Aspects of Project Planning Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Aspects of Project Planning - Assignment Example The paper tells that critical activity are those, which when delayed will affect the overall project duration, and therefore determine the shortest time required to complete the project. All other activities are non-critical. The critical activities for this project are "Obtaining passport" and "Obtaining visas". Though the project manager should primarily focus on the critical activities, she should also monitor activities with low slack as these have the potential of becoming critical. The manager would benchmark the planned time with other similar projects completed. In case historical data is not available, the project manager would evaluate the probabilities associated with each activity duration to arrive at the "Most Likely", "Optimistic", and "Pessimistic" project durations. The manager would benchmark the planned time with other similar projects completed. In case historical data is not available, the project manager would evaluate the probabilities associated with each acti vity duration to arrive at the "Most Likely", "Optimistic", and "Pessimistic" project durations. The advantage of a network is that the interdependencies between various activities are captured effectively. CPA allows the project manager to focus on the critical activities and allocate resources efficiently, and helps to decide which activities to "crash". Its disadvantage is that it is complex, and unlike other planning tools like Gantt chart is not easily interpreted by everybody. A work package is a subset of a project that can be assigned to a specific party for execution. Such work packages are identified as sub-levels of the WBS. For example, Colin can entrust the Level 1 activity of obtaining the bank loan to a family member, who can execute this work package a separate sub-project. The analysis is important as it allows the project manager to plan, monitor and control the project. It also forms an important Management Information System (MIS) tool for the senior management.