The Scheduling Dilemma

Question 1

Is this a common situation for most companies or an exception to the rule?

Answer

Common!

Hydra - Intelligent Project Mangement Blog

5 Common Resource Planning Problems

#4: Projects are competing for resources

Most companies rarely have sufficient resources to staff all projects concurrently. The result is that projects effectively compete against each other, with resources assigned to a number of projects at the same time. This can cause bottlenecks, particularly where specialist skills are in high demand.

Question 2

Can policies be established as part of competitive bidding to alleviate the pain of this occuring on other possible contracts where contract go-ahead date is several months after contract?

Answer

Validity periods can be included in proposals to customers to allow for the seller to dictate how long the price is valid, based on a realistic forecast of resource planning.

Question 3

Is it possible to convince a client that the schedule (and possibly the budget) is just a rough guess during competitive bidding and finalization of the schedule (and budget) can be made only after go-ahead?

Answer

This can be challenging.

If the bid is presented as budgetary, this is feasible.

If the bid is presented as firm, there is much less flexibility of terms and price.

Question 4

What schedule compression techniques were considered in the case? Were there any techniques she did not consider?

Answer

Techniques Considered:

• Working overtime
• Potential for burnout; Not desired by workers
• Adding more resources
• No additional resources available
• Outsourcing some of the work
• Intellectual Property restrictions
• Working parallel processes rather than series
• Not feasible due to the nature of the work

Answer

Techniques Not Considered:

• Beginning work prior to go-ahead date
• Conduct a Lean Six Sigma event to identify and eliminate waste in processes
• Take on risk in certain areas by eliminating validation, verification, or quality management steps
• Others?

Question 5

Was Sarah correct in her analysis that these techniques probably would not work on her project?

Answer

Based on the information provided in the case, it can only be assumed that crashing and fast tracking would not work due to finite constraints.

It is possible, however, that requiring overtime, though not desirable, could work.

Question 6

If one of these techniques were to be used, which one has the greatest likelihood for possible schedule compression?

Answer

The technique with the greatest likelihood of success is the overtime option. Productivity would be at an increased risk, as well as morale, however, the job has to get done, and this is the only constraint with some flexibility.