project time management

Dr. Ahmed Alageed - PMP Certified 1

PMP Preparation Course

Time Management


Project Time Management• Plan Schedule Management• Define Activities• Sequence Activities• Estimate Activity Resources• Estimate Activity Durations• Develop Schedule• Control Schedule


Plan Schedule Management• Inputs– Project Charter– Project Management Plan– Organizational Process Assets (standards, templates,

…Etc.)• Tools & Techniques– Analytical Techniques– Meetings

• Outputs– Schedule Management Plan

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anage and control the schedule?


Schedule Management plan

• Should address the following:– The scheduling methodology and scheduling software

to be used on the project– Rules for how estimates should be stated (hours, days,

duration and or effort)– Establishment od a schedule baseline for measuring

against as part of project monitoring and controlling– Identification of the performance measures that will

be used on the project, to identify variances early


Schedule Management plan cont..

• Determination of what acceptable variance will be on the project

• Planning for how schedule variances will be identified and managed

• Identification of schedule change control procedures

• Reporting formats to be used


Define Activities• Activities should be small enough to estimate,

schedule, monitor, and control (2 weeks)• Inputs– Scope Baseline (Scope Statement, WBS, WBS dictionary)

• Tools & Techniques– Decomposition– Rolling Wave Planning

• Outputs– Activity List, Activity Attributes– Milestone List


Activity Lists and Attributes• An activity list is a tabulation of activities to be

included on a project schedule that includes:– The activity name– An activity identifier or number– A brief description of the activity

• Activity attributes provide more information such as predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and assumptions related to the activity


Milestones• A milestone is a significant event that

normally has no duration• It often takes several activities and a lot of

work to complete a milestone• They’re useful tools for setting schedule goals

and monitoring progress• Examples include obtaining customer sign-off

on key documents or completion of specific products


SMART Criteria

• Milestones should be:– Specific– Measurable– Assignable– Realistic– Time-framed


Sequence Activities• Inputs– Activity List, Milestone List, Activity Attributes

• Tools & Techniques– Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)– Leads and Lags

• Outputs– Network Diagram


Activity Sequencing

• Involves reviewing activities and determining dependencies

• A dependency or relationship is the sequencing of project activities or tasks

• You must determine dependencies in order to use critical path analysis


Sources of Dependencies

• Mandatory dependencies: inherent in the nature of the work being performed on a project, sometimes referred to as hard logic

• Discretionary dependencies: defined by the project team; sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be used with care since they may limit later scheduling options

• External dependencies: involve relationships between project and non-project activities


Network Diagrams

• Network diagrams are the preferred technique for showing activity sequencing

• A network diagram is a schematic display of the logical relationships among, or sequencing of, project activities

• Two main formats are the arrow and precedence diagramming methods


AOA


PDM


Types of Logical Relationships


Leads and Lags

• Leads indicate that an activity can start before its predecessor activity is completed (Design and Coding)

• Lags is waiting time inserted between activities (concrete and construction)


Estimate Activity Resources

• Inputs– Activity List– Resources Calendars ( Human, Equipment, suppliers)

Who is available• Tools & Techniques– Bottom Up Estimating– Published Estimating Data (Historical)

• Outputs– Activity Resource Requirements– Resource Breakdown Structure


Estimate Activity Durations

• Inputs– Resource Breakdown Structure, resources Calendar– Activity list, Activity Attributes, activity resources

requirements • Tools & Techniques– Estimating Techniques– Reserve Analysis

• Outputs– Activity Duration Estimating


Duration & Effort

• Duration includes the actual amount of time worked on an activity plus elapsed time

• Effort is the number of workdays or work hours required to complete a task

• Effort does not normally equal duration• People doing the work should help create

estimates, and an expert should review them


Padding


How is Estimating Done?

• One Point Estimating– Analogous Estimating (Top-Down)– Parametric Estimating• Regression analysis (Scatter Diagram)• Learning Curve• Heuristics (Generally accepted rule, Best Practice)

• Three-point Estimating


Three Point Estimating• Instead of providing activity estimates as a

discrete number, such as four weeks, it’s often helpful to create a three-point estimate– An estimate that includes an optimistic, most

likely, and pessimistic estimate, such as three weeks for the optimistic, four weeks for the most likely, and five weeks for the pessimistic estimate

• Three-point estimates are needed for PERT and Monte Carlo simulations


Three-Point Estimating Cont…

• Triangular Distribution (Simple Average)( P + O + M)/3

• Beta Distribution (PERT, Weighted)( P + 4M + O)/6

– Beta Activity Standard Deviation = P-O/6


Exercise


Develop Schedule

• Inputs– Activity List, Resource, Estimates, Dependencies

• Tools & Techniques– Schedule Network Analysis (Critical Path Method)– Resource Optimization Techniques– Schedule Compression

• Outputs– Project Schdule


Critical Path Method


Float (Slack)

• Total Float (Slack) is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project end date or an intermediary milestone

• Free Float (Slack) is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of its successor(s)

• Project Float (Slack) is the amount of time a project can be delayed without delaying the externally imposed project completion date required by the customer/ management.


Float Formula


Float (Slack)


Schedule Compression

• Fast Tracking

• Crashing (adding or adjusting resources in order to compress the schedule)


Modeling

• What is a particular factor changed on the project? Would that produce a shorter schedule?

• Monte Carlo Analysis – The probability of completing the project on any

specific day– The probability of completing the project for any

specific cost– The probability of any activity actually being on the

critical path– The overall project risk


Resource Optimization

• Resource leveling

• Resource smoothing


Critical Chain Scheduling

• Critical chain scheduling– A method of scheduling that considers limited

resources when creating a project schedule and includes buffers to protect the project completion date

• Uses the Theory of Constraints (TOC)– A management philosophy developed by Eliyahu M.

Goldratt and introduced in his book The Goal • Attempts to minimize multitasking– When a resource works on more than one task at a

time


Multi-tasking


Critical Chain Example


Control Schedule

• Inputs– Schedule Management Plan– Work Performance Data

• Tools & Techniques– Performance Review– Resource Optimization

• Outputs– Schedule forecasts


Gant Chart

project time management

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