Commission a break-even study for the laser printer.
Very little in the way of concrete savings was identified, although there
was consensus that time could be compressed to the market launch date, but
at additional costs.
Lauren met with the marketing (Connor), production (Kim), and design
(Gage) managers, who yielded some ideas for cutting costs, but nothing
significant enough to have a large impact. Gage remarked, `wouldn want
to be the one to deliver the message to top management that their cost
estimate is $1,250,000 off! Good luck, Lauren.±. At this point, what would you do if you were the project manager?
2. Was top management acting correctly in developing an estimate?
3. What estimating techniques should be used for a mission-critical project
such as this?
Case 5.2
Post-Graduation Adventure
Josh and Mike met as roommates during freshman year at Macalester
College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite a rocky start they became best
friends. They are planning a two-week adventure together to celebrate their
graduation in June. Josh has never been to Europe and wants to visit France
or Spain. Mike spent a semester abroad in Aarhus, Denmark, and traveled
extensively in northern Europe. Even though Mike has never been to France
or Spain, he wants to go to someplace more exotic, like South Africa or
Vietnam. For the past week they have been arguing over where they should
go. Josh argues that it will cost too much to fly to South Africa or Vietnam,
while Mike counters that it will be much cheaper to travel in Vietnam or
South Africa once they are there. They agree that they can spend no more
than $3,500 each on the trip and could be gone for only two weeks.
One evening when they were arguing with each other over beers with
friends, Sara said, èy don you use what you learned in your project
management class to decide what to do?
osh and Mike looked at each
other and agreed that made perfect sense.
1. Assume you are either Mike or Josh; how would you go about making a
decision using project management methodology?
2. Looking first at only cost, what decision would you make?
3. After cost, what other factors should be considered before making a
decision?
page 164
Appendix 5.1
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter you should be able to:
A5-1
Use learning curves to improve task estimates.
LO A5-1
Use learning curves to improve task estimates.
Learning Curves for Estimating
A forecast estimate of the time required to perform a work package or task
is a basic necessity for scheduling the project. In some cases the manager
simply uses judgment and past experience to estimate work package time or
uses historical records of similar tasks.

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