1. What is total float?

2. What are the difference between free float and total float?
3. What is a constraint?
4. What are the difference between NS Project and Primavera?
S. How to load cost S resource in a program?
6. What is WBS?
7. What is a milestone? What are the types of milestone?
8. What are the difference between flag and milestone activity?
3. What is a critical activity?
10. What is resource allocation and leveling?
11. What is a Baseline Program?
12. What are BSWS, BSWP, and ACWP?
13. What are Sv and Cv?
14. What is a Budget and how do you compare budget against Actual cost?
1S. What is an S - Curve?
16. What is the difference between P3.1, P3E, and PS etc.
17. What is an open end activity?
18. How often you update your program?

1. What is total float?
The amount of time that an activity can slip without delaying the end of the project. Usually computed as TF =
LF - EF.


2. What are the difference between free float and total float?
FF is a special type of TF. Whereas TF is the amount of time that an activity can slip without delaying the end of
the project, FF is the amount of time that an activity can slip without delaying the early dates of a successor.


3. What is a constraint?
A limitation that reduces the efficiency with which a project can be accomplished. Scheduling constraints come in
three main falvours: NET, NLT and ON, standing for No Earlier Than, No Later Than, and (surprisingly!) On.
These are input to a schedule, are usually calendarbased, and override the predecessor/successor logic, thus
often causing positive or negative float on the longest path. Negative float needs to be resolved, and often is by
compromising on other parts of the plan.

Resource availability is another type of constraint that can delay a project's schedule and efficiency.

!n general, constraints should not be input to the schedule until after the schedule ahs been optimized through
critical path analysis, as it is important to be able to gauge the impact of a constraint from the Newtonian"
constraints of the work.


4. What are the difference between NS Project and Primavera?
The same as between a vespa and a Hummer. (Sometimes a vespa can be more useful!)


S. How to load cost S resource in a program? Through the WBS, in a process called activitybased resource
assignments, or ABRA. Assigned resources should be overheadburdened to get an accurate picture of costs.

!t is important to note that cost can be assigned, tracked and managed at a higher level than schedule or
resources - a euro is a euro is a euro, but both resources and schedule dates are specific, and need to be
managed with greater specificity.


6. What is WBS?
Work breakdown structure, a hierarchical format for identifying, displaying, reporting, and changing project
work. Since the WBS is the skeleton" of work on which the resource, cost, schedule information is draped, it is
the principle tool for implementing
scope/cost/schedule integration.


7. What is a milestone? What are the types of milestone?
A milestone is an event. Activitydriven milestones are usually entered into PN software as activities with
durations of zero. Since milestones have no duration, once they are reached they are immediately in the past. !t
is therefore good practice to name activities using the past participle of the verb (i.e., Test component" =
activity, Component tested" = milestone.


8. What are the difference between flag and milestone activity?
No idea !'ve never heard the term flag activity.


3. What is a critical activity?
Although the term may be misused (i.e., with other meanings), a critical activity is one that is on the longest
path.


10. What is resource allocation and leveling?
Resource allocation is assigning resources to activities (ABRA). Leveling is changing activity schedules to get rid
of utilization spikes" and use resources more efficiently". There are two different flavours" of leveling: time
constrained and resourceconstrained.

Time constrained leveling attempts to remove the resource utilization spikes/bottlenecks without delaying
activities beyond an input date (often the CPN completion date, which means that no activity is delayed beyond
its float).

Resourceconstrained leveling delays activities, if necessary, beyond their float(s) in order to reduce utilization
levels, period by period, to availability levels.

The Total Project Control (TPC) methodology incorporates a resourceleveling metric called the CLUB, or Cost of
leveling with Unresolved Bottlenecks. This is the amount by which project expected value is reduced PLUS the
cost by which the projects Narching Army" costs (Overhead and LOEs) increase due to the delay caused by
resource constraints. The CLUBs can be used to justify the additional resources that would make the bottlenecks
go away.


11. What is a Baseline Program?
! don't know that precise term. The baseline plan is the commitments in terms of product, cost, and schedule,
both at project completion and at key interim points. On a fixed price, fixed deadline, contract, the delta between
the baseline plan and the working plan is management reserve and profit.

