Section 6: Project Schedule Management Flashcards
Schedule Management for Smaller Projects
-can often define, sequence, estimate activity durations and develop schedule model in a single process
Tailoring Considerations for Schedule Management
Life Cycle Approach - i.e. predictive or adaptive
Resource Availability - productivity impacts
Project Dimensions - how complex is the project, pace, tracking
Technology Support - how to develop, record, transmit, receive and store project schedule model
Phases of Work
describes what’s happening in a phase
phases help to develop milestones
Theory of Constraints
constraints are anything that limit your options
Theory:
- identify the most important limiting factor (bottleneck)
- focus on this factor and make adjustments and measurements until it’s no longer the most limiting factor
most often used in LEAN Manufacturing
Agile Release Planning
- high-level summary/timeline of the release schedule
- 3 to 6 months for each release
- release planning identifies product roadmap and product vision
- determines # of iterations/sprints based on releases (milestones)
- how much needs to be developed per release
- how long will it take for the whole project to be a releasable product
Burndown Chart
-shows what was planned, actual and then a forecast of future work based on actual trends
Schedule Management Plan
- defines the schedule model and how it will be developed
- level of accuracy and units of measures
- organization procedure links (resources, discipline)
- maintenance plan
- control thresholds
- rules for performance measurements (Earned Value Management)
- reporting templates/formats
Creating/Building Activity List
- activity list and work packages
- each work package should correlate to at least 1 activity
- *** work packages should be no greater than 80 hours and no smaller than 8 hours = 8/80 rules
Decomposing Project Activities Requires 3 Inputs:
1 - Scope Baseline
2 - EEFs
3 - OPAs
Rolling Wave Planning
- example of progressive elaboration
- imminent work is planned in detail
- distant work is planned at a high level
- future work approaches require more planning
- focus is on most important
Activity List
- separate from the WBS
- lists all project activities
- code of account = numbering system (activity identifier)
- activity list often includes a scope of work description
Level of Effort (LOE)
support activities
- reporting
- budgeting
Discrete Effort
- activities required to complete project scope
- most activities on the project at “discrete effort activities”
Apportioned Effort
- typically done by the PM
- are the project management work
- quality assurance
- integrated change control
- communications
Milestone Chart
- shows when the project will hit milestones
- white upward triangle is predicted/anticipated milestones
- black upside down triangle is actual milestone event
Dependencies
Mandatory = hard logic = order in which things MUST happen
Discretionary = soft logic = order can be chosen/more flexible i.e. at your discretion
External = external constraint = waiting on something outside the project so project can move forward to next step/phase
Internal = type of hard logic = waiting on something within the project so project can move forward to next step/phase
Lead and Lag
Lead = accelerated time and is on the successor activity - [negative time - subtracting time] and allows activities to overlap
example - painting and priming hotel rooms
Lag = waiting time and moves activities farther apart - [positive time - adding time]
example = concrete pad and framing
Creating Duration Estimates
- tasks are first identified
- sequencing the activities
- resources defined
- durations are estimated
- ***above activities are iterated as more information is available or changes happen
Estimating Duration Considerations
1- Law of Diminishing Returns
=> an increase in resources will eventually yield diminishing returns
2- Number of resources
=> potential to introduce risk, are resources appropriate, skilled, is there knowledge transfer/learning curve for new technology
3- Advances in technology
=> learning curve for new technology
4- Motivation of staff
=> Student Syndrome or Parkinson’s Law
5- Duration and Effort
Duration = how long an activity takes
Effort = billable time for the labor
Crashing Schedule
adding more resources
Parkinson’s Law
work expands to fill the time allotted to it
Three-Point Estimate/Triangular Distribution
Finds an average of
- optimistic
- most likely
- pessimistic
(O+ML+P)/3 = Estimates
PERT Estimate/Beta Distribution
Program Evaluation and Review Technique
(O+(4ML)+P)/6 = Estimate
weighted towards “most likely”
Bottom-Up Estimating
- most reliable type
- associated with cost estimates but can be used with time/schedule
- requires a fully-decomposed WBS for each work package
- estimate how many and what type of resources or TIME you’ll need to create each work package and then aggregated for all the work packages in the WBS
Management Reserve (Schedule/Time)
- specified amount of the project budge for TIME OVERRUNS
- withheld for management control purposes
- reserved for unforeseen work
- address unknown-unknowns
- not included in the schedule baseline
- part of overall project duration
Develop Schedule
- all about sequencing activities in the correct order
- determines when resources are needed
- establishes logical relationships between activities
Project Constraints related to Schedule
-when and how work can be implemented weather government requirements industry regulations timeframes for vendors
Types of Float
Free Float - activity can be delayed without delaying the early start of any successor activities
Total Float - an activity can be delayed without delaying project completion
Project Float - a project can be delayed whiteout passing the customer-expected completion date
Critical Path
- longest path in the project
- no float available
Forward Pass
early start + duration - 1
ES + du - 1 = Early Finish
Backward Pass
late finish - duration + 1
LF - du + 1 = Late Start
Find Float
Late Finish - Early Finish
or
Late Start - Early Start
