Scheduling Projects

Lesson 6
Learning Objectives

⚫ Understand the importance of project schedules

and good project time management
⚫ Define activities as the basis for developing project
schedules
⚫ Describe how project managers use network
diagrams and dependencies to assist in activity
sequencing
⚫ Use a Gantt chart for planning and tracking
schedule information, find the critical path for a
project, and use the Program Evaluation and
Review Technique (PERT) for time estimation

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Project Time Management
Processes
⚫ Activity definition: Identifying the specific
activities that the project team members
and stakeholders must perform to produce
the project deliverables.
⚫ Activity sequencing: Identifying and
documenting the relationships between
project activities.
⚫ Activity resource estimating: Estimating
how many resources a project team should
use to perform project activities.

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Project Time Management
Processes
⚫ Activity duration estimating: Estimating
the number of work periods that are
needed to complete individual activities.
⚫ Schedule development: Analyzing activity
sequences, activity resource estimates,
and activity duration estimates to create the
project schedule.
⚫ Schedule control: Controlling and
managing changes to the project schedule.

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1 Activity Definition
⚫ 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. 5
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.
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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.

⚫ Milestonesare useful tools for setting

schedule goals and monitoring progress.

⚫ Examples include completion and customer

sign-off on key documents and completion of
specific products. 7
Working Backward to Define
Activities
⚫ One way to do it is to start with the
deliverables and work backwards.
⚫ E.g. If the deliverable is final payment, what
needs to happen is the client signs off that
the project is complete.
⚫ To sign off that the project is complete, the
client needs to sign off on the final
acceptance testing.
⚫ To sign off the final acceptance testing, the
system must have been running live for 12
weeks.
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Common Areas of Error
⚫ Often tasks are left out because of some
assumptions we made. Need to list the
assumptions!
◦ E.g. How many times has our plan stated
that we now start to build the software –
but never mentioned the hardware we are
to use? Do we need to purchase it?
(activities to add) or are we assuming that
it is there available for us? (assumptions)
⚫ List the assumptions as you define the
activities.
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Common Areas of Error
(Cont.)
⚫ Monitoring time and cost requires that staff
complete timesheets, and that someone
collects the timesheets, and adds up all the
time and enters this to MS Project or
whatever.
⚫ Similarly, cost data has to be collected and
entered.

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Common Areas of Error
(Cont.)
⚫ We“forget” all the tasks that need to
happen to produce this deliverable.
◦ E.g. We cannot just go and conduct user
training if we do not know what and who
we are training and we have no materials!
◦ Stand back – look at the big picture –
does it make sense?

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 Common Areas of Error
(Cont.)
⚫ Inall the different knowledge areas,
there are control processes. You need
to add in the activities that will be
undertaken to implement these control
processes
◦ E.g. Team meetings, status reports, risk
reviews, etc.

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2. Activity Sequencing
⚫ Involves
reviewing activities and
determining dependencies.

⚫ A dependency or relationship
relates to the sequencing of project
activities or tasks.

⚫ You must determine dependencies in

order to use critical path analysis.
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 Sequence Activities

What activity or activities

can be started right away
and do not depend on any
others?
What activity or activities
can we start now?

Predecessor activity – “the scheduled activity that determines when

the logical successor activity can begin or end.” PMBOK® Guide
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 Sequence Activities
⚫ The following activity is called a successor
activity
⚫ Place a successor activity after its
predecessor
⚫ Draw an arrow to show the relationship
⚫ Continue until all activities have been
placed on the work surface

Successor activity – “the schedule activity that follows a predecessor

activity, as determined by their logical relationship.” PMBOK® Guide

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Network for Product Upgrade Project

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 Leads and Lags
⚫ The most common type of logical dependency is
finish-to-start (FS)
⚫ Leads are helpful if a project needs to be completed
quickly
Finish-to-start – “the logical relationship where initiation of
work of the successor activity depends on completion of work
of the predecessor activity.” PMBOK® Guide

Lead – “a modification of a logical relationship that allows

an acceleration of the successor activity.” PMBOK® Guide

Lag – “a modification of a logical relationship that directs a

delay in the successor activity.” PMBOK® Guide 17
Finish-to-Finish Relationships
⚫ Thegraphics could be designed while
the marketing campaign is being
designed, but not completed until the
marketing campaign is completed.
Finish-to-finish – “the logical relationship where completion of
work of the successor activity cannot finish until the completion
of work of the predecessor activity.” PMBOK® Guide

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 Start-to-Start Relationships
⚫ The graphics design could not start
until the design marketing campaign
started

Start-to-start – “the logical relationship where initiation of the successor

schedule activity depends on the initiation of the predecessor schedule
activity.” PMBOK® Guide

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 Start-to-Finish Relationships
⚫ The least used relationship
⚫ Example – a project to replace an old
system where the new capability must
be started before the old one is
completely discontinued
Start-to-finish – “the logical relationship where completion of the
successor schedule activity is dependent on the initiation of the
predecessor schedule activity.” PMBOK® Guide

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Task Dependency Types

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3. Activity Resource
Estimating
⚫ Beforeestimating activity durations, you must
have a good idea of the quantity and type of
resources that will be assigned to each activity.
⚫ Considerimportant issues in estimating
resources:
◦ How difficult will it be to complete specific
activities on this project?
◦ What is the organization’s history in doing
similar activities?
◦ Are the required resources available?
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4. Activity Duration Estimating
⚫ Duration includes the actual amount of
time worked on an activity plus the elapsed
time.

