CPT304

PROJECT SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT

Asst. Prof. (Dr) Damith Gangodawilage

MBA(USQ), PGD(BFA), HNDA, EDAF, FCIT, CTA, MIPA (Aus.), ACPA, AFA (UK), FMAAT, ACPM
Doctor of Business Administration (Entrepreneurship and Compliance Management) (UoK)

Founder/Chief Busness Analyst – Digital Business Labs

Founder/Chief Compliance Officer – Taxperts
Founder/Chief Business Architect – Corporate Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd
Project Schedule Management
Project Schedule Management includes the processes required to manage the
timely completion of the project.
Project scheduling provides a detailed plan that represents how and when
the project will deliver the products, services, and results defined in the
project scope and serves as a tool for communication, managing
stakeholders’ expectations, and as a basis for performance reporting.

A scheduling method, such as critical path or an agile approach use to

manage the schedule.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Project Schedule Management
• Plan Schedule Management—The process of establishing the policies, procedures, and documentation
for planning, developing, managing, executing, and controlling the project schedule.

• Define Activities—The process of identifying and documenting the specific actions to be performed to
produce the project deliverables.
• Sequence Activities—The process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project
activities.
• Estimate Activity Durations—Estimating the number of work periods needed to complete individual
activities with the estimated resources.
• Develop Schedule—The process of analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource requirements, and
schedule constraints to create the project schedule model for project execution and monitoring and
controlling.
• Control Schedule—The process of monitoring the status of the project to update the project schedule and
manage changes to the schedule baseline.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Project Schedule
Project Schedule assigns a duration to the project activities and the activities
are sequenced in a logical order.

• Define the start and end date

of project and activities

• Scheduling done through the

MS Project

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Plan Schedule Management
The process of establishing the policies, procedures, and documentation for
planning, developing, managing, executing, and controlling the project
schedule.

It provides guidance and direction on how the project schedule will be

managed throughout the project.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Define Activities
• An activity or task is an element of work normally found on the WBS that
has an expected duration, a cost, and resource requirements.
• Project schedules grow out of the basic documents that initiate a project.
• The project charter includes start and end dates and budget
information.
• The scope statement and WBS help define what will be done.
• Activity definition involves developing a more detailed WBS and
supporting explanations to understand all the work to be done, so you can
develop realistic cost and duration estimates.

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Activity Lists and Attributes
• An activity list is a tabulation of activities to be included on a project
schedule. The list should include:
• The activity name
• An activity identifier or number
• A brief description of the activity
• Activity attributes provide more information about each activity, such as
predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource
requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and assumptions related to the
activity.
Ex. The unique activity identifier (ID), WBS ID, and activity label or name.

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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.

• Milestones are useful tools for setting schedule goals and monitoring
progress.

• Examples include completion and customer sign-off on key documents

and completion of specific products.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Sequence Activities
The process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities.

• Involves reviewing activities and determining dependencies.

• A dependency or relationship relates to the sequencing of project

activities or tasks.

• Must determine dependencies in order to use critical path analysis.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Dependencies
Dependencies may be characterized by the following attributes:
• mandatory or discretionary,
• internal or external

Mandatory dependencies: Mandatory dependencies are those that are

legally or contractually required or inherent in the nature of the work.
Mandatory dependencies often involve physical limitations, such as on a
construction project, where it is impossible to erect the superstructure until
after the foundation has been built, or on an electronics project, where a
prototype has to be built before it can be tested. Mandatory dependencies
are sometimes referred to as hard logic or hard dependencies.

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Dependencies
Discretionary dependencies: Discretionary dependencies are sometimes referred to as
preferred logic, preferential logic, or soft logic. Discretionary dependencies are
established based on knowledge of best practices within a particular application area or
some unusual aspect of the project where a specific sequence is desired, even though
there may be other acceptable sequences.

The project team determines which dependencies are discretionary during the process
of sequencing the activities.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Dependencies
External dependencies: External dependencies involve a relationship between project
activities and non-project activities. These dependencies are usually outside of the project
team's control.
For example, the testing activity in a software project may be dependent on the delivery
of hardware from an external source, or governmental environmental hearings may need
to be held before site preparation can begin on a construction project.

Internal dependencies. Internal dependencies involve a precedence relationship between

project activities and are generally inside the project team's control.

