Making a Party out of Project Management: Chapter 4 - Paying for the Party - Part 1 of 2

               As a thank you to her friends, Abby came up with an idea to “pay” them for their help. She wanted to surprise them after the party with a carnival ride punch card for the fair that would be in town the next weekend. Would this fit within the cost constraint set by her parents? There were a few different prices to choose from, and she thought it would be great since the fair was such a special event for them every year. To get it all worked out, Abby made a plan to determine how much the project would cost with everything purchased and then added to that the cost of getting a punch card for each of her friends.

Making a Party out of Project Management: Chapter 3 - Figuring Out the Details - Part 4 of 4

               The next day, Abby continued to work on the schedule of setting up the party. Most of the work on this was done, but she needed to make sure everything could get done in time for the party. To do this, Abby would calculate a very important timeline in project management known as the critical path. The critical path is the absolute minimum amount of time required to complete all the work for a project from start to finish, and any delays in the tasks on the critical path will cause a delay in when the project is finished. If you want to finish a project as soon as possible, what are the tasks that all have to happen one right after another with no break in between them?

Making a Party out of Project Management: Chapter 3 - Figuring Out the Details - Part 3 of 4

               With the requirements and scope in mind, Abby was ready to start developing a project schedule for her team to use. Would they be able to fit all the scope they had planned into the time left before the party? If not, Abby would have to identify what would be the easiest thing to cut out of the party, but even that would be a hard task and she really didn’t want to do that. De-scoping a project is never easy, but especially when it would take away from the fun of something like a birthday party.