⚫ Effortis 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
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them.
Effort Does Not Equal
Duration
⚫ E.g. Growing a lawn takes 6 weeks but the
effort to sow the seeds may only be a few
hours.
⚫ E.g. Running live for 12 weeks will take 12
weeks regardless of the resources
allocated.
⚫ Need to estimate the time according to
duration.
⚫ Need to be careful assigning resources to
these kinds of tasks.
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5. Schedule Development
⚫ Usesresults of the other time management
processes to determine the start and end
dates of the project.

⚫ Ultimategoal is to create a realistic project

schedule that provides a basis for
monitoring project progress for the time
dimension of the project.

⚫ Importanttools and techniques include

Gantt charts, critical path analysis, and
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PERT analysis.
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 include:
◦ Black diamonds: Milestones
◦ Thick black bars: Summary tasks
◦ Lighter horizontal bars: Durations of tasks
◦ Arrows: Dependencies between tasks

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Gantt Chart (MS Project)

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Gantt Chart (Excel)

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Adding Milestones to Gantt
Charts
⚫ Many people like to focus on meeting
milestones, especially for large projects.

⚫ Milestones
emphasize important events or
accomplishments in projects.

⚫ Youtypically create milestone by entering

tasks that have a zero duration, or you can
mark any task as a milestone.

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Critical Path Method (CPM)
⚫ 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.
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Critical Path
⚫ The critical path is the shortest time in
which the project can be done.
⚫ Any slip in one of those tasks means a slip
in the whole project.
⚫ By knowing which tasks are critical tasks
you can focus your attention on those tasks
as they are the most important.
⚫ You can the use the critical path analysis to
rearrange tasks to achieve the best
possible outcome.

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Calculating the Critical Path
⚫ Develop a good network diagram.

⚫ Add the duration estimates for all activities

on each path through the network diagram.

⚫ The longest path is the critical path.

⚫ Ifone or more of the activities on the critical

path takes longer than planned, the whole
project schedule will slip unless the project
manager takes corrective action.
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Determining the Critical Path for
Project X

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More on the Critical Path

⚫ Thecritical path does not necessarily

contain all the critical activities; it only
accounts for time.
⚫ There can be more than one critical path if
the lengths of two or more paths are the
same.
⚫ Thecritical path can change as the project
progresses.

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Using Critical Path Analysis to
Make Schedule Trade-offs
⚫ 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.
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 Two-Pass Method
⚫ Used to determine the amount of slack each activity
has
⚫ Make two logical passes through the constructed
network
◦ The forward pass
◦ The backward pass
Forward pass – “the calculation of the early start and early finish dates
for the uncompleted portions of all network activities.” PMBOK® Guide

Backward pass – “the calculation of late finish dates and late start
dates for the uncompleted portions of all schedule activities.” PMBOK®
Guide
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 Two-Pass Example Schedule Set Up

Start at the beginning of the project and ask

how soon each activity can begin and end
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Schedule Example Forward Pass
Complete

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Schedule Example Backward Pass
Complete

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Using the Critical Path to Shorten a
Project Schedule
⚫ 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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Problems Related to Project
Schedules
⚫ Creating realistic schedules and
sticking to them is a key challenge of
project management.
⚫ Crashing and fast tracking often
cause more problems, resulting in
longer schedules.

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Importance of Updating
Critical Path Data
⚫ Itis important to update project
schedule information to meet time
goals for a project.

⚫ The critical path may change as you

enter actual start and finish dates.

⚫ Ifyou know the project completion date

will slip, negotiate with the project
sponsor. 42
Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT)
⚫ Aid to understanding how variability in
the duration of individual activities
impacts the entire project schedule
⚫ Sequence activities into a network
⚫ Create 3 estimates of time to complete
each activity
◦ Optimistic Estimated time =
◦ Most likely Optimistic + 4(Most likely) + Pessimistic
◦ Pessimistic 6

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PERT Time Estimate Example

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PERT Considerations
⚫ Advantages
◦ Reinforces the degree of uncertainty that
exists in project schedules
◦ Calculations indicate that expected time is
actually longer than most likely time
⚫ Difficulties
◦ Takes more effort to create 3 estimates
◦ No guarantee how good the estimates are
◦ May underestimate the risk of a schedule
running long 45
6. Schedule Control
⚫ Perform reality checks on schedules.

⚫ Allow for contingencies.

⚫ Don’t
plan for everyone to work at 100
percent capacity all the time.

⚫ Holdprogress meetings with stakeholders

and be clear and honest in communicating
schedule issues.

⚫ Include public holidays 46

Schedule Control
⚫ Goals are to know the status of the schedule,
influence factors that cause schedule changes,
determine that the schedule has changed, and
manage changes when they occur.
⚫ Tools and techniques include:
◦ Progress reports.
◦ A schedule change control system.
◦ Project management software, including schedule
comparison charts, such as the tracking Gantt chart.
◦ Variance analysis, such as analyzing float or slack.

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Reality Checks on Scheduling
⚫ Reviewthe draft schedule or estimated
completion date in the project charter.

⚫ Prepare a more detailed schedule with the

project team.

⚫ Make sure the schedule is realistic and

followed.

⚫ Alert
top management well in advance if
there are schedule problems.
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Summary

⚫ Project time management is often cited as

the main source of conflict on projects, and
most IT projects exceed time estimates
⚫ Main processes include:
◦ Define activities
◦ Sequence activities
◦ Estimate activity resources
◦ Estimate activity durations
◦ Develop schedule
◦ Control schedule
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