PMGT3623 Scheduling - Week 6

Calculating the likelihood and range of project completion times.

Using probabilities to estimate project task durations.

Accelerating tasks to shorten the overall project duration.

A visual representation of project tasks, their dependencies and schedule.

Real-world examples to illustrate project scheduling principles.

The process of planning and managing the timing of tasks within a project

Confidence calculation, probabilistic estimation, and task crashing.

Knowledge from weeks 2-5.

The sequence of activities with the longest total duration, determining the shortest possible project completion time.

The total time required to complete all activities in a project.

A measure of the uncertainty or variability in the project completion time.

The square root of the project variance, indicating the average deviation of the project completion time from the expected value.

The average or most likely time to complete the project, calculated as the sum of the expected times of activities on the critical path.

A standardized score that measures how many standard deviations a value (like project completion time) is from the mean or expected value.

The likelihood that the project will be completed within a specific timeframe.

A table used to find the probability associated with a specific Z-score, helping to determine the likelihood of project completion within a given timeframe.

The probability is 95%. This interval captures the middle 95% of the normal distribution, leaving 2.5% on either side.

The Z-score is 0. The mean (μ) is 194, and the Z-score is calculated as (X - μ) / σ. Since X (completion time) is equal to μ (mean), the Z-score is 0.

The interval is calculated as mean ± Z0.025 * standard deviation. Z0.025 represents the Z-score that captures 97.5% of the area under the normal distribution curve, leaving 2.5% in the tail.

The standard deviation (σ) is 9.255 days. This value helps understand the variability in project completion times.

To determine this, we need the Z-score for 180 days. Calculate it as (180 - 194) / 9.255. Then, look up the area under the normal distribution curve corresponding to that Z-score to find the probability.

A Z-score indicates how many standard deviations a data point is away from the mean. Positive Z-scores indicate values above the mean, while negative Z-scores indicate values below the mean.

The formula is Z = (X - μ) / σ, where X is the data point, μ is the mean, and σ is the standard deviation.

The mean (μ) is 194 days. This represents the average expected completion time for the project.

Program Evaluation and Review Technique, a project management method for estimating project duration and cost, that uses optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic time estimations for each task

(Optimistic + 4 * Most Likely + Pessimistic) / 6

(Pessimistic - Optimistic)² / 36

A specific task in a project

Dependencies between tasks in a project; one task cannot start until another is finished

The shortest possible time to complete a task.

The most probable time to complete a task.

The longest possible time to complete a task.

Critical Path Method, project management technique that identifies the critical path and schedules project activities

The additional time that a task can be delayed without delaying the project completion time

A continuous probability distribution that is bell-shaped. It's a common distribution in many continuous data cases.

A numerical representation of the chance of an event occurring

A function that describes all possible outcomes and their probabilities associated with a random variable.

The standardized score that measures how many standard deviations a value is from the mean, representing its relative position within a distribution.

A negative z-score indicates that the value is below the mean (average).

A positive z-score indicates that the value is above the mean (average).

Since the mean is the average, the probability of any value being below the mean is 50% or 0.5.

The probability that the random variable X (e.g., project completion time) takes a value less than or equal to 180.

The probability that the random variable X (e.g., project completion time) takes a value equal to or greater than 210.

1. Calculate the z-score for 180. 2. Find the corresponding probability in the z-table.

1. Calculate the z-score for 210. 2. Find the probability for that z-score. 3. Subtract from 1.