Exam 11: Advanced Topics in Planning and Scheduling: Agile and Critical Chain

XYZ project organization has one workstation that is capable of generating the drawings that their clients study before accepting XYZ's bid. XYZ is currently in the midst of three proposal projects and knows exactly when it will need to use the workstation. All other work to be done, both before and after the workstation is used, is scheduled such that it flows to the workstation and keeps it busy. Resources used after this step are less critical; so while the subsequent work and resources are important, they aren't viewed with the same reverence as the workstation. This is an example of:

Which of these is difficult when Agile Project Management is used?

Compose a haiku using three or more of the key terms in Agile PM.

A project is represented by the activity durations (estimated at 90% likelihood of completion) and precedence requirements shown in the table. What is the length of the feeder buffer if this project is managed using critical chain methodology?

A feeder buffer is a buffer that is created for a non-critical path activity.

A system-wide constraint is called a:

A project consists of four consecutive tasks that have average duration and worst-case duration estimates (in days) as shown in the table. Use Newbold's model to determine the aggregated buffer of one standard deviation for this project.

A project consists of four consecutive tasks that have average duration and worst-case duration estimates (in days) as shown in the table. Use Goldratt's model to determine the aggregated buffer for this project.

List any three criticisms of critical chain project management and rank them in order from the greatest to smallest threat to universal adoption of CCPM.

Which adjective is most appropriate for Agile Project Management?

Refactoring is the continuous process of streamlining the design and improving code; not waiting until final testing to edit and fix code for a software project.

A project is represented by the activity durations (estimated at 90% likelihood of completion) and precedence requirements shown in the table. What is the length of the project buffer if this project is managed using critical chain methodology?

What is the difference between the critical path and the key system constraint?

What is the motivation for programming in pairs using one terminal? How can this approach be more productive than having each of the two programmers at his own terminal?

Successful implementation of CCPM depends on first:

Your next project consists of 5 consecutive 10-day activities, each estimated by a different worker in your organization. You have all secretly added your own safety margin of 4 days into your estimates and you watch in horror as the project manager whips out his copy of Critical Chain and slams it on the table midway through their first project meeting. "I'm taking your buffers and making them my own," he bellows. You recoil from this news and do some quick mental arithmetic. Now that you know the project manager is a Goldratt disciple, you know that the new project buffer will be:

In Agile Project Management, a sprint backlog is essentially a:

Which statement about critical chain methodology is BEST?

What are the five steps behind the Theory of Constraints methodology and what takes place in each?

A project consists of four activities with information as shown in the table. What is the overall variance of the project?