Project Schedule Management

IT Project Management (ITC-311)

Ms. Sarah Farrukh

Project Schedule Management
 Project Schedule Management includes processes to manage timely completion
of project.
 It is preliminary concerned with developing a realistic schedule for delivery of
project and controlling the changes to that schedule.
 Project Schedule assigns duration to the project activities and ensure that
activities are sequenced in logical order. Start and end dates of activities and
projects are defined.
 Scheduling software is used to develop the project schedule. MS Project is
commonly used.
 Schedule management plan defines how the schedule contingencies will be
accessed and reported.
Project Scheduling Management Concepts
 Lead: A successor activity is said to have lead if it can be started before end of the predecessor
activity. For example Activity B can be started 2 days before the end of activity A.
 Lags: A successor activity is said to have lag if it has to be started after some gap from its
predecessor activity. For example Activity B can be started 2 days after the finish of activity A.
 Rolling Wave Planning: It is an iterative planning technique. In this near by activities/phases
are planned in detail and have high level idea of future work.
 Analogous Estimating: to use previous project/activities data for planning. It also includes
organizational process assets (Expert Judgement).
 Parametric Estimating: use of mathematical model to calculate project times for activity
based on historical record of from previous projects or other data. For example Cocomo model
 Effort: Total amount of work required to complete the activity.
 Duration: Total calendar days to complete the activity. For example activity required 10
persons to work for 5 days. Effort is 50 person days and duration is 5 days.
 What-If Scenario’s: Analysis on different scenario’s to see the results. For example to check
increasing resource count will have what impact on activity.
Project Schedule Management Processes
Project Schedule Management Processes
 Plan Schedule Management: Process of establishing the procedure, processes, and
documentation for planning, developing, executing, maintaining, controlling and
monitoring the project schedule.
 Define activities: Identifying the specific activities that the project team members
and stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables.
 Sequence activities: Identifying and documenting the relationships and
dependencies between project activities.
 Estimate Activity Resources: Estimating the time, number and type of resources a
project team should use to perform project activities.
 Estimate Activity Duration: Estimating the duration which is required to complete
the activity.
 Develop schedule: Analyzing activity sequences, activity resource estimates, and
activity duration estimates to create the project schedule.
 Control schedule: Controlling and managing changes to the project schedule.
Plan Schedule Management
 Process of establishing the procedure, processes, and documentation for planning,
developing, executing, maintaining, controlling and monitoring the project schedule.
Define Activities
 An activity or task is an element of work normally found on the work breakdown
structure (WBS) that has an expected duration, a cost, and resource requirements.
 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.
 An activity list is a tabulation of activities to be included on a project schedule that
includes
 Activity Name
 Activity Identifier
 Brief Description
 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.
Define Activities (Milestones)
 Milestone is a significant event that normally has no duration.
 It often takes several activities and a lot of work to complete a milestone.
 Identifying and tracking significant points or achievements in the project is the best
practice followed by many practitioners.
 Milestones should be SMART
 Specific
 Measurable
 Assignable
 Realistic
 Time Bound
 Schedule risk is inherent in the development of complex systems. Adding milestones to
projects can reduce the risk.
 Examples include obtaining customer sign-off on key documents or completion of
specific products.
Define Activities
 Process of identifying and documenting the specific actions to perform activities which
produces the project deliverables.
Sequence Activities
 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.
 Three types of dependencies
 Mandatory dependencies: Inherent in the nature of the work being performed on a project,
sometimes referred to as hard logic. For example installation of software development tool
at DEV server before start of development
 Discretionary dependencies: Both tasks need to be completed but order of completion is not
important defined by the project team; sometimes referred to as soft logic. For example
System architecture and prototyping.
 External dependencies: involve relationships between project and non-project activities.
For example data protection act finalization by regulatory body.
Sequence Activities
 Process of identifying and documenting the relationships and dependencies between the
project activities.
Project Schedule 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.
 New activities might be identified in this process which results in project document
updates.
 Two main formats are the arrow and precedence diagramming methods.
Sample Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram
Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)
 Activities are represented by arrows, Nodes or circles are the starting and ending
points of activities. Also called activity-on-arrow (AOA) network diagrams
 Can only show finish-to-start dependencies
 Steps
 Find all of the activities that start at node 1 . Draw their finish nodes and draw arrows
between node 1 and those finish nodes. Put the activity letter or name and duration
estimate on the associated arrow.
 Continue drawing the network diagram, working from left to right. Look for bursts and
merges. Bursts occur when a single node is followed by two or more activities. A merge
occurs when two or more nodes precede a single node.
 Continue drawing the project network diagram until all activities are included on the
diagram that have dependencies.
 As a rule of thumb, all arrowheads should face toward the right, and no arrows should cross
on an AOA network diagram
Sample Precedence Diagram Method
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
 Activities are represented by boxes.
 Arrows show relationships between activities.
 Better at showing different types of task dependency types. More popular than ADM
method and used by project management software.
 Task dependency types
Estimate Activity Resources
 Before estimating activity durations, you must have a good idea of the quantity and type
of resources that will be assigned to each activity; Resources can be people, equipment,
and materials
 Important Considerations
 How difficult will it be to do specific activities on this project?
 What is the organization's history in doing similar activities?
 Are the required resources available?
 Risk can influence the decision about resources to be assigned.
 Activity cost estimates can dictate number and types of resource required for activity. Time might
also dictate the cost.
 Resource calendar specifies the availability of resource at particular time.
 Alternative Analysis: specifies different ways for completed the activities. This results in
resource optimization.
 A resource breakdown structure is a hierarchical structure that identifies the project's
resources by category and type. For example human resources, raw material etc.
 Project documents like cost estimates can be updated as result of this activity.
Estimate Activity Resources
 Process of estimating the type and quantities of material, equipment, supplies,
software, human resources for each of the project activity.
Estimate Activity Duration
 Effort does not normally equal duration
 People doing the work should help create estimates, and an expert should review them,
 Resource calendar is important; skillset of employees can affect activity duration.
 Risks can have impact on the time required to complete project activity.
 Project scope statement defines assumptions & constraints and can impact activity duration.
 Three points 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
 They are needed for PERT and Monte Carlo simulations
 Reserve Analysis is to add contingency (buffer) in plan.
 Activity duration estimates are represented as range of possible result for example and
activity can take minimum 10 (+2 or -2) days.
Estimate Activity Duration
 Process of estimating the number of work period effort required to complete each activity
with the estimated resources. It provides the time required to complete each activity.
Thank You