The text discusses a straightforward project with six activities that serve as examples for various project management techniques. These techniques include identifying project activities, estimating activity time, creating the project network, determining the critical path using PERT/CPM, evaluating the probability of on-time completion using the critical path, establishing the critical chain, and assessing the probability of on-time completion using the critical chain. The case study can be expanded to explore additional topics such as activity crashing and strategically placing buffers in the critical chain network.
The main goal is to demonstrate the application of the critical chain in single project management. We will use the scenario of "knocking over" a Jewelry store as an example. Some instructors may prefer using a different project, such as writing a group
...paper for class, to teach the concepts. In this scenario, students form groups of three, representing the three would-be felons. Their task is to plan a cat burglary instead of a direct confrontation. The burglary is planned for nighttime to take advantage of the longer police response time and the 50-minute intervals at which the night patrolman passes by. The Jewelry store has external and office alarms, as well as a safe with securities.
They are provided with Figure 1 and instructed to create a comprehensive list of tasks required to thoroughly clean the store. After a few minutes, their lists are compared to the following: A, disable the exterior alarm system; B, disable the office alarm system.
The estimated durations for each activity are as follows: 20 minutes to disable the exterior alarm system, 7 minutes to disable the office alarm system, 7 minutes to
crack and clean out the office safe, 14 minutes to crack the Jewelry safe, 4 minutes to stuff the contents of the Jewelry safe into bags, and 10 minutes to gather all of the loot and exit the premises. The total estimated time for all activities is 62 minutes. It is suggested to ask the students whether they should abort the plan due to the total time of the activities (62 minutes) exceeding the allowable time (50 minutes).
Students quickly learn that not all activities must be completed in a step-by-step fashion. Rather, certain activities can occur simultaneously, while others must be done in a specific technological sequence. The initial task is to establish the correct order to proceed. The first requirement is disabling the exterior alarm before commencing any other tasks. However, once inside the store, they find out that they can address the office alarm and safe concurrently with opening the Jewelry safe.
Together, I inform the students that they must leave the building as a group, emphasizing that they will either all be caught or all manage to escape without consequences. Following a conversation about organizing activities in a list, I proceed to introduce the activity-on-node approach for visualizing a project on a diagram.
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