Number Of Concurrent Projects Research Articles

Art for Sale: Covering the Contemporary, Courting the Commercial

Art for Sale: Covering the Contemporary, Courting the Commercial

Large-Scale Deployment of Performance-Related Specifications for Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement

For the 2015 construction season, the Illinois Tollway management awarded nine contracts that include performance-related specifications for jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) to be placed along the I-90 corridor between Chicago and Elgin, Illinois. Overall, the nine contracts have a total value of over $550 million, with more than $50 million of the JPCP subject to performance-related specification incentives and disincentives. Deployment of this volume of performance-related paving has required the development of specifications and special provisions as well as a more focused approach to monitoring the testing of the concrete materials as paving is proceeding. Enhanced communication and documentation processes have also been created to ensure that the flow of materials test data and the impacts that the data are having on the calculation of incentives and disincentives can be transmitted to the contractors as quickly as possible. The communication processes include contractor responses and feedback to the materials test data and the financial impact resulting from the test data, with electronic documentation of communication between the testing labs, the tollway and its quality contractors, and the paving contractors. This study documents the development of the current performance-related JPCP specifications, including the challenges encountered in trying to establish performance-related specifications for such a large number of concurrent projects, the solutions employed to overcome those challenges, and the impact on both the tollway and the contractors as a result of the deployment of performance-related JPCP.

Digital Collections Are a Sprint, Not a Marathon: Adapting Scrum Project Management Techniques to Library Digital Initiatives

This article describes a case study in which a small team from the digital initiatives group and metadata services department at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) Libraries conducted a pilot of the Scrum project management framework. The pilot team organized digital initiatives work into short, fixed intervals called sprints—a key component of Scrum. Over a year of working in the modified framework yielded significant improvements to digital collection work, including increased production of digital objects and surrogate records, accelerated publication of digital collections, and an increase in the number of concurrent projects. Adoption of sprints has improved communication and cooperation among participants, reinforced teamwork, and enhanced their ability to adapt to shifting priorities.

Relação entre características empresariais e fatores da transferência de conhecimentos entre projetos de produto

Este artigo apresenta uma análise das relações existentes entre as características das empresas e a importância que estas atribuem aos fatores que influenciam na transferência de conhecimentos (TC) entre projetos de produtos. A análise é baseada num levantamento (survey) realizado com 58 empresas no Brasil. As características estudadas foram: (i) tamanho da empresa; (ii) tamanho da equipe de projetos; (iii) localização das equipes; (iv) número de projetos simultâneos; (v) tempo de duração dos projetos; (vi) grau de inovação; e (vii) complexidade dos projetos. Através de uma análise de aglomerados, foi identificado que as características (ii), (iv) e (vii) são significativas na determinação das importâncias atribuídas aos fatores da TC. Os resultados apontam que as empresas que possuem um perfil de gestão mais complexo enfatizam os fatores de influência pertencentes ao ambiente externo. Já empresas com um perfil de gestão mais simples atribuem maior importância aos fatores internos da empresa.

Project management applications of the theory of constraints beyond critical chain scheduling

The application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) is an approach that can be used to develop a variety of management techniques. As a result of the multi-disciplinary nature of project management a variety of different applications within project management are possible. The application of the TOC approach to project scheduling led to the development of the “critical chain” technique that has been the subject of discussions in literature. This paper explains why TOC was initially applied only to project scheduling. A second application of TOC is to manage resources shared by a number of concurrent projects. The basic principles of this second application are discussed in this paper. In addition to the above-mentioned two applications the TOC approach can also be applied to other areas of project management such as project cost management and project risk management.