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Seat No.: Enrolment
GUJARAT TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
MBA SEMESTER- 4 • EXAMINATION WINTER 2018
Subject Code:2840006 Date:05/12/2018
Subject Name: Project Management
Time: 02:30pm To 05:30pm Total Marks: 70
Instructions:
1. Attempt all questions.
2. Make suitable assumptions wherever necessary.
3. Figures to the right indicate full marks.
Q.1 Select the most appropriate choice for the following MCQs:
The first step in defining project scope is to set
Milestones
Conceptualizing
Objective
Human resources
The chart, which represent various activities involved in the project, is
known as
Work Package
Work Breakdown Structure
Responsibility matrix
None of the above
Research shows the most frequently mentioned barrier to project success
is
Not enough budget resources
Poor performance by team members
Weak project leadership
Poorly defined scope
A project must have
A starting time
An ending time
Budget
All of the above
The important section of the final project report that new project teams
are likely to find most useful is the
Recommendation
Lesson learned
Analysis
Strategic Objectives
An expected output over the life of a project would be classified as
A deliverable
An end object
A product
None of the above
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Briefly define/discuss the following concepts:
Premature project closure
Responsibility metrics
Work Package
Characteristics of a good project manager
04
Why is the slack time important to a project manager? What is the difference
between free-float and total-float?
04
Q.2 A bicycle manufacturing company want to develop a new sports bicycle. For the
project, company need your valuable inputs as management consultant. Help the
company in defining the project scope.
07
What do you mean by work breakdown structure? Develop the WBS for a
project of producing Personal Computer for students.
07
OR
It is important for the project manager to align the WBS with the OBS of the
company. Discuss with example.
07
Q.3 Depict your understanding for project estimation. Also discuss the apportion
method the top-down approach for estimating times and costs.
07
How negotiation is important in project partnering? Justify with example. 07
OR
Q.3 You have to organize Fresher's Party for your juniors. What are the risk factors
involved in this? What measures will you take to cope up with?
07
Project audit is an important aspect in the project management and evaluating the
performance of project team and also the individual performance. Justify the
statement.
07
Q.4 What are the various types of ownership capital for Project financing? 07
Compare and Contrast Preference Shares and Debentures as a source of long
term fund.
07
OR
Q.4 Depict your understanding for PERT and CPM. Discuss the differences. Which
is more appropriate in uncertain situations?
07
Discuss the characteristics of a good project team. 07
Q.5 Case study
A small firm has been merged with a larger firm carrying a similar
product line of information technology consumer and industry products. One
major goal of the merger was to save costs by eliminating duplication and
improving management. Weeks before the merger, Lauren (not her real name)
had just been promoted to project officer director of the smaller firm. She
assumed her position would be absorbed into the project office of the large firm.
Mentally, Lauren was prepared to start job hunting. Maybe she should change
careers and go back to a job that used her bachelor's degree in political science.
Two weeks after the merger was finalized, others, including herself, received a
letter to report for an interview with the new company senior management
"conversion" vice president/ Lauren spent three days gathering materials to
substantiate all of her past accomplishments to demonstrate her management
skills, and to show her potential value to the new firm. When the bid day came,
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Lauren entered the office of the interviewer with approximately nine inches of
substantiating material. She was prepared!
The first few minutes were spent explaining her past roles in the firm, the
new project office, and other niceties. She explained to the VP she had all of the
materials with her to back up her statements and he could take them if he wished.
He replied, "I am not as interested in your past accomplishments as I am in your
possible future accomplishments. Here is the need. Projects eat up about 40
percent of our yearly expenses. We need to cut 10 million off those expenses. In
five minutes tell me how you will do it and how it will be verified."
Her last statement at end of of four minutes was: "I can give you five
million within the next year. Ten million is too big a stretch."
Her retort was, "Lauren, can you get five in six months?"
(Gulp.) "I m pretty sure I can."
"Congratulations, Lauren, you are now the new project office director of
this continental division."
1. In 500 words, write what you believe Lauren could have used as key
points to get the position. Also discuss about the appropriateness of the
title.
2. If you are placed in position of Lauren, what would be your action plan?
OR
Q.5 To work as a responsible project manager is atough task. Tom Bray was mulling
over today's work schedule as he looked across the bay at the storm that was
rolling in. It was the second official day of the Pegasus project and now the real
work was about to begin.
Pegasus was a two-month renovation project for AtlantiCorp, a major financial
institution headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Tom's group was responsible
for installing the furniture and equipment in the newly renovated accounts
receivable department on the third floor. The Pegasus project was a dedicated
project team formed out of AtlantiCorp facilities department with Tom as the
project lead.
Tom was excited because this was his first major league project and he was
looking forward to practicing a new management style—MBWA, aka
management by wandering around. He had been exposed to MBWAin a business
class in college, but it wasn't until he attended an AtlantiCorp leadership training
seminar that he decided to change how he managed people. The trainer was
devout MBWA champion ("You can't manage people from a computer!").
Furthermore, the testimonies from his peers reinforced the difference
that MBWA can make when it comes to working on projects.
Tom had joined the facilities group at AtlantiCorp five years earlier after working
for EDS for six years. He quickly demonstrated technical competences and good
work habits. He was encouraged to take all the internal project management
workshops offered by AtlantiCorp. On his last two projects he served as assistant
project manager responsible for procurement and contract management.
He had read books about the soft side of project management and MBWA made
sense—after all, people not tools get projects done. His boss had told him he
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needed to refine his people skills and work on developing rapport with team
members. MBWA seemed like a perfect solution.
Tom reviewed the list of team member names; some of the foreign names were
real tongue twisters. For example, one of his better workers was from Thailand
and her name was Pinyarat Sirisomboonsuk. He practiced saying "Pin-ya-r?t
See-r?-som-boon-sook." He got up, tucked in his shirt, and walked out of his
office and down to the floor where his team was busy unloading equipment.
Tom said "Hi" to the first few workers he met until he encountered Jack and
three other workers. Jack was busy pulling hardware out of a box while his
teammates were standing around talking. Tom blurted, "Come on guys, we've got
work to do." They quickly separated and began unloading boxes.
The rest of the visit seemed to go well. He helped Shari unload a heavy box and
managed to get an appreciative grin from Pinyarat when he almost correctly
pronounced her name. Satisfied, Tom went back up to his office thinking
that MBWA wouldn't be that tough to do.
After responding to e-mail and calling some vendors, Tom ventured back out to
see how things were going downstairs. When he got there, the floor was weirdly
quiet. People were busy doing their work and his attempts at generating
conversation elicited stiff responses.
1. What do you think is going on at the end of this case?
2. What should Tom do next and why?
3. What can be learned from this case?