Project Management

By Girijesh Pathak National Insurance Academy, Pune There is a race ground with 15 racetracks. A team has to complete all the 15 tracks to complete the race. There are few tracks that can be done in the beginning. However for other tracks it is necessary to finish some other tracks and press the finish button then only the entrance gate opens. You can form your team of as many members as you want to finish the race in best possible time. The time required to complete a track and the tracks that needs to be completed before starting this track are given in the below table.

Track Time required in minutes Tracks to be completed before starting this track A 20 None B 40 None C 15 None D 35 A E 25 B F 30 C G 30 D H 15 E, F I 45 C J 35 G K 10 H L 15 I M 20 I N 20 K, L O 25 M Time required in changing the track or any other related activities are already included in the time given above. So, there is no need to consider any other time element. 1. Find the minimum time in which the race can be completed and for that what should be your team size. A team member can cover more than one track one after other.

2. Just before the start of the race, your team members inform you that they will be late by about 4 minutes. You can run any of the A, B, or C tracks. Which one you will run? Will it impact your team overall performance in the race? 3. You are given two cycles that can be used on any two tracks in the race. Use of cycle on a track reduces the time requirement for that track by 40%. In which two tracks would you use them to get the best race time? 4. Let there be another track P introduced in the race that needs to be completed before N can be started. However to start P it is necessary to finish track C. Time required to complete the track P is 50 minutes. What would be the impact of introduction of this track on your race completion time with and without cycle?