CPM2 FINALS

Project scheduling

provides a detailed plan that represents how and when the project will deliver the products, services, and results in the project scope and serves as a tool for communication, managing stakeholders’ expectations, and as a basis for performance reporting.

project management team

selects a scheduling method, such as critical path or an agile approach. Then, data such as the activities, planned dates, durations, resources, dependencies, and constraints, are entered into a scheduling tool to create a schedule model for the project.

TRENDS AND EMERGING PRACTICES IN PROJECT SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT

a. Alterative scheduling with a backlog
b.On-demand scheduling

Alterative scheduling with a backlog

This is a form of rolling wave planning based on adaptive life cycles, such as the agile approach for product development

On-demand scheduling

typically used in a Kanban system (all tasks are visible to everyone making everyone in the same page), is based on the theory-of-constraints and pull-based scheduling concepts from lean manufacturing to limit a team's work in progress in order to balance demand against the team's delivery throughput.

Tailoring

is the selection and adaptation of appropriate artifacts for use in a specific project. This is necessary because each project is unique and not every process, input, tool, technique, or output is required on every project.

Considerations for tailoring

a. Life cycle approach
b. Resource availability
c. Project dimensions.
d. Technology support

Adaptive approaches

use short cycles to undertake work, review the results, and adapt as necessary.

Plan Schedule Management

The process of establishing the policies, procedures, and documentation for planning, developing, managing, executing, and controlling the project schedule. Performed once once at predefined points in the project. Provides guidance and direction

Project Charter

document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project.

Project Management Plan (PMP)

the document that describes how the project will be executed, monitored and controlled, and closed. It integrates and consolidates all the subsidiary management plans and baselines, and other information necessary to manage the project.

Scope Management Plan

describes how the scope will be defined and developed, which will provide information on how the schedule will be developed.

Development Approach

helps define the scheduling approach, estimating techniques, scheduling tools, and techniques for controlling the schedule.

Enterprise Environmental Factors

these influence the Plan Schedule Management process in many ways

Organizational Process Assests (OPA)

these are information, templates and tools that influence the Plan Schedule Management process

EXPERT JUDGEMENT

defined as discernment provided based upon expertise in an application area, Knowledge Area, discipline, industry, etc., as appropriate for the activity being performed

DATA ANALYSIS

Alternatives Analysis is a technique that can be used for this process because it can include determining which schedule methodology to use, or how to combine various methods on the project

Rolling Wave approach/planning

approach to project management suggests that the project planning effort “rolls out” detailed plans for the foreseeable future and, as the project evolves, periodically reevaluates the completion dates and costs.

Meetings

Project teams may hold planning meetings to develop the schedule management plan.

SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT PLAN

a component of the project management plan that establishes the criteria and the activities for developing, monitoring, and controlling the schedule. May be formal or informal, detailed or broadly framed based on the needs of the project

Project schedule model development

The scheduling methodology and the scheduling tool to be used in the development of the project schedule model are specified.

Release and iteration length

When using an adaptive life cycle, the timeboxed periods for releases, waves, and iterations are specified. Time-boxed periods are durations during which the team works steadily toward completion of a goal.

Level of accuracy

specifies the acceptable range used in determining realistic activity duration estimates and may include an amount for contingencies.

Units of measure

Each unit of measurement (such as staff hours, staff days, or weeks for time measures, or meters, liters, tons, kilometers, or cubic yards for quantity measures) is defined for each of the resources.

Organizational procedures links.

The work breakdown structure (WBS) provides the framework for the schedule management plan, allowing for consistency with the estimates and resulting schedules.

Project schedule model maintenance

The process used to update the status and record progress of the project in the schedule model during the execution of the project is defined.

Control thresholds

Variance thresholds for monitoring schedule performance may be specified to indicate an agreed-upon amount of variation to be allowed before some action needs to be taken. Are typically expressed as percentage deviations

Rules of performance measurement

Earned value management (EVM) rules or other physical measurement rules of performance measurement are set

Reporting formats

The formats and frequency for the various schedule reports are defined

Define Activities

the process of identifying and documenting the specific actions to be performed to produce the project deliverables.

Scope baseline

This is the approved version of a scope statement, WBS, and its associated WBS dictionary, which can be changed only through formal change control procedures and is used as a basis for comparison

Project Scope Statement

the description of the project scope, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints.

WBS

is the hierarchical fragmented total scope of work to be executed, accomplished, and delivered in the project.

WBS dictionary

a document that provides detailed deliverable, activity, and scheduling information about each component in the WBS.

DECOMPOSITION

a technique used for dividing and subdividing the project scope and project deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts.

ACTIVITY LIST

includes the schedule activities required on the project.

ACTIVITY ATTRIBUTES

These extend the description of the activity by identifying multiple components, which evolve over time and that is associated with each activity

MILESTONE LIST

a significant point or event in a project. It identifies all project milestones and indicates whether the milestone is mandatory, such as those required by contract, or optional, such as those based on historical information. Milestones have zero duration because they represent a significant point or event.

CHANGE REQUESTS

a formal proposal to modify any document, deliverable, or baseline.

Perform Integrated Change Control

reviews all requests for changes to project documents, deliverables, or the project management plan and determines the resolution of the change requests.

Schedule baseline

Throughout the project, work packages are progressively elaborated into activities. may reveal work that was not part of the initial schedule baseline, necessitating a change to delivery dates or other significant schedule milestones that are part of the schedule baseline.

Cost baseline

Changes to the ___________ are incorporated in response to approved changes in schedule activities.

Sequence Activities

This is the process of identifying and documenting relationships among the project activities. Key benefit of this process is that it defines the logical sequence of work to obtain the greatest efficiency given all project constraints.

