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o Advice regarding mid-semester examination

Dear class,
I hope your preparation is coming along well for all the courses that you're taking this semester. Here
are some tips for preparing well for the Project Management examination.
In the first part of the examination, you'll have to answer True/False type questions (requiring
reasons if your choose False as an answer) and other MCQs. Each True/False question will be
worth 2 marks. A wrong choice with well-articulated reason, or a correct choice with a reason
reflecting weak conceptual grasp will score 1 mark. Correct choice with correct/compelling reason
will score full 2 marks.
The second part will be mostly descriptive. You will be required to answer some questions based on
the basic concepts of project manahgement best practices. You must answer each question in this
part with at least one example. Logical inference or hypothetical scenarios will also suffice in
absence of commonly known practical examples. The answers should preferably be concise. Longer
answers do not necessarily synonymise valuable substance.
Some tips
When preparing for the examination over the next few days, keep thinking of examples of every
major concept as they apply in your own life. If you note down these examples somewhere, these
will stay in your mind for longer and you can quote these in your exam.
Pay special attention to the logical relationship between knowledge areas and phases in project life
cycle. The figure on page 60 of the PMBOK 5 gives a very good visual of such relationship. If you
clearly understand this relationship, you are very likely to be comfortable in decrypting any fuzzy end
of a project management complexity.
You may specify a page in your answer book for rough work even for the descriptive questions.
There you can sketch your thoughts and make bullet points / highlights / outline of your ideal answer.
Then you can write your final answer neatly and concisely in the main part of your answer book.
The main premise of the course is defined by what we discuss in the class and the way we progress
there. I was told that the Kathy Schwalbe book was not available in the market so I stopped
suggesting readings from there. However, if you could get hold of it, then that would be the easiest
and most relevant book to prepare for exams.
PMBOK is also very closely relevant, though PMBOK may not be an easy read. If you choose to
read through PMBOK then you may choose to exclude the parts present in it which were neither
discussed nor referred to in the class.
For any more questions, please feel free to email me or hold your peace till we meet again in class
this Thursday.
Happy reading.
Best,
Majid
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31 March - 6 April
o Network DiagramsFile
(seen by 39)

o Further advice for mid-semester examination
Dear students,
This is in addition to the previous advice on how to prepare for the examination and does not
substitute the need for reading.
You'll have two parts of the paper; the first part will be MCQs worth almost half of your total mid-term
marks, while the second part will be based on a few brief descriptive yet conceptual questions, and a
numerical. The numerical I believe is very easy to solve PROVIDED that you think clearly. I would
strongly encourage rough work as the devil is in the detail of this question and attempting it directly
could make you miss that fine detail. If it is any relief then do note that you will not be required to
make a network diagram. However, you must be able to interpret a network diagram, which you'll be
more comfortable at if you HAVE mastered drawing such diagrams yourself. For practice, you may
have a look at the problems at the end of Project Management chapter in Heizer's book on
Operations Management or Time Management chapter in Schwalbe's book.
Good luck!
Best,
Majid

Dependency (project management)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about project management dependency. For other uses, see Dependency
(disambiguation).
In a project network, a dependency is a link amongst a project's terminal elements.
[citation needed]

The A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) does not define the
term dependency, but refers for this terms to a logical relationship, which in term is defined
as dependency between two activities, or between an activity and a milestone.
[1]

Contents
[hide]
1 Standard types of dependencies
o 1.1 Leads and Lags
2 Example
3 Advanced cases of activities dependencies
o 3.1 Maximal-Type Relationships
4 Build dependency
5 See also
6 References
Standard types of dependencies[edit]
There are four standard types of dependencies:
1. Finish to start (FS)
A FS B = B can't start before A is finished, or in another words Activity A must be
completed before Activity B can begin.
[2]


(Foundations dug) FS (Concrete poured)
2. Finish to finish (FF)
A FF B = B can't finish before A is finished or in another words Activity A must be
complete before Activity B can finish.
[2]


(Last chapter written) FF (Entire book written)
3. Start to start (SS).
A SS B = B can't start before A starts or in another words Activity B can start after
Activity A has started.
[2]


(Project work started) SS (Project management activities started)
4. Start to finish (SF)
A SF B = B can't finish before A starts

(New shift started) SF (Previous shift finished)
Finish-to-start is considered a "natural dependency". The Practice Standard for
Scheduling recommends, that "Typically , each predecessor activity would finish prior to the start of
its successor activity (or activities)(known as finish-to-start (FS) relationship). Sometimes it is
necessarily to overlap activities; an option may be selected to use start-to-start (SS), finish-to-finish
(FF) or start-to-finish (SF) relationships....Whenever possible, the FS logical relationship should be
used. If other types of relationships are used, they shall be used sparingly and with full
understanding of how the relationships have been implemented in the scheduling software being
used. Ideally, the sequence of all activities will be defined in such a way that the start of every
activity has a logical relationship from a predecessor and the finish of every activity has a logical
relationship to a successor".
[2]

SF is rarely used, and should generally be avoided. Microsoft recommends to use SF dependency
for just-in-time scheduling.
[3]
It can be easily show however, that this would only work in
case resource levelling is not used, because resource levelling can delay a successor activity (an
activity, which shall be finished just-in-time) in such a way, that it will finish later than the start of its
logical predecessor activity, thus not fulfilling the just-in-time requirement.
There are three kinds of dependencies with respect to the reason for the existence of dependency:
1. Causal (logical)
It is impossible to edit a text before it is written
It is illogical to pour concrete before you dig the foundations of a building
2. Resource constraints
It is logically possible to paint four walls in a room simultaneously but there is only one
painter
3. Discretionary (preferential)
I want to paint the living room before painting the dining room, although I could do it the
other way round, too
Early critical path-derived schedules often reflected only on causal (logical) or discretionary
(preferential) dependencies because the assumption was that resources would be available or could
be made available. Since at least the mid-1980s, competent project managers and schedulers have
recognized that schedules must be based on resource availability. The critical chain method
necessitates taking into account resource constraint-derived dependencies as well.
Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_(project_management)