Question from Your Fellow Student

Question

Hi Mr. Tang
Good afternoon to you.

I would like to ask some info & opinion from Mr. Tang, about our Managing Project - Task 1.
We should use Mr.Tang 's teaching way or use the "Field and Keller" (that Task 1 instruction had mention) or both ways also can, to draw up the activity on the node diagram for Task 1 Question 2 & 3.

Sorry to ask this again because we hear some our classmate, they say that last time their ex-senior was follow Mr.Tang's way to do the activity on node diagram, and they failed this paper in the end.

I would like to apologize & i am not means here to call to account Mr. Tang's teaching way, but just would like to understand more & clearly, as some of us start to worry, as we already finish task 1 in early.

Thanks & best regards.

Reply

Having re-visited the text by Field & Keller and comparing with my lecture notes, I can say that the 'essential methodology' required in the assignment is similar as to what I have presented in the class. These include:

1.) The use the 'Activity-On-Node' or AON method;

2.) The use of forward pass & backward pass to determine all the timings (i.e. EST, LST, EFT, LFT);

3.) The requirement to enter all timings as DAYS, not as dates;

I think the main confusion lies in the way the Activity Box in my notes differ from the Activity Box given in the text.

As you can see from the two types of activity box, the information presented in the activity boxes are exactly the same (i.e. the activity name, duration, EST, LST, EFT, LFT and float).

The difference lies only in the arrangement of the information in each boxes . Moreover, what I call simply as 'float' in my notes are known as 'total float' in the text.

If students feel more comfortable in following the design of the activity box as in the text, you are encouraged to do so. It only involves a change of the design of the boxes, the information is the same. I will leave the choice to you. What is more important is to put in a legend in your diagram to explain what each information means in your boxes so that your answer is concise and clear.

Most of the students from previous batches were using diagrams with the activity boxes I presented in my notes; therefore it is very unlikely that only some failed just because of using activity box of different design from that in the text.

Last but not least, I have mentioned that in the study of Project Management, different books and texts tend to use different diagrams and words to illustrate the same things. As such, it is very easy for students to get themselves confused with the subject.

I hope that this will clarify this query. Please feel free to raise this up in our next lecture if more clarification is required.