Changes to the baseline plan (rebaselining") is usually only permitted if both customer and contractor agree,
and usually occur in the event of a mutuallyagreed scope increase.

Earned value tracking and analysis is usually performed based on the baseline plan.


12. What are BSWS, BSWP, and ACWP? First, it's BCWS and BCWP.
These three acronyms are earned value terms that stand for Budgeted Cost for Work Scheduled (planned value,
or Pv in the PNBOK Cuide's in my opinion illadvised neologisms), Budgeted Cost for Work Performed (earned
value, or Ev), and Actual Cost for Work Performed (actual cost, or AC).

Despite the terminology, it is crucial to understand that earned value has NOTH!NC to do with value - it's about
COST, as the letter C" in the three original acronyms shows.

BCWS is what was budgeted for each work package as scheduled.
BCWP is the sum of the budgets of all completed activities/milestones.
ACWP is the sum of what it actually cost to complete each of the work packages/milestones.


13. What are Sv and Cv?
Sv is schedule variance, computed as BCWP - BCWS, or the budgets for all activities/milestones accomplished as
of a given date minus the budgets for what was scheduled to have been accomplished by that date. !t should be
noted that Sv (and it's corollary SP!, or BCWP divided by BCWS) can be a very distorting metric, primarily
because the BCWS weights are usually loaded onto the early dates, where noncritical activities have float. This
means that starting or completing a bigbudget activity that has a large amount of float will weigh much more
heavily on the Sv (and SP!) than a smallbudget activity that is on the critical path, despite that fact that the
latter is much more important to meeting schedule.

Cv is cost variance, computed as BCWP - ACWP, or the budgets for all activities/milestones accomplished as of a
given date minus what was actually spent to accomplish them. Cv also has a corollary index, CP!, or BCWP
divided by ACWP. This shows how much of the budgeted work you have been accomplishing for every dollar
actually spent, and is an excellent metric for forecasting future cost profiles on a given project.


14. What is a Budget and how do you compare budget against Actual cost?
Budget is the monetary amount assigned for resources to accomplish the work packages. Actual cost is the
monetary amount in resource usage that it actually took.


1S. What is an S - Curve?
An Scurve is the cumulative cost function plotted on a histogram, which can vaguely resemble the letter S.
BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP are frequently plotted and compared on a histogram as separate and shadowing" S
curves.


16. What is the difference between P3.1, P3E, and PS etc.
They are different versions of Primavera, but you'll need to get a a description of the detailed differences from
someone else.


17. What is an open end activity?
!'m not sure exactly how you are using the term. !'ve heard it used for both activities with uncertain expected
scope and no specific budget. !'ve also heard it used in scheduling, for an activity that has no FS or FF
successors (i.e., successors of its finish).


18. How often you update your program?
Do you mean your baseline? !t varies from project to project, depending on reporting/progressing periods.
However, the working schedule should be updated on a continuous basis, as each activity is started or finished.


13. What is the difference between Retained Logic S Override Logic?
! don't know. Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?


20. What is the difference between Continuous S !nterruptible scheduling?
Ditto.


21. What is the no. of activities that u monitor S how do u make the update?
! sure hope it's all, or at least all that have a variance!


(#22 #24 ! will leave to someone else.)

22. How do u measure S compare the progress?

23. Briefly outline the process you follow to build S agree a baseline construction plan.

24. When updating a plan, what key people and/or systems would you expect to need information from? What, if
any, analysis of the updated programme would you perform? Who would you distribute your work to?


2S. Briefly outline the benefits to a project of a well designed and maintained plan.
A wellmaintained plan provides a CPS system that (1) guides the project team, (2) identifies variances as soon
as they occur, (3) provides the project with an efficient way to recalculate the best route to recovery whenever
a variance occurs.


26. Cive an example of a mistake you have made when planning. What were the consequences? What did you
learn from the episode?
! will only reply that the greatest mistake in planning is not to plan, or not to plan in sufficient detail.