Posted: September 14th, 2017

Explain the conflict that often exists between the engineering department and the parent organization.

No restriction on length requirement for each question.

1.    Explain the conflict that often exists between the engineering department and the parent organization.

2.    Name four benefits of project engineering management.

3.    Suppose that you have been assigned as the project engineer to execute a project that was selected using the sacred cow method of project selection.  The project sponsor is an executive who has been with the company for three years.  Based on past employment history, the average tenure of a senior executive at your company is 5 years.  After reviewing the project’s expectations and requirements, the project team has determined that the payback period will be 3.5 years.  What are the implications for you and the engineering team?

4.    When asked, “How do you motivate astronauts?”  A representative of NASA responded, “We don’t motivate them, but, boy, are we careful about whom we select.”  Discuss the implications of this statement for project managers seeking to motivate project team members.

5.    At the inception of a project, crises tend to be associated with resources.  Explain why this scenario could be common in some organizations.

6.    Identify four important outcomes associated with the project launch meeting.

7.    Described the general steps recommended by the authors for designing and using the WBS.

8.    Identify three basic causes for change in projects.

9.    Identify the three fundamental categories of conflict that occur during a project’s lifecycle.

10.    You are the engineering manager for a large defense contractor.  You were contacted by the chief financial officer that you must prepare next year’s bottom-up budget.  What is the process and what elements should you consider when preparing your budget?

11.    Explain why senior managers view the bottom-up budgeting process as being risky.

12.    Identify and describe the requirements traceability process from an initially received Statement of Work through the projects’ completion of its design phase.

13.    Describe a typical change control process.

14.    Suggest some reasons why an organization would support projects that show a significant incremental profit over direct costs but are not profitable when fully costed.

15.    Explain why it is important to evaluate non-critical paths that possess large variances and/or path times that are close to critical in duration.

16.    Your company manufactures high-dollar defense related equipment. Your manager notified you that 4 opportunities (possible projects) are ‘on the table’ and that you need to select one.  Describe the project selection process.

17.    When using earned value analysis, identify the three conditions that can exist with respect to the completion of activity in a project.

18.    Project evaluation often makes recommendations that relate to the ancillary objectives of the parent organization.  List some of these potential ancillary benefits of project evaluation.

19.    List the minimum points that should be contained in the formal report of a project audit.

20.    Discuss the differences between a project audit and a financial audit.

21.    Describe the fundamentals of closing out the engineering portion of a project.

22.    Describe engineering’s roles and responsibilities as a project matures from concept exploration through a typical life cycle.

23.    Identify a few of the fundamental reasons why some projects fail to produce satisfactory results.

24.    What are systems requirements, why are they important, how are they controlled?

25.      Situation – You are the program manager who will be responsible for constructing the new Orange County Convention Center.  Your client negotiated to include earned value management as part of the contract’s monthly deliverables list.  Your client asked that you provide an explanation of earned value management, and the elements that are used to derive the tracking numbers.

They provided you with a list of acronyms and asked that you identify what they represent. You are to define each term and explain each of the following

1.    BCWP
2.    BCWS
3.    CV
4.    SV
5.    CPI
6.    SPI