RESEARCH DATA EXPLAINING EFFECTIVE APPLICATION OF THE ALAP AND ASAP CONSTRAINTS IN THE MICROSOFT PROJECT PLANNER (original) (raw)

This research report presents the methodology adopted in this thesis. The report identified the research problem that users of the MS Project are not well guided in the choice of start date constraints applied in scheduling project tasks. It showed from literature that most practitioners apply only as soon as possible options which may not produce the best project outcome in every project scenario. Two hypotheses were developed and tested using ANOVA. The Null of hypothesis 1 states that: There is no significant relationship between start time constraint option and activity start variance. And the Null of hypothesis 2 states that: There is no significant relationship between the start time constraint options and activity finish variance. Activity start variances were measured for different scheduling options and their differences tested using ANOVA if observed differences were due to different scheduling options of ALAP and ASAP constraints applied. Results show that FCAL = 81.15 and FTAB = 98.50 at 1% level of significance and FTAB = 18.50 at 5 % level of significance. Since FCAL < FTAB at 1 % level of significance, we accept H1: That there is a significant relationship between start time constraint options and activity start variance at 1 % level of significance. The probability of project completion (PR) was estimated as: PI=100 –51=49%; PII=100 – 47=53%; PIII = 100 – 45 = 55%. Where PI, PII and PIII are the schedules developed using different constraint options. This data reduction of the case study project shows very clearly that the probability of project completion on the due date, PR improves with introduction of ALAP constraints in some selected activities. This results emphasis the importance of scheduling to reduce activity start time variance by selectively scheduling some identified tasks to occur as late as possible. The reported study provides concise evidence of the scenarios and right application of the ALAP and ASAP constraints in the Microsoft Project Planner and the Primavera Project Planner pieces of software.

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