For example, if the team cannot test a machine until they assemble it, there is an internal
mandatory dependency.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

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.

It employs several other techniques such as critical path method, resource

optimization techniques, and modeling techniques

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
A technique used for constructing a schedule model in which activities are
represented by nodes and are graphically linked by one or more logical
relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be
performed.

PDM includes four types of dependencies or logical relationships. A

predecessor activity is an activity that logically comes before a dependent
activity in a schedule. A successor activity is a dependent activity that
logically comes after another activity in a schedule.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Activity Duration Estimating
• Duration includes the actual amount of time worked on an activity plus
the 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.

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Task Dependency Types

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Critical Path Method

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Critical Path Method
• CPM is a network diagramming technique used to predict total project
duration.
• A critical path for a project is the series of activities that determines the
earliest time by which the project can be completed.
• The critical path is the longest path through the network diagram and has
the least amount of slack or float.
• Slack or float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without
delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Critical Path Method
• Free slack or free float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed
without delaying the early start of any immediately following activities.
• Total slack or total float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed
from its early start without delaying the planned project finish date.
• A forward pass through the network diagram determines the early start
and finish dates.
• A backward pass determines the late start and finish dates.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Critical Path Method
Steps in calculating float

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Critical Path Method

Total Float = Late Start – Early Start or Late Finish – Early Finish
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Critical Path Method

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Critical Path Method

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Three-Point Estimates
• 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 estimates and Monte
Carlo simulations.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Three-Point Estimates
• Most likely (cM). The cost of the activity, based on realistic effort
assessment for the required work and any predicted expenses.
• Optimistic (cO). The cost based on analysis of the best-case scenario for
the activity. Pessimistic (cP). The cost based on analysis of the worst-case
scenario for the activity.
Depending on the assumed distribution of values within the range of the three estimates,
the expected cost, cE, can be calculated using a formula. Two commonly used formulas
are triangular and beta distributions.

• Triangular distribution. cE = (cO + cM + cP) / 3

• Beta distribution. cE = (cO + 4cM + cP) / 6

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Program Evaluation and Review Technique
(PERT)
• PERT is a network analysis technique used to estimate project duration
when there is a high degree of uncertainty about the individual activity
duration estimates.

• PERT uses probabilistic time estimates:

• Duration estimates based on using optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic

estimates of activity durations, or a three-point estimate.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Program Evaluation and Review Technique
(PERT)
• PERT weighted average =

optimistic time + 4X most likely time + pessimistic time

6
• Example:

PERT weighted average =

8 workdays + 4 X 10 workdays + 24 workdays = 12 days
6
where:
optimistic time= 8 days
most likely time = 10 days
pessimistic time = 24 days
Therefore, you’d use 12 days on the network diagram instead of 10 when using PERT for the above example.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Schedule Development
• Uses results of the other time management processes to determine the
start and end dates of the project.

• Ultimate goal is to create a realistic project schedule that provides a basis

for monitoring project progress for the time dimension of the project.

• Important tools and techniques include Gantt charts, critical path analysis,
critical chain scheduling, and PERT analysis.

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Gantt Charts
• Gantt charts provide a standard format for displaying project schedule
information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and
finish dates in a calendar format.
• Symbols on MS Project include:
• Black diamonds: Milestones
• Thick black bars: Summary tasks
• Lighter horizontal bars: Durations of tasks
• Arrows: Dependencies between tasks

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

Gantt Charts

Note: In Project 2003 darker bars are red to represent critical tasks.
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Gantt Chart for Software Launch Project

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Schedule Control
Three main techniques for shortening schedules:

• Shortening the duration of critical activities or tasks by adding more

resources or changing their scope.

• Crashing activities by obtaining the greatest amount of schedule

compression for the least incremental cost.

• Fast tracking activities by doing them in parallel or overlapping them.

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Project Schedule Control

Damith Gangodawilage, 2023

 Thank You!!
Asst. Prof. (Dr) Damith Gangodawilage
MBA (USQ), PGD(BFA), HNDA, EDAF, FTII, CTA, MIPA (Aus.), ACPA, AFA (UK), FMAAT, ACPM
​Doctor of Business Administration (Entrepreneurship and Compliance Management) (Kelaniya)