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    5-Reducing Project Duration

    Uploaded by

    Raunak Yadav
    1) The document discusses methods for reducing project duration such as adding resources, outsourcing work, overtime, and establishing a core team. However, Brooks' Law states that adding people to a late software project makes it later due to increased coordination needs. 2) Other methods discussed include fast-tracking by performing parallel tasks normally done serially, reducing scope, and compromising on quality. Crashing activities means adding resources to reduce duration at increased cost and risk. 3) An optimal project duration can be determined that minimizes total costs by balancing crashing costs against increasing indirect costs from longer schedules. The activity with the lowest cost slope should be selected for crashing first.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    5-Reducing Project Duration

    Uploaded by

    Raunak Yadav
    261 views12 pages
    1) The document discusses methods for reducing project duration such as adding resources, outsourcing work, overtime, and establishing a core team. However, Brooks' Law states that adding people to a late software project makes it later due to increased coordination needs. 2) Other methods discussed include fast-tracking by performing parallel tasks normally done serially, reducing scope, and compromising on quality. Crashing activities means adding resources to reduce duration at increased cost and risk. 3) An optimal project duration can be determined that minimizes total costs by balancing crashing costs against increasing indirect costs from longer schedules. The activity with the lowest cost slope should be selected for crashing first.

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    1) The document discusses methods for reducing project duration such as adding resources, outsourcing work, overtime, and establishing a core team. However, Brooks' Law states that adding people to a late software project makes it later due to increased coordination needs. 2) Other methods discussed include fast-tracking by performing parallel tasks normally done serially, reducing scope, and compromising on quality. Crashing activities means adding resources to reduce duration at increased cost and risk. 3) An optimal project duration can be determined that minimizes total costs by balancing crashing costs against increasing indirect costs from longer schedules. The activity with the lowest cost slope should be selected for crashing first.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    261 views12 pages

    5-Reducing Project Duration

    Uploaded by

    Raunak Yadav
    1) The document discusses methods for reducing project duration such as adding resources, outsourcing work, overtime, and establishing a core team. However, Brooks' Law states that adding people to a late software project makes it later due to increased coordination needs. 2) Other methods discussed include fast-tracking by performing parallel tasks normally done serially, reducing scope, and compromising on quality. Crashing activities means adding resources to reduce duration at increased cost and risk. 3) An optimal project duration can be determined that minimizes total costs by balancing crashing costs against increasing indirect costs from longer schedules. The activity with the lowest cost slope should be selected for crashing first.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 12
    At a glance
    Powered by AI
    The key takeaways are methods for reducing project duration such as reducing time to market, quick adaptation to new business environment, and overhead cost savings. Methods discussed include adding resources, outsourcing work, and establishing a core project team.

    When resources are constrained, methods discussed include fast tracking, using critical chain approach, reducing project scope by focusing on critical path activities, and compromising on quality.

    When determining the optimal activity to shorten during project crashing, factors considered include the activity's crash point, normal point, crash time, crash cost, and ensuring the cost time relationship is linear between normal and crash times.

    Reducing Project

    Duration

    1
    Need for reducing project duration

    • Time to market
    • Quick adaptation to new business environment
    • Unforeseen midway delays (design flaws, breakdowns, strikes etc.)
    • Incentive contracts
    • Imposed deadlines during concept phase
    • Overhead cost savings
    • Reassigning resources to another project

    2
    Accelerating Project Completion
    When resources are not constrained
    • Adding resources
    - Doubling the resources will not necessarily reduce completion time by
    half especially when tasks cannot be portioned
    - More coordination effort
    - Increased communication requirement
    - Brooks Law comes into play*!
    • Outsourcing project work
    • Scheduling overtime
    • Establishing core project team

    * Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later!

    3
    Accelerating Project Completion
    When resources are constrained
    • Fast tracking
    - Suspending best practices to permit tasks that would normally be
    performed serially to be performed in parallel, usually with an increase in
    risk e.g. risk of late design changes
    • Critical chain approach
    • Reducing project scope
    - Reduced functionality
    - Focus on activities on critical path
    • Compromising on quality

    4
    Project Crashing
    • Crashing
    - Adding additional resource to reduce duration, usually at increased
    cost and risk.
    • Crash time
    - Amount of time an activity is reduced
    • Crash cost
    - Cost of reducing activity time
    • Goal
    - Reduce project duration at minimum cost

    5
    Activity Crashing

    Crash
    cost Crashing activity

    Slope = crash cost per unit time

    Normal Activity
    Normal
    cost
    Normal
    time
    Crash Activity time
    6 time
    Time-Cost Relationship
     Crashing costs increase as project duration decreases
     Indirect costs increase as project duration increases
     Reduce project length as long as crashing costs are less than
    indirect costs

    Min total cost = Total project cost


    optimal project Indirect cost
    time (Costs that cannot be
    directly associated
    with any particular
    work package)

    Direct cost
    (based on low cost
    efficient methods
    for normal time)

    7
    Time
    Determining Activity to Shorten
    Crash point
    Crash cost

    Normal point
    Activity cost

    Normal cost

    Activity duration
    Assumptions:
    • Cost time relationship is linear
    • Normal time assumes low-cost efficient methods
    • Crash time is the greatest time reduction possible under realistic conditions
    8
    • All accelerations must occur between normal and crash times
    Cost Slope

    Cost Slope =

    9
    Project Crashing Cost Consideration
    • Project time is crashed by reducing the length of the critical path(s).
    • The length of the critical path is reduced by reducing the duration of
    the activities on the critical path.
    • If each activity requires the expenditure of an amount of money to
    reduce its duration by one unit of time, then the least cost critical
    activity is selected for crashing
    • The least cost critical activity is reduced by one time unit at a time
    and change thus occurred are traced through the remainder of the
    network.
    • As a result of a reduction in an activity’s time, a new critical path
    may emerge.
    • When there is more than one critical path, the duration of each of
    the critical paths must be reduced.
    • If the length of the project needs to be reduced further, the process
    is repeated.
    10
    Example

    Activity Predecessor Normal Crash time Normal Crash cost


    time cost
    A 3 2 50 70
    B A 6 4 80 160
    C A 10 9 60 90
    D A 11 7 50 150
    E B 8 6 100 160
    F C, D 5 4 40 70
    G E, F 6 6 70 70

    11
    Project-Cost Duration
    Practical Considerations
    • Graph can be used before start of the project to keep sight on indirect
    costs
    • Crash time is difficult to understand and has low accuracy
    • All or Nothing situations
    • In addition to cost, the crashing of an activity requires consideration of:
    - Inherent risk in crashing particular activities
    - Timing of the activity
    - Resource availability
    - Impact on morale and motivation of project team
    • How far to reduce the project time from the normal time towards the
    optimum depends on the sensitivity of the project network

    12

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