Chapter 2:

Project Time Management

Learning Objectives

o Understand the importance of project schedules and good project time management.

o Define activities as the basis for developing project schedules.

o Describe how project managers use network diagrams and dependencies to assist in activity sequencing.

o Understand the relationship between estimating resources and project schedules.

Learning Objectives (Cont.)

o Explain how various tools and techniques help project managers perform activity duration estimating.

o Use a Gantt chart for planning and tracking schedule information, find the critical path for a project, and describe how critical chain scheduling affect schedule development.

o Discuss how reality checks and people issues are involved in controlling and managing changes to the project schedule.

Importance of Project Scheduleso Managers often cite delivering projects on time as one of their

biggest challenges.o Fifty percent of IT projects were challenged in the 2005

CHAOS study, and their average time overrun increased to 82 percent from a low of 63 percent in 2002.*

o Schedule issues are the main reason for conflicts on projects, especially during the second half of projects.

o Time has the least amount of flexibility; it passes no matter what happens on a project.

*The Standish Group, Latest Standish Group CHAOS Report Shows Project Success Rates Have Improved by 50%, (www.standishgroup.com) (March 25, 2005).

http://www.standishgroup.com

Conflict Intensity Over the Life of a Project

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ProjectFormation

Early Phases Middle Phases End Phases

Con

flict

Inte

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SchedulesPrioritiesManpowerTechnical opinionsProceduresCostPersonality conflicts

AverageTotal Conflict

Individual Work Styles and Cultural Differences Cause Schedule Conflicts

o Some people prefer to follow schedules and meet deadlines while others do not.

o Different cultures and even entire countries have different attitudes about schedules.

Project Time Management Processeso Activity definition:n Identifying the specific activities that the project team

members and stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables.

o Activity sequencing: n Identifying and documenting the relationships between

project activities.o Activity resource estimating:n Estimating how many resources a project team should

use to perform project activities.

Project Time Management Processes (Cont.)

o Activity duration estimating:n Estimating the number of work periods that are needed

to complete individual activities.o Schedule development:n Analyzing activity sequences, activity resource

estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule.

o Schedule control:n Controlling and managing changes to the project

schedule.

Activity Definitiono An activity or task is an element of work normally found on

the WBS that has an expected duration, a cost, and resource requirements.

o Project schedules grow out of the basic documents that initiate a project.n The project charter includes start and end dates and budget

information.n The scope statement and WBS help define what will be done.

o 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 Lists and Attributes

o An activity list is a tabulation of activities to be included on a project schedule. The list should include:n The activity name

n An activity identifier or number

n A brief description of the activity

o Activity attributes provide more information about each activity, such as predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and assumptions related to the activity.

Milestones

o A milestone is a significant event that normally has no duration.

o It often takes several activities and a lot of work to complete a milestone.

o Milestones are useful tools for setting schedule goals and monitoring progress.

o Examples include completion and customer sign-off on key documents and completion of specific products.

Activity Sequencingo Involves reviewing activities and determining dependencies.n Mandatory dependencies: Inherent in the nature of the work

being performed on a project; sometimes referred to as hard logic.

n Discretionary dependencies: Defined by the project team; sometimes referred to as soft logic.

n External dependencies: Involve relationships between project and non-project activities.

o You must determine dependencies in order to use critical path analysis.

Project Network Diagrams

o Project network diagrams are the preferred technique for showing activity sequencing.

o A project network diagram is a schematic display of the logical relationships among, or sequencing of, project activities.

Network Planning Models CPM (Critical Path Method)

Activity-on-Node Networks

Do A

Do C

Do B

Do D

Activity-on-Arrow Networks

Do A Do B

Do C Do D

Sample Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram for Project X

Activity-on-Node Networko A project network should have only one start node.o A project network should have only one end node.o A node has a duration.n A node represents an activity and activities take

time to execute.o Links normally have no duration.n Links represent the relationships between activities.

o Precedents are the immediate preceding activities.

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)

o Time moves from left to right.o A network may not contain loops.n A loop is an error in that it represents a situation

that cannot occur in practice.o A network should not contain dangles.o Representing lagged activities.o Labeling conventions.

