EMCS – 981 Myo Thi Ha

Name : Myo Thi Ha

Roll Number : EMCS – 981
Assignment : COMP 612 - Assignment 7
1.   (a) What is the critical distinction between a milestone and a deliverable?
 (b) The following table sets out a number of tasks, durations and dependencies.
Draw an activity chart showing the project schedule and find the critical path.

Answer:

1 (a)

Critical distinction between a milestone and a deliverable

A milestone is a term related to a schedule. A milestone is a measure of progress or

completion of work that may or may not coincide with a deliverable.

A milestone is a scheduled event signifying the completion of a major deliverable

or a set of related deliverables. A milestone has zero duration and no effort -- there
is no work associated with a milestone. It is a flag in the work plan to signify some
other work has completed.

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When planning a project, you should establish a series of milestones, where a

milestone is a recognisable end-point of a software process activity. At each
milestone, there should be a formal output, such as a report, that can be presented
to management. Milestone reports need not be large documents. They may simply
be a short report of what has been completed. Milestones should represent the end
of a distinct, logical stage in the project. Indefinite milestones such as 'Coding 80%
complete' that can't be checked are useless for project management. You can't
check whether this state has been achieved because the amount of code that still
has to be developed is uncertain.

Milestones may be internal project results that are used by the project manager to
check project progress but which are not delivered to the customer.

A deliverable is a term related to products. A deliverable is something tangible that

has been committed to “deliver” to an internal or external customer. It could be a
physical product, software, a database or a document.

Deliverable is a term used in project management to describe a tangible or

intangible object produced as a result of the project that is intended to be delivered
to a customer (either internal or external). It is usually delivered at the end of some
major project phase such as specification or design.

A deliverable could be a report, a document, a server upgrade or any other building

block of an overall project. The word is considered corporate jargon. A deliverable
may be composed of multiple smaller deliverables. It may be either an outcome to
be achieved or a product to be provided.

Deliverables are usually milestones, but milestones need not be deliverables.

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1. (b)

Duration
Task (Day) Dependencies
T1 9 -
T2 10 -
T3 4 T2
T4 10 T1
T5 5 T1
T6 9 T1
T7 7 T5
T8 8 T4
T9 7 T3, T6
T10 8 T7, T8, T9

Activity Chart

All Possible Path

T1 -> T4 -> T8 -> T10 = 9+10+8+8 = 35 days
T1 -> T5 -> T7 -> T10 = 9+5+7+8= 29 days
T1 -> T6 -> T9 -> T10 = 9+9+7+8= 33 days
T2 -> T3 -> T9 -> T10 = 10+4+7+8 = 29 days

So Critical path is T1 -> T4 -> T8 -> T10