that's the crashing cost analysis

so there will be questions in progress

quiz 2 next week on these on these kind

of explanations

so let's do another one

so here i want you to

do this one on your own okay

so here's the normal time so here's the

time that if i crash

here's the normal cost this is the crash

cost

i want you to find out the time look

weekly cost

and decide which one to do first

so find the weekly crash cost for each

activities

and in which order you would like to

start crashing

and think about you know as you can see

everything is in red

so we're thinking all the activities are

on critical path

i want you to plot crash cost graph and

this will be a homework i'll post it on

canvas as well

so i want you to submit those things

plot crash cost graph if you understood

the previous example really good

then you'll be okay to do that

just one more thing before you go

why are we doing all these things

i want to i want to switch to a

in

a new topic in in this

series of lectures

why are we doing all this

why are we trying to crash why are we

trying to look you know the durations

why are we really thinking on critical

activities and critical path

activities

well it's because of risk

because of risk so

you know

risk of

not

estimating the activity durations good

risk of not estimating your budget risk

of

not being able to achieve on time risk

of

giving the wrong confidence

confidence level okay

so all these things are risks and

we cannot really manage and complete any

project

without thinking of risk

okay

and when you crash when you start

crashing when you you know shuffle

people around shuffle material shuffle

other resources around then you will

create more risk but

the thing is you want to you want to

understand the risk from an impact

from a probability and impact

perspective what is the probability of

risk occurring

and what is the impact okay

so

we are switching next week

we are switching to

to definition of risk and the concept of

risk in project environment

we we are going to learn what is risk

you know how can we

define risk how can we manage the risk

and what are some of the risk response

strategies

and we want to we

want to you know identify the risk early

prioritize them them and then attack

them with some risk response strategies

and then

you want to monitor and control the risk

all right great

so make sure you complete the homework

for next week on canvas and

and you make a good review

for the

yeah for the topics that is covered

after progress quiz one

uh because this is kind of a very

natural uh a great natural breakpoint

for a progress quiz

because we're switching from project

management and schedule domain to

project risk domain which is really fun

so we'll see

our progress levels

thank you so much if you have any

questions please reach out to me

and i'll see you next week

bye