IPA FE Subject A 2026 Question 13
A question IPA Japan published in 令和８年度 基本情報技術者試験 科目A 公開問題 問13, translated into English. ITPEC is based on the same exams.
As the progress of a system development project was delayed, an attempt was made to eliminate the delay by increasing the effort put into the activities on the critical path. What is the technique for shortening the duration applied in this case called?
Explanation
Crashing — adding resources to activities on the critical path to shorten the schedule.
The project's duration is set by the critical path, so only shortening activities on that path brings the end date forward. Crashing does this by putting more effort into those activities: more people, overtime, extra equipment. It costs more, so the activities that save the most time per unit of extra cost are crashed first.
Answer (a)
Why not others:
- •(b) Coaching — a way of developing people by asking questions that draw out their own answers; not a schedule technique
- •(c) Fast tracking — also shortens the schedule, but by running in parallel activities that were planned in sequence, without adding resources; it raises the risk of rework rather than the cost
- •(d) Mentoring — an experienced person guides and supports a less experienced one over time; a human-resource development method
Key rule: Two schedule compression techniques: crashing adds resources (cost goes up), fast tracking overlaps activities (risk goes up).
Project Management · AI-written, may contain errors
This question comes from the past questions IPA Japan publishes, translated into English by ITPEC Practice. ITPEC Practice is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with IPA or ITPEC. See the original paper (PDF) or Report an issue.