Tricks of the Trade® for Schedule Development

by Jeff Nielsen, PMP

®
Schedule Development: Definition From the PMBOK Guide
The process of analyzing schedule activity sequences, schedule activity durations, resource re-
quirements, and schedule constraints to create the project schedule.

Tricks of the Trade®

How can you improve your management of this step in the project life cycle? Here are some of
the tricks that will help you along the way:

• First, you need to move from estimates and a network diagrams to a calendar-based sched-
ule. In your project management software, input the project start date, all the activities, the
finished network diagram, and determine the critical path. Use the Gantt view to review the
project milestone and completion dates. Comparing these dates to imposed dates will provide
an idea of how much you need to adjust the schedule. DO NOT just cut all the activity dura-
tions by 10%. This is a bad practice and will only lead to a false sense of security. Remember,
you are supposed to provide realistic estimates. Cutting activity durations assumes the esti-
mates are not realistic. The correct process is to adjust the activities on the critical path (dura-
tion compression) to meet your constrained dates.
• Most project managers do a good job assembling a schedule in their project management
software. They create a magnificent work of art to distribute to the team, expecting rave re-
views. However, they find that the reviews do not meet their expectations and they encounter
problems implementing the schedule. The major reason for this is they did not get buy-in
from the team members.
• After you create the first draft of the schedule, make sure that you review it with your team
members. They should review the schedule to be sure they agree with the transition you made
from duration estimates to actual calendar dates. You will also want to be sure that you have
the team’s vacation, down times, and other commitments incorporated in your plan.
• In a functional organization, you will need to follow-up with the functional manager to en-
sure that you haven’t mis-scheduled or double-scheduled their people. There will be compet-
ing priorities and the functional manager will decide if the person will be available to work on
your project when you have the activity scheduled. As you make adjustments, you may also
need to negotiate changes in the number of resources and schedule dates. After you complete
this give and take, get the functional manager’s signature. You have their commitment.
• Other projects may impact yours. You need to be sure that there are no issues with depen-
dencies on other interrelated projects and their resource usage. Managing these issues now
during planning will save a lot of heartache during executing. You need to check for both
resource and schedule conflicts.
• Finally, you need to address the schedule with the other stakeholders to be sure that they
have no issues. It is best to get their buy-in before the kick-off meeting. The kick-off meeting
should be a review of everyone’s commitments.

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