Schedule Development 101

How to create a schedule you can use

Project Management Proverbs

You can con a sucker into committing to an impossible deadline, but you cannot con him into meeting it.

Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it. If you're 6 months late on a milestone due next week but

nevertheless really believe you can make it, you're a project manager.

The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.

REMEMBER: SCHEDULING IS NOT AN EXACT PROCESS, IT IS PART ESTIMATION, PART PREDICTION AND PART EDUCATED GUESSING

Fundamentals Schedule Development 101 (Chapter 6 Project Time Management) Define Activities

What actions need to be performed to meet your project deliverables Terms such as Decomposition, Rolling Wave Planning and Expert Judgment Output: Activity List, Milestone List

Sequence Your Activities Documenting the relationship among the project activities Precedence Diagramming Method

FS, FF, SS, SF Dependency Determination

Mandatory dependencies Must be put in place

Discretionary Dependencies Like to be put in place

External Dependencies Something required that is outside of my control (delivery of hardware)

Fundamentals Schedule Development 101 (Chapter 6 Project Time Management)

Estimate Activity resources Estimate the type and quantities of material, people, equipment or

supplies required Tools: Expert Judgment, Published Estimating Data

Estimate Activity durations How long will it take to complete the activity by the resource Tools: Analogous Estimating (similar project) or Three Point Estimates

(PERT) Most likely, optimistic and pessimistic

Fundamentals Schedule Development 101 (Chapter 6 Project Time Management)

Develop your schedule Process of analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource requirements and

schedule constraints to create a project schedule. Tools:

Critical Path Method Determine the late and early start and finish dates

Critical Chain Method Modifies the project schedule to account for limited resources

Monitor and Control your schedule Process of monitoring the status of the project against what you baselined

Status Reports Change Requests

Real World Schedule Development 101 Unrealistic Schedules—End Date Constant changes in scope

Scope not defined or “locked” Resource allocation changes

Resources reallocated to other projects

13 Suggestions you can use to make your schedules better Use WBS to create a task list each element of the project scope

must be supported by activity or activities Get resource estimates on each WBS element and resource names Allocate your resources appropriately Establish Project and Resource Calendars DO NOT DIRECT SCHEDULE TASKS use activity sequencing Define your milestones

At a minimum each schedule should have a start and a finish milestones Use your start milestone as your project dependency

13 Suggestions you can use to make your schedules better Know your float values both Total and Free Once you baseline do not touch Start and Finish Use Actual Start and

Actual Finish BASELINE BASELINE BASELINE

Utilize baseline 1 Do not use auto level Use PERT at all times and for all estimates Use consistent project plan update methodology Use the status date to status your project—How can do work if time

has passed

12 Suggestion Breakdown Example

12 Suggestion Breakdown Page 2

Status My Project

PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) Discussion Most Plans have one estimate PERT is based upon three estimates

Pessimistic everything goes wrong Optimistic the sun the moon and the stars align and everything went

right Most Likely I won’t win a million dollars but I will win 10.00 (what will

happen given normal problems and opportunities Formula

(O+4M+P)/6

Schedule Inputs Project and Personal Calendars

Working days, shifts, vacations % Allocation

Project Risks Understand what risks you have so you can understand if you have time in the

schedule to deal with them Activities and Resources requirements

What are the activities What resources are required to complete the activities What is the duration of the activity

Project Start or Project Finish Date Milestones

Oh No—My Schedule is wrong what can I doTools to get you back on Track

Crashing and Fast Tracking Change Requests

Rebaseline your plan Critical Path Analysis—understand you Free and Total Float

Calculates the earliest and the latest possible start and finish times for a project

Communication—How do I spread the word about my project

Critical Tasks Status Reports

I want more reports—where can I get them??????

PMI-SP Exam

PMI-SP credential is a response to project management increasing growth, complexity and diversity. This certification fills the need for a specialist role in project scheduling Myths

You do not need to be PMP certified to take the PMI-SP Exam The certification references Microsoft project If I am PMP certified then I have to increase the number of PDU’s for my PMI-SP

certification