Project Time Management Processes PDF

Project Time Management Processes Planning schedule management: determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will be used for planning, executing, and controlling the project schedule Defining activities: identifying the specific activities that the project team members and stakehold...

Project Time Management Processes Planning schedule management: determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will be used for planning, executing, and controlling the project schedule Defining activities: identifying the specific activities that the project team members and stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables. Activities: Work I have to do in order to achieve the deliverable of the project. Sequencing activities: identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities. Estimating activity resources: estimating how many resources a project team should use to perform project activities. Estimating activity durations: estimating the number of work periods that are needed to complete individual activities. Developing the schedule: analyzing activity sequences, activity resource estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule. Controlling the schedule: controlling and managing changes to the project schedule. Planning Schedule Management A schedule management plan includes: 1. Project schedule model development 2. The scheduling methodology 3. Level of accuracy and units of measure 4. Control thresholds (variance) 5. Rules of performance measurement 6. Reporting formats 7. Process descriptions Defining Activities activity or task is an element of work normally found on WBS that has an expected duration, a cost, and resource requirements. 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. activity list is a tabulation of activities to be included on a project schedule that includes: activity name activity identifier or number a brief description of the activity Activity attributes provide more information such as: predecessors Successors logical relationships leads and lags resource requirements Constraints imposed dates assumptions related to the activity A milestone is a significant event that normally has no duration Sequencing Activities Involves reviewing activities and determining dependencies Three types of Dependencies Mandatory dependencies: depend on the nature of the work being performed on a project, sometimes referred to as hard logic Discretionary dependencies: defined by the project team, sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be used with care since they may limit later scheduling options External dependencies: involve relationships between project and non-project activities network diagram is a schematic display of the logical relationships among, or sequencing of, project activities. Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM) *Can only show finish-to-start dependencies. Activities are represented by arrows. Nodes or circles are the starting and ending points of activities. Bursts occur when a single node is followed by two or more activities. merge occurs when two or more nodes precede a single node. Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) Activities are represented by boxes. Arrows show relationships between activities. *More popular than ADM method and used by project management software *Better at showing different types of dependencies Three-Point Estimates: estimate that includes an optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimate. *Three-point estimates are needed for PERT and Monte Carlo simulations Developing the Schedule Uses results of the other time management processes to determine the start and end date of the project The 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, critical path analysis, and critical chain scheduling, and PERT analysis. 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 *Milestones emphasize important events or accomplishments on projects. 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 may be delayed without delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date. *The critical path is NOT the one with all the critical activities; it only accounts for time. 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 may be delayed from its early start without delaying the planned project finish date forward pass through the network diagram determines the early start and finish dates backward pass determines the late start and finish dates. Three main techniques for shortening schedules Shortening durations of critical activities/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 Critical Chain Scheduling: method of scheduling that considers limited resources when creating a project schedule and includes buffers to protect the project completion date Theory of Constraints (TOC): Attempts to minimize multitasking Additional concepts Buffer: additional time to complete a task. Project buffer: additional time added before the project’s due date. Feeding buffers: additional time added before tasks on the critical path. Bad Multitasking: Result of poor prioritization. PERT: used to estimate project duration when there is a high degree of uncertainty about the individual activity duration estimates PERT weighted average = (optimistic time + 4X most likely time + pessimistic time) / 6 Done by: Amal Alharthie