INFO3333/INFO6007: Week 5 Tutorial
In-Class Tutorial Activities
NOTE:
1. To be completed with the Assignment group that you have formed.
2. Please do not use ChatGPT to generate the solution, that may not help you in learning
this unit.
3. Allocate 25 - 30 minutes for this task
Project Details:
Your project group has been hired to work on a new project; your group has been asked to
develop a highly innovative attendance register software for the Computer Science Department
at The University of Sydney.
Task A:
1. Develop a cost baseline that your group would be presenting to the school management
board for the approval of the attendance register project. State all the assumptions that
your group have made.
Task B
Given the following information for a 12-month attendance register project, answer the following
questions. Note that PV is the planned value, EV is the earned value, AC is the actual cost, and
BAC is the budget at completion. PV=$322,000, EV=$280,000, AC=$305,000, BAC=$380,000.
Answer the following questions:
1. What is the cost variance, schedule variance, cost performance index (CPI), and
schedule performance index (SPI) for the project? Show your calculations.
Solution:
Cost Variance (CV): -$25,000
Schedule Variance (SV): -$42,000
Cost Performance Index (CPI): 0.918
Schedule Performance Index (SPI): 0.869
2. How is the project doing? Is it ahead of schedule or behind schedule? Is it under budget
or over budget? Explain.
Solution:
The project is not doing well
The project is behind schedule because SV is negative and SPI < 1.
The project is over budget because CV is negative and CPI < 1.
3. Use the CPI to calculate the estimate at completion (EAC) for this project. Is the project
performing better or worse than planned? Explain.
Solution:
The EAC of $413,062 is higher than the original plan BAC of $380,000. Hence the
project will cost more than budgeted by around $33,062
4. Use the SPI to estimate how long it will take to finish this project.
Solution
Estimated time to Complete the project = (Original Duration)/SPI
5. Sketch the earned value chart for this project.
Solution: It should look like….it does not need to be perfect…it is a sketch
After Tutorial Class Activities
Create a spreadsheet to calculate your projected total costs, total revenues, and total profits for
giving a seminar on cost estimating. Make the following assumptions:
1. You will charge $600 per person for a two-day class.
2. You estimate that 30 people will attend the class, but you want to change this input.
3. Your fixed costs include $500 total to rent a room for both days, setup fees of $400 for
registration, and $300 for designing a postcard for advertising.
4. You will not include your labor costs for this estimate, but you estimate that you will
spend at least 150 hours developing materials, managing the project, and giving the
actual class. You would like to know what your time is worth given different scenarios.
5. You will order 5,000 postcards, mail 4,000, and distribute the rest to friends and
colleagues.
Your variable costs include the following:
a. $5 per person for registration plus 4 percent of the class fee per person to handle
credit card processing; assume that everyone pays by credit card
b. $.40 per postcard for printing if you order 5,000 or more
c. $.35 per postcard for mailing and postage
d. $25 per person for beverages and lunch
e. $30 per person for class handouts
Be sure to have input cells for any variables that might change, such as the cost of postage and
handouts. Calculate your profits based on each of the following numbers of people who might
attend: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60. In addition, calculate what your time would be worth per hour
based on the number of students. Try to use the Excel data table feature to show the profits
based on the number of students. If you are unfamiliar with data tables, just repeat the
calculations for each possibility of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 students. Highlight profits for each
scenario and what your time is worth.
Reference: Recommended textbook: Schwalbe, K, Information Technology Project
Management (9th Edition). 2019