Planning and Scheduling

CE 525
Report By:
Escober, Kevin G.
Manahan, Melvin DC.
 Projects happen in two ways :

• Planned and then executed

• Executed, stopped, planned and then executed.
 “Failing to plan is planning to fail”
by J. Hinze, Construction Planning and Scheduling

• Planning:
• “what” is going to be done, “how”, “where”, by “whom”, and
“when”
• for effective monitoring and control of complex projects
 Develop Project Management
Plan
• Define the Scope and Create the WBS
• Sequence the activities, Estimate the duration and
Create the schedule
• Identify the Risks and Plan the Responses
• Estimate the Costs
• Plan the Human Resources, Purchases
• Plan the Communication
 Scope Definition

• Project Scope – The work associated in the delivery

of the product of the project with specified
• Methods for defining scope vary from industry to
industry
• In Software, product scope is defined in SRS and
Project Scope isdefined in Project Plan, WBS
• Document Assumptions/Constraints
 “Its about time”
by J. Hinze, Construction Planning and Scheduling

• Scheduling:
• “what” will be done, and “who” will be working
• relative timing of tasks & time frames
• a concise description of the plan
 “Once you plan your work, you must
work your plan”
by J. Hinze, Construction Planning and Scheduling
• Planning and Scheduling occurs:
• AFTER you have decided how to do the work
• “The first idea is not always the best idea.”
• Requires discipline to “work the plan”
• The act of development useful,
• But need to monitor and track
• only then, is a schedule an effective management tool
• as-built schedules
The Work Break Down Structure (WBS)

• An organizational tool for complex projects

• A first step in creating a schedule
• Useful for defining the Scope of Work
• After decided how to do the work
• Consists of:
• Goal statement for project
• Subdividing goal into smaller & smaller portions
 The Work Break Down Structure (WBS)
• Upper two or three levels
• require only general knowledge
• don’t get too detailed too quickly
• Enables allocation of resources and assignment of responsibilities at
granular levels
• Improves the accuracy of Cost Estimation
• Improves the Cost, Performance Measurement & Control
 Top-down Approach

• Start at the project goal, and keep breaking down

activities until you get to the smallest task
• Involve the team for identifying the tasks or
• The Sub team approach (agree on level 1 activities,
then have sub teams tackle each activity in detail;
then check for duplication and missed tasks)
 Bottom-up Approach

• Agree on the top level activities using the top-down

approach
• Then break into teams and brainstorm all the
activities you think are within that overall activity
• Organize the activities, and check for missed tasks
and redundancies
 Order of Task Execution -
Scheduling
• Bar Charts (Gantt Charts)
• length of bar = task’s duration
• commonly used, require little training
• precedence relationships difficult to show
• precedence = the sequencing relationship between tasks
• Schedule and progress graphically depicted on a single chart
• Simple and most used scheduling diagram
• Good for Status Reporting
Order of Task Execution - Scheduling
• Network Diagrams
• Critical Path Method (CPM)
• w/in construction - most important
• Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
• like a generalized CPM
• assumes that an activity’s duration cannot be precisely determined
• takes most likely, optimistic, pessimistic estimates
• computes an expected duration/activity and expected project duration
 Network Diagrams

• Identifies activities that control the project length

• Clearly shows the task dependencies
• Shows available float for non-critical activities
 Two types of network
diagramming techniques
• Arrow Diagramming Method

• Precedence Diagramming Method

 Precedence Diagramming
Method (PDM)
• Boxes/Nodes represent the activities
• Arrows connect the boxes, show the dependencies
• Also called Activity On Node (AON) method
• PDM uses all the four dependencies (F-S,F-F,S-S,S-F)
• The dependency – Start to Finish – is seldom used
 Arrow Diagramming Method
(ADM)
• Arrows represent activities
• Arrows connect the nodes for showing dependencies
• Also called Activity on Arrow (AOA) method
• Uses only Finish to Start dependency
• Uses Dummy activities to show logical relationships
 Critical Path Method (CPM)

• Identifies those chains of activities (critical paths)

that control how long a project will take.
• Two variations:
• Activity-on-Arrow (AOA)
• activities are the arrows or lines
• Activity on Node (AON)
• also known as a Precedence Diagram
• activities are nodes connected together by lines
 Some CPM Terms
• Float = the amount of time an activity can be delayed
without delaying the project
• Critical = activities with no float; these activities can not be
delayed w/o extending project duration
• Contingency = include a time allowance to account for time
slippage & other delays
• Slippage = difference between actual and scheduled progress
 Computer Scheduling

“Projects should be scheduled one byte

at a time”
by J. Hinze, Construction Planning and Scheduling
 Creating a Computerized Schedule
• Primavera P3, SureTrak, CA-SuperProject, MSProject
• Uses CPM for calculating project duration
• Offer Gantt and Precedence views
• Gantt the default
• Activities can be viewed in other forms: activity and resource
calendars, spreadsheets
• Useful for
• updating and tracking
• sorting, filtering, resource leveling
THANK YOU