Project Time Management

“The processes required to accomplish

timely completion of the project”
 Importance of Project Schedules

 Managers often cite delivering projects on time as one of

their biggest challenges
 Average time overrun from 1995 CHAOS report was 222%;
improved to 163% in 2001 study
 Time has the least amount of flexibility; it passes no
matter what
 Schedule issues are the main reason for conflicts on
projects, especially during the second half of projects
Project Time Management Processes
 Project time management involves the processes
required to ensure timely completion of a
project. Processes include:
 Activity definition
 Activity sequencing
 Activity duration estimating
 Schedule development
 Schedule control
Activity Definition
 Project schedules grow out of the basic document that
initiate a project
 Project charter includes commitment with start and
end dates and budget information in general terms
 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 duration
estimates
Activity Sequencing
 Involves reviewing activities and determining
dependencies
 Mandatory dependencies: inherent in the nature of
the work; hard logic (input/output)
 Discretionary dependencies: defined by the project
team; soft logic
 External dependencies: involve relationships
between project and non-project activities
 You must determine dependencies in order to use
critical path analysis
 Project network diagrams are good tools for sequencing
Project Network Diagrams
 Project network diagrams are the preferred
technique for showing activity sequencing
 A project network diagram is a schematic display
of the logical relationships among, or sequencing
of, project activities
 Can be:
 Activity on arrow (activity diagramming method)
 Activity
on node (precedence diagramming
method)
AOA Project Network for House
3
Lay Dummy
foundation
2 0 Build Finish
3 1 house work
1 2 4 6 7
Design house Order and 3 1
and obtain receive Select 1 1 Select
financing materials paint carpet
5

AON Project Network for House

Lay foundations Build house

Finish work

Start
Design house and
obtain financing
darla/smbs/vit Select7 carpet
Order and receive
Select paint
materials
Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)
 Also called activity-on-arrow (AOA) project network diagrams
 Activities are represented by arrows
 Nodes or circles are the starting and ending points of
activities
 Can only show finish-to-start dependencies
 Used for CPM and PERT estimating methods
 Some rules
 Only one start and one end
 Nodes do not have durations
Sample Activity-on-Arrow (AOA)
Network Diagram for Project X
Process for Creating AOA Diagrams
1. 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
2. Continuing 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
3. Continue drawing the project network diagram until all
activities are included on the diagram that have dependencies
4. As a rule of thumb, all arrowheads should face toward the
right, and no arrows should cross on an AOA network diagram
Cont…
 Use of nodes and arrows
 Arrows: An arrow leads from tail to head directionally. It Indicate ACTIVITY,
a time consuming effort that is required to perform a part of the work.
 Nodes  A node is represented by a circle

- Indicate EVENT, a point in time where one or more activities start and/or
finish.

• Activity
– A task or a certain amount of work required in the project
– Requires time to complete
– Represented by an arrow
• Dummy Activity
– Indicates only precedence relationships
– Does not require any time of effort
Cont…
 Remarks
 The network should be read from left to right
 There is only one start and one end node
 Nodes do not have duration
 Tasks/activities should be named and should
have durations
 Situations in network diagram
B
A A must finish before either B or C can start

C
A
C both A and B must finish before C can start
B
A
C both A and B must finish before either of
B C or D can start
D
A B
A must finish before B can start
Dummy
both A and C must finish before D can start
C
D
Sample PDM Network Diagram
 Activity Duration Estimating
 After defining activities and determining their
sequence, the next step in time management is
duration estimating
 Duration includes the actual amount of time worked on
an activity plus elapsed time
 Effort is the number of workdays or work hours
required to complete a task. Effort does not equal
duration
 People doing the work should help create estimates,
and an expert should review them
Cont…
 Time estimates for tasks have to take in to
account such factors as:
 Efficiency of the project team members, Possible
interruptions, Size of the project team, Availability of
users, Complexity of the business function to be
analyzed and Experience of team members and so forth

 Usually an average of the optimistic, pessimistic and

expected time estimates is taken to arrive at the most
likely time duration of a task.
Cont…
 Optimistic duration (OD)- the minimum amount of time
it would take to perform the task if everything goes well
 Pessimistic duration (PD)- the maximum amount of time
it would take to perform the task if all things go wrong
 Expected duration (ED)- the amount of time needed to
perform the task under normal circumstances
 Usually more weight (4 times) is given to the expected
duration when computing the average of the three
estimates to arrive at the most likely duration (D) of the
project tasks while giving 1 for others.
Example
 A project team determines that it would take 4 days to conduct
technical feasibility assessment if no member of the project
team takes leave, no member is absent or sick, no member will
be interrupted by a phone call and so forth and every one works
effectively 8 hours a day nonstop.
 They also determine that it would take 10 days if all possible
problems such as members of the team being absent, users are
busy with a meeting to supply data for the assessment, and so
forth.
 However, the team has the experience of usually conducting
technical feasibility assessments in 6 days in other project.

