Exam 9: Project Scheduling: Networks, Duration Estimation, and Critical Path

In order to reduce the length of a project, it would be wise to shorten:

An activity has an optimistic time estimate of 25 days, a most likely estimate of 29 days, and a pessimistic estimate of 34 days. What is the expected duration of the activity?

The late start time should be calculated using a forward pass through the network.

A gentleman farmer maniacally works on academic projects to raise funds for his true passion, farming. He has identified seven tasks and developed three time estimates (all in days) of the next big project on the farm, replacing the fence at the comedy pasture. Tasks, precedence requirements, and time estimates are shown in the table. What is the expected completion time of the project?

Project Test Bank is composed of activities we will refer to as A, B, C, and D for convenience (and lack of creativity). Durations and precedence requirements are shown in the table. Each of these activities can be conveniently laddered into two sub-activities of equal duration, so activity C in the original project becomes two activities, C1 and C2, each of which lasts 7 days. The first half of each activity serves as the predecessor to its second half and the first half of the original following activity. What is the difference in the late start time for activity C in the original project and activity C1 in the laddered project?