Project Management Techniques Quiz

A systematic approach to allocate resources when they are limited and competing demands exist. Managers must make judgments to prioritize and balance competing needs.

The final stage of project management that involves monitoring and controlling the project's progress to ensure it stays on track and within budget.

A technique using diagrams and time estimates to identify the most crucial activities in a project, known as the 'critical path'.

A set of crucial activities whose completion strongly affects the overall project timeline.

A method for planning and managing complex projects by identifying and analyzing the relationships between tasks and their estimated duration.

Visual representations that show the interconnectedness of tasks in a project, highlighting dependencies and timelines.

Graphical representations that illustrate the timeline of a project, showing the scheduled start and end dates of each task.

A method for managing and controlling resources by focusing on the critical path activities, where any delays will impact the project timeline.

A visual representation of project tasks, activities, or events, illustrating the sequence in which they need to be completed. It's a crucial tool for project scheduling and planning, helping identify the critical path, potential bottlenecks, and dependencies between tasks.

Any individual operation that uses resources and has a start and end point. It is represented by an arrow on a network diagram.

Activities that must be finished before another activity can start. Like a prerequisite for a class, predecessor activities set the stage for the following activity.

Activities that can only begin once one or more other activities are finished. They directly follow the completion of predecessor activities.

Activities that can happen at the same time. They don't depend on each other's completion.

An activity that doesn't use resources, but is used to illustrate the technological dependence between activities. It's a placeholder to maintain the correct order.

In a network diagram, activities progress from lower-numbered nodes to higher-numbered nodes, signifying the forward flow of time.

The numbering scheme in a network diagram should start with the initial event (usually node 1) and proceed sequentially as the network is developed.

Activities in a network diagram should begin at one node and finish at another, following the direction of the arrows.

The numbering sequence in a network diagram should reflect the logical order of activities and their dependencies.

Network diagrams use nodes to represent activities and arrows to show the sequence or direction of activities.

A project management technique developed by DuPont and Remington Rand in the 1950s. It uses deterministic activity times to create a network of precedence relationships, helping to determine the critical path and project completion time.

A project management technique developed by the U.S. Navy in 1958 for the Polaris missile program. It uses probabilistic activity times to create a network of precedence relationships. This allows more flexibility and accounts for uncertainty in project timelines.

CPM and PERT are network-based techniques used to manage and schedule projects. They both help to determine the critical path, which is the sequence of tasks that directly impacts the project duration.

A key difference is that CPM uses deterministic activity times meaning each task has a set duration while PERT uses probabilistic activity times. It means tasks are estimated with a range of possible completion times.

A visual representation of project tasks and their dependencies. In CPM, tasks are represented as nodes, and their relationships as arrows connecting the nodes.

A visual representation of project tasks and their dependencies. In PERT, tasks are represented as arrows, and their relationships as nodes connecting the arrows.

The sequence of tasks that directly influences the project duration. Any delay in a critical path task directly affects the overall project timeline.

CPM is typically used for projects with repetitive tasks and predictable durations. PERT is preferred for projects with unpredictable tasks and durations, especially those with research and development components.

A network diagram that represents activities as nodes and dependencies as arrows. It's like a flow chart showing the order of tasks.

A network diagram that represents activities as arrows and dependencies as nodes. It's like a roadmap showing how tasks flow.

A task that has no predecessors; it can begin immediately.

A task that has no successors; it marks the end of the project.

A relationship between tasks where one task cannot begin until another task is completed.

PERT and CPM are powerful project management methods that break down large projects into smaller manageable tasks. They're used to understand dependencies, identify critical paths, and allocate resources effectively.

PERT and CPM help you analyze the most important tasks that directly affect your project's timeline. These tasks are called "critical path" activities, and they require extra attention to ensure on-time completion.

PERT and CPM are designed to calculate the amount of "wiggle room" you have for each task. This "slack time" indicates how much a task can be delayed without impacting the project's overall deadline.

PERT and CPM can help you track your project's progress and identify potential problems early. This allows you to make adjustments and minimize delays.

One limitation of PERT/CPM is that it works best when each project task is clearly defined, independent from others, and relatively stable in its requirements.

PERT/CPM assumes that tasks have specific dependencies and can't be started before others. If these dependencies are not clearly defined, it can impact the accuracy of the analysis.

While critical paths are important, sometimes PERT/CPM can overemphasize them, leading to a narrow focus on those activities. It's important to balance the critical path with other important aspects of the project.

PERT and CPM have proven to be effective across a wide range of industries, from construction to space exploration, helping organizations plan, schedule, and optimize their projects.