¶ … Schedule
Meet with fitness center managers
Conduct Interviews
Records
Observe Operations
Analyze Software
Most of the tasks listed in this chart are dependent and form a chain of predecessor and follower tasks. The interviews cannot be conducted effectively until preliminary information is obtained through meetings with the individual fitness center managers, the software cannot be analyzed properly without a thorough understanding of the records and operations of the company, and the sample of sales and billing transactions must be assessed in the light of both the current accounting software being used and the other records and operation of the company. Though most of these steps could technically be engaged in independently of each other -- e.g. The sales and billing transactions exist and could be analyzed without undertaking any other steps -- there is a logical progression to the information gathering in the steps as laid out in the case study and in the above chart. It would perhaps be possible to begin undertaking the records examination and subsequent steps during the interviews, as the first two steps are more qualitative in nature and focused on future needs while the remaining steps are more quantitative and focused on current systems, however this might not be possible simply due to logistics and daily time constraints.
The overall duration of the project, as shown in the chart, is estimated to be twenty-nine days given the timetable provided in the case study. It is not conceivable that this could be significantly shortened other than by completing specific tasks faster than projected, as the three tasks of longest duration -- meetings with managers, interviews, and the observation of operations -- must be conducted separately and no day in which one occurs will have any time remaining for any other activity -- these are logistical constraints as well as predecessor constraints. The critical path is essentially knowledge based, and is two pronged; meetings and interviews form the entire path of the first prong, and the remaining steps are all aligned in a critical path forming the other.
