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80 Part 1 • SyStemS analySiS FundamentalS

Quality Cost Scope Time

Defect rate excessive High staff turnover Scope creep

Schedule slips
Customer not Need for additional Features with
satisfied with interface programmers little value

Misunderstanding of
Fear of change System fails tests Too complex code business

Design not Inadequate feedback Recoding required by Communication
creative enough from testing business changes breakdown

Designing Testing Coding Listening

Figure 3.24
A fishbone diagram may be used to identify all the things that can go wrong in developing a system.

Managing Time Using Expediting
Speeding up a process is called expediting. There are certain instances in which you can benefit
from completing a project much faster. One example is getting a bonus if you finish sooner. A
second example is realizing that valuable project team resources and team members can be used
for some other project if you finish the current project before the due date.
Figure 3.25 is a table that lists each activity in the project and the original estimated time
required to complete each of these activities. The third column, labeled “crash time,” refers to the
absolute minimum time in which an activity can be completed if additional money is funneled to
that activity. The final column contains the cost of reducing the activity duration by one week.
Expediting can help reduce the time it takes to complete an entire project, but in order to
do so, the expedited activities have to be on the critical path. Which activity is expedited on the
critical path depends on the cost, assuming that the activity is not already at its crash time.

Figure 3.25 Estimated
A table showing crash time and Activity Duration Crash Time Cost/Week
the cost of expediting.
A 3 1 $ 800
B 4 2 500
C 4 2 400
D 8 6 1000
E 5 5 1000
F 3 3 800
G 3 3 800
H 2 2 400
I 2 1 600