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7 Determine office placements. Tasks 1–3
8 Determine printer locations. Tasks 1–2

9 Determine breakroom areas. Tasks 1, 2 and “Interior
Designer” deliverable

10 Seating chart drafts to managers. Tasks 1–9

11 Functional managers review seating Task 10
chart drafts.

12 Final seating chart approved. Task 11

You need to determine some rough order-of-magnitude estimates for these tasks
to determine start and end dates. For example, based on the recommendation
from the functional managers that the final seating chart be approved before the
cube buildouts begin, you know that Task 12 must finish before you place the order
for the cubicle furnishings.

When breaking down the tasks for the “Procure and install cubicle furnishings”
deliverable and determining start and finish dates, you realize you are working

with a constraint that requires all cubicles and office furniture be delivered and
installed by December 31. When you met with the IT director shortly after the
scope statement was written, you discovered two weeks are needed to place
computer equipment, monitors, and telephones on each desk. The cubicle
buildouts and furniture delivery are predecessors to the computer equipment

setup deliverable, so you need to determine when the cubicle furnishing order
should be placed.

You’ve obtained an estimate from a vendor that it takes roughly two days to install
250 cubicles. Based on assumptions you’ve made in your conversations with Kate
and the two functional managers who helped develop the task list, you think there
will be a minimum of 1,000 cubicles. To allow IT two weeks to install the computer
equipment, you determine delivery of the cubicle materials must occur by

December 6. Cubicle buildouts can begin December 7 and must finish by
December 15 (taking into account weekend days).

In summary, your cubicle furnishing order will take six weeks to fill according to
your vendor contacts. If the materials must be delivered no later than December 6,
that means Task 12 from the “Survey the Main Street Office Building” deliverable
has to finish by October 25. You can work backward from October 25 to determine
the start and end dates for each task in this deliverable.

You continue breaking down each deliverable into a list of tasks, sequence them in

the proper order, determine start and end dates, and assign resources to the tasks
to come up with the final schedule.

On the project schedule, you also add two quality gates: one after the general
contractor has completed the floor remodels and one after the cubicles are built.

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