Main and Resit examination revision guidelines CC2005 Revision - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Project Planning and Management Main and Resit examination revision guidelines

CC2005 Revision

• Exam paper

 choice of any three questions out of five  two hour paper  formula sheet provided  exam is 50% of the module  need to pass exam and coursework on aggregate at 40%  passing a resit component caps the component at 40%

CC2005 Revision

• Style of exam questions

 similar to past years  use of project management tools and techniques  justifications and recommendations  understanding definitions and use of terms  you will not be asked questions relating to the

detailed hands-on use of MS Project

Tools and Techniques

• What tools and techniques are available for:

 investigating issues of cost?  dealing with risk factors?  identifying the activities and tasks within a project?  resource allocation and scheduling?  planning and monitoring the project?

 estimating the resources/time for a software project?

 managing the project team?

Tools and techniques

• Make sure you know:

 how to use the tools and techniques  how to interpret the results  what the traps/pitfalls are...

...and how to avoid the “understandable mistakes”!

 justify why you would make one recommendation

rather than another (not simply on the basis of cost)

• How to manage risk?
• How to prioritise?
• consequence against probability
• impact, severity, likelihood
• Difference between containment action

and contingency plan?

• Who is responsible for monitoring risk?

• How are diagrams used to show



effect of risk



effect of containment action

• How are calculations used to show



impact of risk on effort and duration



impact of containment action on effort and duration

• How would you make your decision



effort & duration reduced or increased?



critical path affected?

Management and Leadership

Different leadership styles

different levels of involvement:

autocratic – democratic – laissez-faire

what are the key characteristics of each?

Motivation

different theories include:

Taylor, McGregor, Maslow, Alderfer, Herzberg "Happiness at Work Index" 2007 survey and later studies

what are the key factors of each theory?

• Teams
• Different team structures
• Functional structure
• Project structure
• Matrix structure

Organisation Hierarchy

• Dealing with costs
• Definition of terms
• Net Present Value, Apparent Value, etc?
• Use of calculations
• evaluate the cost of different options
• consider the appropriate number of years
• include any income /expenditure at the right time

• Making the decision
• which is cheapest?
• which is better value? (not always the cheapest)
• consider other appropriate factors:

help-line, training, documentation, reliability of supplier, response time for callout, obsolescence of equipment, maintenance costs for aging equipment, options to upgrade, other investment opportunities etc.

• Scheduling staff and activities

 use of Gantt charts  dependencies between activities  constraints affecting the schedule  PERT analysis

• calculating expected time
• impact on length of project

• Scheduling staff and activities

 use of Gantt charts  dependencies between activities (sequence)  constraints affecting the schedule  changing staff allocation to tasks  how many staff used per day?  what is the peak day for staff resources?

• Scheduling activities
• Use of network diagrams

 indicate activities in sequence  indicate activities in parallel  calculate the critical path

• PERT analysis

 calculating expected time  impact on length of project

• Use of resources

 how many staff used per day?  what is the peak day for staff resources?

General exam hints

• Practise answering questions in a time limit

 use examples from blog; change the values

• Plan your time: 3 questions in 2 hours

 maybe 35 minutes/question, 15 minutes for review  you might want to plan a short pause between answers

• Stick to the time you have allowed for each question

 if you get stuck - move on - come back to the answer later

• Check location, date and time: plan your journey

 visit the site beforehand  check exam track: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/examtrack/

General exam hints

• Follow the invigilators’ instructions

 leave bags where requested (usually front/back of hall)  have your student id card ready on the desk

• You may not

 join the exam more than 30 minutes after the start  leave the exam in the last 15 minutes

• For CC2005, you may use a calculator

 but not the calculator function on a mobile phone  make sure you have a calculator ready!

Any Questions?

Good Luck!

Further Reading

• Gray CF & Larson EW (2000) Project Management, McGraw-Hill
• Cadle J & Yeates D (2001) Project Management for Information Systems,

3rd edition, Prentice-Hall

• Yeates D & Cadle J (1996) Project Management for Information Systems,

2nd edition, Prentice-Hall

• Burke R (1999) Project Management: Planning and Control Techniques, 3rd

edition, Wiley (or other editions)