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)

Activity description

Activity label duration

ES

LS

EF

LF

Activity span Float

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)

Earliest start

Latest start

Activity

Latest finish

Earliest finish

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)o The forward passn The forward pass is carried out to calculate the earliest dates

on which each activity may be started and completed.n Earliest start (ES)n Earliest finish (EF) = ES + duration

o The backward passn The backward pass is carried out to calculate the latest date at

which each activity may be started and finished without delaying the end date of the project.

n Latest finish (LF)n Latest start = LF duration

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)o Critical Pathn There will be at least one path through the network that

defines the duration of the project.n Any delay to any activity on this critical path will delay the

completion of the project.n Float is a measure of how much the start or completion of an

activity may be delayed with effecting the end date of the project. Any activity with a float of zero is critical in the sense that any delay in carrying out the activity will delay thecompletion date of the project as a whole.o Float = ES LS

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)o Critical Path (Cont.)n In managing the project, we must pay particular

attention to monitoring activities on the critical path so that the effects of any delay or resource unavailability are detected and corrected at the earliest opportunity.

n Activity span is a measure of the maximum time allowable for the activity.o Activity span = ES LF

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)o Activity floatn Although the total float is shown for each activity,

it really belongs to a path through the network.o Shortening the project durationn If we wish to shorten the overall duration of a

project we would normally consider attempting to reduce activity durations. In many cases this can be done by applying more resources to the task working overtime or procuring additional staff.

Activity-on-Node Network (Cont.)o Identifying critical activitiesn The critical path identifies those activities which are

critical to the end date of the project, however, activities that are not on the critical path may become critical.

n As the project proceeds, activities will invariably use up some of their float and this will require a periodic recalculation of the network.

n As soon as the activities along a particular path use up their total float then that path will become a critical path and a number of non-critical activities will suddenly become critical.

Activity Resource Estimating

o Before estimating activity durations, you must have a good idea of the quantity and type of resources that will be assigned to each activity.

o Consider important issues in estimating resources:

n How difficult will it be to complete specific activities on this project?

n What is the organizations history in doing similar activities?

n Are the required resources available?

Activity Duration Estimating

o Duration includes the actual amount of time worked on an activity plus the elapsed time.

o Effort is the number of workdays or work hours required to complete a task.

o Effort does not normally equal duration.o People doing the work should help create

estimates, and an expert should review them.

Schedule Development

o Uses results of the other time management processes to determine the start and end dates of the project.

o Ultimate goal is to create a realistic project schedule that provides a basis for monitoring project progress for the time dimension of the project.

o Important tools and techniques include Gantt charts, critical path analysis, critical chain scheduling, and PERT analysis.

Gantt Charts

o 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.

o Symbols include:n Black diamonds: Milestonesn Thick black bars: Summary tasksn Lighter horizontal bars: Durations of tasksn Arrows: Dependencies between tasks

Gantt Chart for Software Launch Project

Adding Milestones to Gantt Charts

o Many people like to focus on meeting milestones, especially for large projects.

o Milestones emphasize important events or accomplishments in projects.

o You typically create milestone by entering tasks that have a zero duration, or you can mark any task as a milestone.

SMART Criteria

o Milestones should be:n Specificn Measurablen Assignablen Realisticn Time-framed

Sample Tracking Gantt Chart

Techniques for Shortening a Project Schedule

o Three main techniques for shortening schedules:n Shortening the duration of critical activities or

tasks by adding more resources or changing their scope.

n Crashing activities by obtaining the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least incremental cost.

n Fast tracking activities by doing them in parallel or overlapping them.

Crashing and Fast Tracking

OverlappedTasks or fasttracking

Shortenedduration thrucrashing

Original schedule

Many Horror Stories Related to Project Schedules

o Creating realistic schedules and sticking to them is a key challenge of project management.

o Crashing and fast tracking often cause more problems, resulting in longer schedules.

o Organizational issues often cause schedule problems.

Importance of Updating Critical Path Data

o It is important to update project schedule information to meet time goals for a project.

o The critical path may change as you enter actual start and finish dates.

o If you know the project completion date will slip, negotiate with the project sponsor.

Schedule Control

o Perform reality checks on schedules.o Allow for contingencies.o Dont plan for everyone to work at 100 percent

capacity all the time.o Hold progress meetings with stakeholders and

be clear and honest in communicating schedule issues.

Reality Checks on Scheduling

o Review the draft schedule or estimated completion date in the project charter.

o Prepare a more detailed schedule with the project team.

o Make sure the schedule is realistic and followed.

o Alert top management well in advance if there are schedule problems.

Working with People Issues

o Strong leadership helps projects succeed more than good network planning charts.

o Project managers should usen Empowerment n Incentives n Discipline n Negotiation

Summary

o Project time management is often cited as the main source of conflict on projects, and most IT projects exceed time estimates.

o Main processes include:n Activity definitionn Activity sequencingn Activity resource estimatingn Activity duration estimatingn Schedule developmentn Schedule control

Questions and Answers