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Week 9 Lesson review for BUS 1040 and BUS 4017. Class 4017 only see end of this page for material re: MS Project.

Estimating: the estimate process is critical to the success of the project. Obviously not enough money will result in unhappy Team Members, poorer quality deliverables, delays and possible aborting the project. The choice of whose estimate to use is vital. If we use management estimate we will ge the money more quickly but possibly not enough.

The Team Members (TM) estimates will be more accurate and realistic unless they pad (inflate) the estimate. Management expects Team Members will inflate estimates because they believe that management wont give them enough money to begin with or cut back any estimates that are provided. The positive aspect of the TM estimate is that it should be accurate because the TM knows what they are doing.

Iteration. The process of the estimate going back and forth between Management and Team is called iteration, or an iterative process. It is a term that can be applied to many types of interaction related to decision making.

The case provided for review R.W.D. was chosen to demonstrate that even 10 seconds can have a value when we are estimating. The cost of operating the call centres for Holiday Inn around the world reduced to a time bite of 10 seconds = an overhead of $1, 000, 000. Therefore if you can reduce the amount the time that the call operator spends on the phone with the customer it would translate into millions of $ savings. Carefully scrutiny of costs is a vital part of any project.

Monitoring and Controlling the costs on the project. There is a process called Earned Value which determines the true value of the work that has been completed at a given point of time. This point of time is called the cumulative point.

We examine the $ spent at that point. and then calculate the value of the work that has been accomplished. Obviously just being on budget is not an indicator of whether the work has been done. The example I used in class is going on vacation for 14 days and having a budget of $1400 or $100 per day. The $100 a day is to be able to do one interesting activity each day: sailing, scuba diving, horseback riding, visiting ruins etc. However, because I am stressed out I decide to drink in the bar each day and don't do the activities. At day 12 I do an Earned Value check. I have spent $800 but only done two of my activities. So I am under budget. Hooray. But I have a big hangover and the purpose of my vacation is ruined and my deliverables (the activities) cannot be completed before the end of the vacation. Using the formulas provided in the book you can calculate my Earned Value on day 12.

Be able to draw a diagram that shows a baseline and the points showing the money actually spent and the effort (hours) spent and the Cost Variance (CV) and Schedule Variance (SV) from the baseline. Depending on which class you are in the questions in the test will vary. 4017 will be given information and a chart and be asked to calculate the earned value. 1040 will be asked to calculate the CV and SV.

The Homework. Just follow the guideline on the PowerPoint. The essence is that a meeting Agenda should tell the TM everything they need to know in order to decide whether to go to the meeting, their involvement if any and the results expected. The minutes of the meeting should be a record of the meeting indicatng the contribution of each of the attendees by name. The minutes would be adopted as accurate at the following meeting.

All the best for the week. Don't forget that Home Assignments must be handed in at the start of class in order to be marked. If you decide to come late to class and then hand in the assignment it will be reviewed but not given marks

BUS 4017 only re: MS Project. Based on the assumption that each student has been entering the data for the Consumer Market Study (Gido and Clements at the end of each Chapter as per pages references in Wk. 8 PowerPoint). into MS Project, saved it on a floppy disc and brought it to class we can discuss the finer points of using the software.

We should have opened the Resource Sheet and entered the wages for each of the employees. We will decide in future classes which Resources and Materials to enter for this project. The book does not give us details so we will have to decide as a group what would be used. I will provide a handout in Wk. 10 on the process of making the entries so you can practice the method on your own. We will revisit as a group when the pressure of getting the Final Written Reports lower.

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