 What is the most likely duration of the time needed to

conduct technical feasibility assessment for this project?
Cont…

D= OD + 4*ED + PD
6

In this case, D= 4+(4*6)+10 = 6.33 days

6
Schedule Development
 Schedule development uses results of the other time
management processes to determine the start and
end date of the project and its activities
 Ultimate goal is to create a realistic project
schedule that provides a basis for monitoring project
progress for the time dimension of the project
 Important tools and techniques include
 Gantt charts
 PERT analysis (earliest date, latest date, slack time)
 Critical Path Method (CPM)
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:
 A black diamond: milestones or significant events on a project
with zero duration
 Thick black bars: summary tasks
 Lighter horizontal bars: tasks
 Arrows: dependencies between tasks
Gantt Chart for Project X
Gantt Chart for Software Launch Project
Milestones
 Milestones are significant events on a project that
normally have zero duration
 You can follow the SMART criteria in developing
milestones that are:
 Specific
 Measurable
 Assignable
 Realistic
 Time-framed
 Critical Path Method (CPM)
 CPM is a project network analysis 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
Finding the Critical Path
 First develop a good project network diagram
 Add the durations for all activities on each path
through the project network diagram
 The longest path is the critical path
 And also with a zero slack time
 Determining the Critical Path for Project X

a. How many paths are on this network diagram?

b. How long is each path?
c. Which is the critical path?
d. What is the shortest amount of time needed to complete this project?
Solution
PERT Analysis
 Calculating earliest dates (ED), latest dates (LD), Slack time (SL)
 ED- is the earliest date for a task before a node to end and for a
task after a node to start.
 The sum of all duration before a node
 Calculated in forward pass
 LD- the latest date for a task before a node to end and for a task
after a node to start.
 The difference b/n the next (from the left) LD and the next task
duration.
 Calculated in backward pass
 ST- is the relaxation time with out affecting the total project time.
Cont….
 PERT analysis
 Isuseful for understanding the full
picture of the project life cycle from
time perspective
 Used to determine relaxation times in
the project with out affecting the total
time.
Exercise
 Analyze the next network diagram using PERT
analysis technique and document important
points for you to mange time as PM.
 Identify the critical path.
 Identify important information regarding time
management by analyzing the network of tasks.
 Exercise 2

Immed. Optimistic Most Likely Pessimistic

Activity Predec. Time (Hr.) Time (Hr.) Time (Hr.)
A -- 4 6 8
B -- 1 4.5 5
C A 3 3 3
D A 4 5 6
E A 0.5 1 1.5
F B,C 3 4 5
G B,C 1 1.5 5
H E,F 5 6 7
I E,F 2 5 8
J D,H 2.5 2.75 4.5
K G,I 3 5 7
Cont…
 Given the above case
 Develop the schedule using network diagram
(AOA)
 Determine the critical path
 Analyze the network for effective management
 Schedule Control

 Schedule control uses results of the other time

management processes to confirm the project
accordingly

 Ultimate goal is monitoring project progress for the

time dimension of the project

 Two key concepts with respect to this are crashing and

fast tracking
SHORTENNING THE SCHEDULE
 One of the most common problems
projects have is an unrealistic time frame.
 Most project managers have problems
with unrealistic time frames and are not
aware of how to deal with them.
**********************************

What do you do if you asked to shorten

the project time (schedule) ?
Cont…
 Crashing and fast tracking are two ways to
shorten the project schedule.
 This most often needs to happen in two
circumstances.
 First, management says the project duration
is too long.
 Second, a change has been made to the
project, or the desired completion date
changes.
CRASHING
 Adding more resources to the critical path.

 This can take the form of moving resources from non

– critical tasks or adding extra resources to the task
from outside the project.
 Crashing almost always results in increased costs.
FAST TRACKING
 Doing more tasks in parallel.

 Fast tracking often results in rework and

usually increases risk and requires more
attention to communication.
Controlling Changes to the Project Schedule

 Perform reality checks on schedules

 Allow for contingencies
 Don’t plan for everyone to work at 100% capacity
all the time
 Hold progress meetings with stakeholders and be
clear and honest in communicating schedule
issues
Working with People Issues
 Strong leadership helps projects succeed
more than good PERT charts
 Project managers should use
 empowerment

 incentives

 discipline

 negotiation