Project Planning and Management
Planning, scheduling, and control
This domain tests the management systems that keep engineering work within scope, schedule, cost, and risk. Questions often require interpreting earned-value data, network logic, or change control rather than reciting definitions.
Core rules
- Decompose scope into a WBS; every work package needs an owner, deliverable, duration, and cost account.
- In a precedence network, the critical path has zero total float; delaying it delays the project. Total float is not the same as free float.
- Earned value: CV = EV − AC; SV = EV − PV; CPI = EV/AC; SPI = EV/PV. CPI or SPI below 1.0 signals unfavorable performance.
- Manage changes through formal request, impact assessment, approval, and baseline update; do not let scope creep enter through verbal instructions.
- Keep a risk register with probability, impact, owner, response, and trigger.
Worked example
A work package has PV = 200 million KRW, EV = 180 million, and AC = 210 million at the status date. CV = 180 − 210 = −30 million; SV = 180 − 200 = −20 million; CPI = 180/210 = 0.857; SPI = 180/200 = 0.90. The project is over budget and behind schedule. Cost performance is worse: each unit of earned value costs about 1.17 units of actual cost. A recovery plan should address cost drivers before schedule compression, because crashing may increase AC further.
Traps
Reversing CV and SV signs; using AC in the SPI numerator; treating total float as available on the critical path; and approving a schedule recovery plan without updating the cost baseline.