Assignment
FOUR
Objective: Sharpen your scheduling and
editing skills!
Assignment: Download the file RemodelSOL file from course website. What we are going to do is turn this into a Kitchen
Project by modifying a bathroom project file.
In fact, you have decided to do the work yourself and are not going to
use any subcontractors. Based on this,
you have some changes to make to the task duration for several of the tasks as
well. Follow the steps below and turn in
the completed file, which carl
will compare to a solution file.
Suggestions
and Observations:
1. Delete
Tasks 3 (“Request and obtain quotes from contractors”) and 7 (“Install tub/shower unit”). There will now be a total of 15 tasks in your
project. Note: If you delete task 3
first, remember that the tasks will shift and the task numbering will change
for task #s 4 – 17 and become #s 3 – 16, so in that case Install tub/shower
unit would become task #6. It you delete
the tub task first when it is still task 7, the numbering for task 3 will not
be affected.
2. The task
called “Paint” should now be task 9.
Rename the task to “Paint Window and
Door Trim”. Change the task’s
duration to 2 hours.
3. Delete
the “Install toilet” and “Hang Mirror(s)” tasks, which should be tasks 12 and
13, respectively.
4. Rename
the “Install sink(s)” task to “Install Kitchen Sink”. Insert a new task between this task and the
“Install ceramic tile” task. Name this
new task “Install Garbage Disposal” and give it a duration
of 2 hours. We are going to assume that
you had a garbage disposal before and are replacing it. The duration for this task will include the
time to install a new duplex outlet in an existing electrical box under the
sink.
5. Change
the duration of the “Meet with the Bank to apply for a loan” task to be 4
hours.
6. Add a
Milestone called “Financing Obtained”, which will assume your loan is approved,
between the “Meet with the Bank to apply
for a loan” task and the “Tear out existing fixtures, cabinets and floor
coverings task”.
7. Change the “Install cabinets” task name to “Install
Cabinets & Countertops” and change the duration to 1 day.
8. You have
decided that you want to track the project in 2 phases. The first phase is obtaining financing and
the second phase is performing the work.
Insert a task above task 1 and call it “Procure Financing”. Add another task after the “Financing
Obtained” milestone you inserted (in step
5 above) and name that task “Construction Phase”. You should now have 17 total tasks. Do not worry about setting a
duration for either of these tasks at this time. They are going to be summary tasks, so their
duration will be determined for you by Project 2000.
9.
Make your two new tasks of “Procure Financing” and
“Construction Phase” summary tasks. Hint:
Highlight tasks 2 through 4, which should be the 3 financial tasks, and
click the indent button. Highlight tasks
6 through 17 and then click the indent button.
This will effectively make your two new tasks (1 and 5) summary tasks.
10. Add a
completion milestone at the very end of the project, called “All Work
Complete”. Make sure it is at the same
level as the summary tasks, or else it will be considered to be part of the
“Construction Phase” summary task. Be
sure to set the duration to 0. You will
now have a total of 18 tasks in your project.
Note: By adding this task at the
end AFTER we created the summary tasks and the outline levels, this new
completion milestone task assumes the same outline level as the task
immediately above it. You will have to outdent this new task to insure it is at the same outline
level as your two summary tasks. If it
were part of the Construction Phase summary task, it would not necessarily be
wrong, but typically you want your project completion milestone outside of any
summary grouping. Completion milestones
for a phase could be either within the summary task, or at the same level of
the summary task. Since this is a small
project, we are just demonstrating putting milestones both within a phase and
outside of a phase.
11. Create
dependencies. We are just going to set
all the relationships Finish-to-Start.
Highlight the subtasks under the Financial phase
(tasks 2 through 4) and click the “Link Tasks” button. Highlight the construction subtasks only (not
the completion milestone, so this would be tasks 6 though 17) and click the
“Link Tasks” button.
12. Now click
on task 1, the first summary task in the project. Hold down the {Ctrl} key on your keyboard as
you click on the “Construction Phase” summary task and also on the “All Work
Complete” milestone. After clicking on
the completion milestone, you may release the {Ctrl} key. Note that tasks 1, 5 and 18 are now
selected. Click the “Link Tasks” button.
13. You have
decided that you want the paint to dry for a full 24 hours before moving on to
the next task. It may not need this long
to dry, but this is what you have decided to do, nonetheless. Add a 24-hour lag time to the successor task
to insure you do not begin it before this 24-hour period is up. Hint: Double-click task 14 “Put up Wallpaper” to display the Task Information Dialog Box. Click on the Predecessors tab. If you have followed all the previous steps,
task 13 should be listed as the predecessor with 0 lag. In the lag column for predecessor task 13,
enter 1ed. You may be thinking you could
have simply entered 1d in the lag column to get the same basic result in terms
of time of day that task 14 will start.
If we are waiting for paint to dry, this could take place over a weekend
as well, so we do not want to be limited to using only work days for drying
time.
14. Finally,
upon thinking over the working days versus non-working days, you realize this
is a side project for you. You could
take a vacation to complete the project, but have decided that is not a great
way to spend your vacation days. You
have decided to work on the project on weekends and each weeknight. Since this is your kitchen, you want to get
done as soon as possible. The financing
phase could take place on normal weekdays, so you decide to create another task
calendar just for the construction tasks only.
Call your task calendar “Construction” and base it from a copy of the Standard
Calendar. Set your working time for 12
hours available on all Saturdays and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and all
weeknights from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. only.
Apply this task calendar to all construction phase tasks (numbers 5
through 17).
15. Tasks 6,
7, 9, 12 and 15 have a duration of 1 day. Since you are using non-standard working
times for your “days”, change all these items in the construction phase that
have a duration of 1 day to read 8 hrs.
Thinking of the duration in terms of hours will hopefully help the
project schedule’s start and finish dates and times make more sense to you.
16. Choose
the Tools menu, and then Options. Click
on the View tab and for the “Date format:” selection, choose the very top
option in the list which reads “1/31/00 12:33 PM”. Now widen your start and finish columns so
you can see the complete date and time for each task.
Note: when you make the change in this Options Dialog Box, this is an
application-level setting, so all project files opened on that computer will
display this date format until you change it.
You can change the date format for a specific table. On the View menu, point to Table, and then
click More Tables. In the Tables list,
click the table for which you want to format the date, and then click Edit. In the Date format box (look towards the
bottom of the table edit dialog box), click the date format you want to
use. Go ahead and make this change for
the Entry table Date format to be “1/31/00 12:33 PM” to ensure this format
persists in your solution file.
17. Save your
work and email your solution to carl
@ carlr@sandiego.edu.