Project Schedule Management Flashcards
Smaller projects and schedule management
- Can make defining activities, sequencing activities, estimating activity durations and developing the schedule model one single process
- This is difficult to do with larger projects
Iterative Scheduling with a backlog
- Found in adaptive or hybrid environments
- Rolling wave planning of plans and executing over and over again
Lean Manufacturing
- Backlog of assignments
- As team members become available the assignments go to the next available person
- Not as much planning on who does what
- Everyone must be capable of performing all of the tasks
Scrum Master
Analogous to PM in Adaptive Environment
Acting as a Servant Leader to the team
Theory of Contraints
- Identifying the most limiting factor (ex. time, resources, etc.)
- Improve that constraint until its no longer the limiting factor
- Scientific approach to improvement
- Lean manufacturing
Schedule Management Plan
- First step in Schedule Management
- Defined how the schedule will be developed, managed, executed and controlled
ITTOs: Planning Schedule Management
- Inputs:
- Project Charter
- Project Management Plan
- EEFs
- OPAs
T&T:
- Expert judgement
- Data Analysis
- Meetings
Outputs
- Schedule management plan
What is in the schedule management plan?
- Project schedule model development
- Level of accuracy
- Units of measure
- Organizational procedure links (links to procurement, links to resources)
- Project schedule model maintenance
- Control thresholds
- Rules for performance measurements
- Reporting formats (# of activities on time, or # of activities complete, etc.)
Define Activities
- Activities associated with work packages (taken from the WBS)
- Basis for estimating scheduling and controlling work
- Activity attributes
- Milestone list shows all of the activities leading up to a given milestone
ITTOs: Define Activities
Inputs:
- Project Management Plan
- EEFs
- OPAs
T&T:
- Expert judgement
- Decomposition
- Rolling wave planning
- Meetings
Outputs:
- Activity list
- Activity attributes
- Milestone list
- Change requests
- PMP updates (schedule and/or cost baseline)
8/80 rule
- Rule not to breaking down the WBS too far
- Between 8 hours and 80 hours is how long a work package should take. Anything below 8 hours is too granular. Anything greater than 80 hours is too big
Control Accounts
- Marker in the WBS
-
Planning Packages
- Decisions to be completed for a given Control Account
Rolling Wave Planning
- Imminent work is planned in detail
- Distant work is planned at a high level
- As work approaches, the work is planned in more detail
- Focus on most important
- Example of progressive elaboration
- Possible to do this with phase gate
Activity List
- Separate document
- Lists all project activities
- Scope of work for each activity and an identifier
- Links back to WBS identifier
- Establishes relationships between activities (dependencies)
- Reosourcing requirements
- Imposed dates
- Constraints and assumptions
Lead
- negative time
- when we are allowing time to overlap for multiple activities
Lag time
- positive time
- waiting longer for one tag before completing another
LOE
- Level of effort
- Reporting/Budgeting
- Don’t contribute to project scope but are needed to manage the work
Discrete effort activities
- Required to complete the project scope
- Most activities are discrete effort activities
Apportioned effort
- Project Management work
- QA
- Integrated Change Control
- Communications
Milestones
- marker that show progress
- noting significant events or delivery items
- no duration or resources
Milestone Chart
Up Triangle = Planned
Down Triangle = Actual
Shows variance
Sequencing Project Activities
- Computer driven, manual or blended approach
ITTOs: Sequencing Project Activities
Inputs:
- PMP
- Project documents
- EEF
- OPA
T&T:
- Precedence diagramming method
- Dependence determination and integration
- Leads and Lags
- PMIS
Outputs:
- Project schedule network diagrams
- Project doc updates
Dependency determination
- mandatory dependencies - hard logic (not optional)
- discretionary dependencies - soft logic (can happen whenever)
- external dependencies - external constraint (waiting on someone else or another project deliverable)
- internal dependencies - type of hard logic ( project team member taking a vacation)
Precedence Diagramming Method
- most common (Microsoft Project)
