This week you will be asked to complete a tutorial/simulation case study (locate

Question

This week you will be asked to complete a tutorial/simulation case study (located in the Lesson) that walks you through various project scheduling scenarios as you help a non-profit organization adjust project components to meet schedule and resource demands. As you work through the simulation, be sure to take notes. These will be used to answer the questions.

For all of the case studies that you are reviewing and analyzing, you are expected to exercise good observation and thorough critical thinking skills. You are also expected to use good writing skills, with good grammar and spelling. You should prepare your answers in Microsoft Word.

Be sure to submit your completed assignment.

Questions:

When the project first started, you were asked to order the tasks to build the WBS. How did you decide the order tasks should appear in for the WBS? In a typical project, how do you think a WBS should be created, and what stakeholders or team members should be involved?

What challenges did you face during the simulation, and what solutions did you propose? Indicate any research that you did In order to gain your own knowledge about remodeling a bathroom and how it helped you.

When faced with the challenges, what information did you use to make your decision, and what tradeoffs did you contemplate?

How did your decisions impact the project's critical path? How was the critical path impacted as you tried different options?

Habitat For Humanity: Bathroom Reconstruction The Detroit Habitat for Humanity repairs homes and builds homes for the needy who otherwise would not be able to afford regular housing. Althea Jones lives in a small 1920 bungalow on the East side of Detroit. She is unable to work due to multiple physical illnesses. Althea is on social security disability and receives food stamps. She cannot afford repairs on her home, and depends on city programs (buses, meals on wheels) for transportation Due to extreme cold, last week the copper pipes in her bathroom burst and flooded the one bathroom in her house. The bathroom was already in grave disrepair due to crumbling tiles, leaky fixtures, and faulty wiring Your assignment as foreman for Detroit Habitat for Humanity is to repair and remodel Althea's bathroom within 7 days. A local charity has made arrangements for Althea to stay in a vacant low income house for 1 week while awaiting the repair of her bathroom. 1abitat For Humanity

Explanation / Answer

1. For smooth flow of project, it is necessary that the sequential steps of the project complete in the designated timeline. Also the raw materials required for all steps must be available prior to the execution. I would order the tasks in a logical manner in a way that task dependencies are clearly catered to and project flow remains unaffected. I would also try to operate the independent steps in parallel.

In a typical project, the scope is decomposed to draft the work breakdown structure (WBS). Decomposing the scope helps in eliminating unwanted and non-value adding tasks. The major stakeholders of the project sit together and brainstorm over the project scope and thus on the draft of WBS.

2. The major challenges faced during the simulation were:

We researched about how the rusted copper pipes can be eradicated without spoiling the wall finish. Also we needed a more compact design of new wiring system. So many papers were studied and solution was finalized.

3. As mentioned above, we faced major 3 challenges during the simulation. When faced with a challenge, I try to brainstorm and think about the problem from various perspectives. Then I consider the most cost effective perspective as the final way out.

In the above case, replacing the rusted copper pipes was becoming difficult. We thought about removing the whole pipe framework using drillers, but that trade-off could have led to wear and tear of the bathroom walls. So, I came up with the solution to identify the threaded portion of the pipes, which are usually the weakest. The idea was to break the threads and then use the driller on the edges. This way, the walls of the bathroom remained safe. Also, this was a cost-effective solution as the electricity consumed by driller in this case was less and also damage to the walls were pretty less.

4. In a project, critical path is the longest sequence of the processes in the project. The critical path must be completed on time to complete the project by its due date. Opting for my alternative of manually breaking the threads and then using the driller carefully along the edges, lead to increase in the critical path by 1 day. If we had opted for using the driller for removing the copper wires, the time taken would have been less, so the critical path would have shortened by half day. But in that scenario, cost effectiveness was not being met and project sanctity was not maintained, therefore the idea of using driller only, was scrapped off.

5. As the project had time constraint, clear idea about the time taken by each project step and broader idea about which steps could have been done in parallel, would have helped in making better project decisions and complete the project before time.

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