Week 4 Discussion - Quality Assurance

This week’s Discussion will help you analyze different techniques and describe why, or why not, one
method is preferred over others.
Discussion Prompt:
• What is your favorite approach to project scheduling? Why?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of the other two scheduling techniques? Even though you
do not prefer the other techniques, there may be some situations in which these techniques prove to be
beneficial. In which ways do you think these techniques are beneficial?
To participate in the discussion, respond to the Discussion Prompt by Day 3. Finally, respond to at least
two classmates by Day 5.

Project Scheduling
Schedule Management is the set of processes required to ensure the delivery of a project on time. The
schedule provides an overview of the activities and their relationships and shows the activities and the
project's deadline. Project Schedule management is essential as it avoids delivery delays, avoids
expenses with unforeseen costs, and facilitates allocating resources.
Several tools and techniques help the project’s schedule management, such as the Gantt chart, the
Critical Path Analysis, the Critical Chain Scheduling, and the PERT analysis.

I don´t have a favorite tool as I never had the chance to manage a project. However, I use the Gant chart
to schedule some activities.
The Gantt chart is a schedule management tool used to visualize all tasks from the start to the end of a
project. Similar to a timeline, the Gantt chart establishes individual tasks and their dependencies, task
properties, task duration, and the project's expected duration. With each study mapped and assigned, a
manager and his team can keep track of deadlines and ensure everyone is accountable for the project.
The main advantage of using Gantt charts is that they provide a standard format for displaying planned
and actual project schedule information. In addition, they are easy to create and understand (Schwalbe
2018, p. 259). Another usefulness of the Gant chart is that it can evaluate progress by showing basic
schedule information on a project by using a Tracking Gantt chart. This optimal tool compares the
planned versus actual project information. In conclusion, we can use the Gantt chart for the following:
 Anticipate the amount of time to complete each task.
 Communicate task responsibility.
 Increase transparency on the project's progress. 

The Critical Path Method (CPM), also known as Critical Path Analysis, is another tool for scheduling
management. It considers that a series of interdependent activities related and linked forms a project.
Therefore, the critical path (CP) is the sequence of tasks that have no slack in the deadlines and cannot
delay; otherwise, there will be the risk of compromising the entire work. The main advantage of this
method is that it allows more proactive planning of the project. By identifying which activities are less
flexible and which require more attention, it is possible to carry out a better projection of the work and
better management of the available resources, allocating, for example, more or fewer professionals to a
given task. In addition, it is also possible to program more accurately and realistically the investment to
carry out the planned tasks.
Schwalbe (2018) considers the CPM a networking diagram technique used to predict total project
duration, which helps combat project schedule overruns (p. 259). Therefore, to observe a project’s
critical path, we must develop an exemplary network diagram. This is a good practice of calculating a
project’s Critical Path. As mentioned above, managers can also use the Critical Path Analysis to make
schedule trade-Offs in determining the free slack and total slack for each project activity.

Advantages of Other Scheduling Techniques

Critical Chain Scheduling (CCS) or Critical Chain Method (CCM) has its roots in constraint theories and
tries to adjust projects to the reality that project resources suffer from various constraints. Specialists
consider the Critical Chain Method an updated form of the Critical Path Method. This tool aims to
overcome two of the main challenges in this area: completing each project in the shortest possible time
and conducting more tasks without the need for additional resources through the organization. Critical
chain scheduling is a method that considers limited resources when creating a project schedule and
includes buffers to protect the project completion date (Schwalbe 2018, p. 265). In this method, an
important concept is that critical chain scheduling is the availability of scarce resources. Projects cannot
develop unless a particular resource is available to work on one or several tasks. Some concrete
advantages of using the critical chain methodology are:
- The feasibility of aggressive, possible, and practical programming.
- The monitoring and measurement of systems give early detection of adverse circumstances
growing substantially.
- Monitoring the consumption of buffers gives managers the power to respond quickly to the
changes.
These and other advantages provide the resolution of problems before they even happen, allowing time
for the development of alternative plans and project focus by the team and timely completion of the
project.
The disadvantage of using CCM is that it assumes that resources do not multitask or minimize
multitasking. Someone should not be assigned to two tasks simultaneously on the same project when
critical chain scheduling is in effect. Likewise, critical chain theory suggests that projects be prioritized so
that people working on more than one project at a time know which tasks take priority. Preventing
multitasking avoids resource conflicts and wasted setup time caused by shifting between multiple tasks
(Schwalbe 2018). In conclusion, contrary to the optimistic CPM, assuming that the project always has
resources whenever needed, CCM considers resource availability while developing the project schedule.

The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a project scheduling technique that resembles a
dynamic flowchart of interrelated processes. We can use the PERT method in a software creation
project. PERT coordinates diverse design elements and their respective influences on cost and time. The
main task in developing a PERT plan is to determine the critical activities on which all other activities
depend. The PERT method is beneficial when scheduling a project that includes a high degree of concern
regarding the duration estimates of individual tasks.
The PERT technique helps the project manager create a total project duration by calculating an average
duration estimate for activities with the weighted formula that considers the overall risk or the
unpredictability of all the individual tasks.
According to Schwalbe (2018), the main advantage of PERT is that it attempts to address the risk
associated with duration estimates. Because many projects exceed schedule estimates, PERT may help
develop more realistic schedules. Conversely, PERT’s main disadvantages involve more work than CPM
because it requires several duration estimates, and there are better probabilistic methods for assessing
schedule risk.
References
Schwalbe, K. (2018). Information technology project management (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Williams, S. (n. d.). Advantages of PERT Charts vs. Gantt Charts. Retrieved from
https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/advantages-of-pert-charts-vs-gantt-charts