q4

Some projects have specific activities that need to be completed consecutively; that is, or one after another. One example of this is baking a cake. You can’t put the cake tin into the oven until you’ve filled it with cake batter. You can’t put the batter into the tin until you’ve greased the tin. The batter isn’t ready until you’ve sifted flour into a bowl, added eggs, added baking powder, etc.

Other projects have activities that can be completed concurrently, or at the same time. One example is detailing a car. One guy can vacuum the interior while another applies Armor-All to the wheels, and yet another waxes the exterior. (Even this project has some consecutive activities. For example, a worker can’t apply Armor-All to the interior until somebody’s vacuumed the interior, and wiped everything down.)

Most of us are familiar with projects consisting only of consecutive activities. Such a project may be long and involved, but conceptually it’s simple—just do one thing after another. Other projects consists only of concurrent activities; all the different parts of the project can be worked on at the same time, and when they’re all done, the project is done. Still other projects consist of a mix of consecutive and concurrent activities.

For this Discussion, try to give an example of each type of project, from your own experience.

General Note: To earn maximum credit, you should post to the module discussion board in the first week of each module. There’s no reason not to, because the discussions are non-technical. Each topic is intended to get us thinking about the type of management problem discussed in each module. The topics don’t require any research, or any prior knowledge of management; they’re based upon our own, mundane experiences.