- Activities in boxes or circles, called nodes
- Number represent durations
- Can go through and identify the paths to completion and the relative durations for each path
- Identifies the critical path, early start and early finish
- Arrows represent the relationship and the dependencies of the work packages
- Creates the Network Diagram
- Critical path should not have any float. Whole project must be done in the time from the critical path
Float
The amount of time a task can be delayed without impacting subsequent tasks and overall project completion
Law of Diminishing Returns
- Increase in resources will eventually yield diminishing returns
- Some things take a set amount of time no matter how many resources you throw at the problem
Parkinson’s Law/Student Syndrome
- Work will expand to fill the time a lotted to it
Range of variance
- range of +/- days or weeks
- percentage of acceptable target date
Basis of estimates
- Assumptions made
- Known constraints
- Range of possible estimates
- Confidence level and risks that could impact the duration
Analogous estimating
- Takes similar project work to create a basis for the duration
- Aka Top-Down Estimating
- Fast/least expensive but also the least reliable
- Requires expert judgement and historical/reliable information
Parametric Estimate
- Parameter for estimating
- Ex. Algorithm to calculate duration (time per unit),
Duration vs. Effort
- Duration is how long something will take
- Effort is the billable time for labor
- Ex. if you have two people who can do the same task but one is a more senior engineer and bills more, the duration is the same but the effort will be different
Three-Point Estimate
- Find an average of Optimistic, Most Likely and Pessimistic
- (O + ML+P)/3 = Estimate
PERT Estimates
- Program Evaluation and Review Technique
- Beta distribution
- Weighted towards the most likely
- (O+ (4ML)+P)/6 = Estimate
Bottom-up Estimating (Resources)
- Requires a fully-decomposed WBS for each work package
- Estimate how many and what type of resources you’ll need to create that work package
- Takes longer than other approaches, but is the most accurate
Contingency Reserve
- Usually associated with money
- Risk events that disrupt the project
Management Reserve
- Typically associated with time or money
- Activities take longer than expected which interferes with the given pool of time and money because you have only budgeted for a certain amount of time
Reserve Analysis
- Amount of buffer in the project durations
- Goes down over time as tasks are delayed
Free Float
- An activity can be delayed without delaying the early float of any successor activities
- Late finish - Early Finish = Late Start - Early Start = Float
Total Float
- An activity can be delayed without delaying project completion
Project Float
- A project can be delayed without passing the customer expected completion date
Critical Path
Longest path in terms of duration
Has no float since you can’t delay any of the activities otherwise the project will be late
Forward Pass
Early Start + Duration - 1 = Early Finish
Backward Pass
Late Finish - Duration +1 = Late Start
Crashing a project
- Add people to get something done faster
- increases costs
- Subject to the law of diminishing returns (Only so many people are helpful)
- Useful for projects that are effort driven
Fast tracking
- Multiple phases overlapping
- Increases risk since an error found in an earlier phase can impact another phase since they overlap
Heuristic
- Limits labor in a time period
- Extends the schedule
Resource Smoothing
- Limits labor except for the critical path (allow overtime)
_ Try to adhere to the deadline
Agile Release Planning
- High-level summary timeline of the release schedule
- 3 to 6 months
- Product roadmap and product vision
- Determines the number of iterations or sprints
- How much needs to be developed
ITTOs: Control Schedule
Inputs:
- Project Management Plan
- Project Documents
- WPA
- OPA
T&T:
- Data Analysis
- Critical Path method
- PMIS
- Resource optimization
- Leads and Lags
- Schedule Compression
Ouputs:
- WPI
- Schedule forecasts
- Change Requests
- PMP. updates
- Project doc updates
Story Points
- Rating of requirements given to determine how many requirements can be completed in a sprint
Soft Logic
Allows the PM to make decisions based on conditions outside of the project, best practices or guidelines
