Plan/Schedule Management

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One of the key activities that must be operated across all projects, in some form, is time/schedule management. This is one of the fundamentals of the core 'triple constraint’ (time, cost, quality/scope).

Whilst it must be scaled according to the size/complexity of the project/programme (i.e. don’t over-engineer the schedule control of a small group of projects) there are some techniques which must be applied to large complex programme environments. The PMO should be the driving force behind the definition and execution of these controls. This summary relates to large complex programmes.

The 4 key process areas are as follows:

Schedule Management Approach
It is essential to define what tools and techniques you will need to deploy to effectively control the schedule. This will include, as a minimum:

1. Definition (and scrutiny) of team level plans, area level plans, release level plans and overall programme plan
2. Identification (and scrutiny) of inter-dependencies (including external and sub-plan)
3. Definition of a project/programme target date and interim milestones;
4. Documentation of the ‘exit criteria’ for each milestone (this will define what conditions must be fulfilled before the next programme phase can begin)
5. Approach to baselining plan and process for re-baselining (depending on controlled changes to the quadruple-constraint)
6. Definition of tools required to manage the schedule e.g. MS Project for simple schedules with a basic dependency structure or an enterprise programme management toolset (e.g. Niku Clarity, Mercury ITG, Primavera etc)
7. Definition of the data collection processes that will support (6) above;
8. Definition of key stakeholders (and approach to garner their ‘buy-in’); and
9. Integration with Communication Management function to ensure schedules are published and visible to all stakeholders and more importantly the control metrics (such as baseline variance and Schedule Performance (SPI)) are periodically disseminated and acted-upon.

Schedule Definition
You must estimate and document the schedule. This will include, as a minimum:

1. Estimate the schedule durations
2. Quantify risk and build contingency into plan
3. Document schedule assumptions
4. Define approach for estimating methodology e.g. historical data, analogies, expert judgement
5. Obtain team ownership of schedule estimates
6. Evaluate and escalate schedule uncertainties
7. Ensure work packages are manageable (e.g. a good heuristic is to estimate the work package Earned Value (EV) gates according to (1) the reporting schedule (e.g. Every 2 weeks = 10 working days) and (2) the approximate number of people working on each work package (e.g. 3 resources). This will result in a minimum estimate of approx 30 days per gate i.e. for a 0/100 Earned Value deliverable that will equate to 30 days for the whole deliverable and for a 50/100 deliverable it will equate to 60 days.

Schedule Analysis
This relates to the analysis of defined dependency structures to identify the Critical Path (CP) (and near-CPs) and then, during operation, examination of opportunities to streamline, crash or run activities concurrently. This will include, as a minimum:

1. Analyse schedule dependencies and ensure gates/hand-offs are managed closely
2. Identify CP
3. Ensure all key stakeholders are kept apprised of adherence to the CP and risks are periodically reassessed to ensure their potential impact to the CP (or near-CP) is minimised
4. Examine opportunities, during operation, to streamline, crash, create work-arounds, rethink dependencies or run activities concurrently and reduce the CP

Schedule Maintenance
This relates to the timely tracking of progress against the baseline plan/milestones. This will include, as a minimum:

1. Definition of procedures for baseline management (including change control), data collection and analysis (including Earned Value) and schedule reporting;
2. Tracking of progress against agreed baseline and milestones; and
3. Assessment of the impact of realised/forecast delays on the CP, near-CP and non-CPs.

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