Sequencing

can be performed using PM software or by manual or automated techniques.

Assumption log

Assumptions and constraints recorded in the ______________ may influence the way activities are sequenced, the relationship between activities, and the need for leads and lags, and may give rise to individual project risks that may impact the project schedule

PRECEDENCE DIAGRAMMING METHOD

a technique used for constructing a schedule model in which activities are represented by nodes and are graphically linked by one or more logical relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be performed.

Predecessor activity

an activity that logically comes before a dependent activity in a schedule

Successor activity

a dependent activity that logically comes after another activity in a schedule.

Four (4) Types of Dependecies or Logical Relationships:

a. Finish-to-start (FS).
b. Finish-to-finish (FF).
c. Start-to-start (SS)
d. Start-to-finish (SF)

Finish-to-start (FS)

A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has finished. most commonly used

Finish-to-finish (FF)

A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has finished.

Start-to-start (SS)

A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has started.

Start-to-finish (SF)

A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has started

two activities can have two logical relationships at the same time

true

Mandatory dependencies

are those that are legally or contractually required or inherent in the nature of the work. These often involve physical limitations. referred to as hard logic or hard dependencies

Discretionary dependencies

sometimes referred to as preferred logic, preferential logic, or soft logic. These are established based on knowledge of best practices within a particular application area or some unusual aspect of the project where a specific sequence is desired, even though there may be other acceptable sequences.

External dependencies

These involve a relationship between project activities and non-project activities. These dependencies are usually outside of the project team's control.

Internal dependencies

These involve a precedence relationship between project activities and are generally inside the project team's control.

Leads

the amount of time a successor activity can be advanced with respect to a predecessor activity

Lag

the amount of time a successor activity will be delayed with respect to a predecessor activity

PROJECT SCHEDULE NETWORK DIAGRAMS

a graphical representation of the logical relationships, also referred to as dependencies, among the project schedule activities. can be made manually or thorugh a software

ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS

This is the process of estimating the number of work periods needed to complete individual activities with estimated resources

Law of diminishing returns

When one factor (e.g., resource) used to determine the effort required to produce a unit of work is increased while all other factors remain fixed, a point will eventually be reached at which additions of that one factor start to yield progressively smaller or diminishing increases in output.

Number of resources

Increasing the number of resources to twice the original number of the resources does not always reduce the time by half, as it may increase extra duration due to risk, and at some point adding too many resources to the activity may increase duration due to knowledge transfer, learning curve, additional coordination, and other factors involved.

Advances in technology

This may also play an important role in determining duration estimates.

Motivation of staff

The project manager also needs to be aware of Student Syndrome— or procrastination—when people start to apply themselves only at the last possible moment before the deadline, and Parkinson's Law where work expands to fill the time available for its completion

Lessons learned register

Lessons learned earlier in the project with regard to effort and duration estimating can be applied to later phases in the project to improve the accuracy and precision of effort and duration estimates

Resource breakdown structure

The resource breakdown structure provides a hierarchical structure of the identified resources by resource category and resource type

Resource calendars

s influence the duration of schedule activities due to the availability of specific resources, type of resources, and resources with specific attributes. Specify when and how long identified project resources will be available during the project

Risk register

This captures details of identified individual project risks

ANALOGOUS ESTIMATING

This is a technique for estimating the duration or cost of an activity or a project using historical data from a similar activity or project.

PARAMETRIC ESTIMATING

This is an estimating technique in which an algorithm is used to calculate cost or duration based on historical data and project parameters.

THREE-POINT ESTIMATING.

The accuracy of single-point duration estimates may be improved by considering estimation uncertainty and risk. Helps define an approximate range for an activity's duration

Most likely (tM)

This estimate is based on the duration of the activity, given the resources likely to be assigned, their productivity, realistic expectations of availability for the activity, dependencies on other participants, and interruptions.

Optimistic (tO)

The activity duration based on analysis of the best-case scenario for the activity

Pessimistic (tP)

The duration based on analysis of the worst-case scenario for the activity

BOTTOM-UP ESTIMATING

This is a method of estimating project duration or cost by aggregating the estimates of the lower-level components of the WBS.

Alternatives analysis

is used to compare various levels of resource capability or skill

Reserve analysis.

is used to determine the amount of contingency and management reserve needed for the project.

Contingency reserves

the estimated duration within the schedule baseline, which is allocated for identified risks that are accepted.

Management reserves

a specified amount of the project budget withheld for management control purposes and are reserved for unforeseen work that is within scope of the project

DECISION MAKING

techniques that can be used in this process include but are not limited to voting

DURATION ESTIMATES

These are quantitative assessments of the likely number of time periods that are required to complete an activity, a phase, or a project. do not include lags

BASIS OF ESTIMATES

The amount and type of additional details supporting the duration estimate vary by application area. Regardless of the level of detail, the supporting documentation should provide a clear and complete understanding of how the duration estimate was derived.

DEVELOP SCHEDULE

is the process of analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource requirements, and schedule constraints to create a schedule model for project execution and monitoring and controlling.

Project team assignments.

specify which resources are assigned to each activity.

CRITICAL PATH METHOD

s used to estimate the minimum project duration and determine the amount of schedule flexibility on the logical network paths within the schedule model.

RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION

used to adjust the start and finish dates of activities to adjust planned resource use to be equal to or less than resource availability

Resource leveling

A technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource constraints with the goal of balancing the demand for resources with the available supply.

Resource smoothing

A technique that adjusts the activities of a schedule model such that the requirements for resources on the project do not exceed certain predefined resource limits.

What-if scenario analysis

This is the process of evaluating scenarios in order to predict their effect, positive or negative, on project objectives

Simulation

This models the combined effects of individual project risks and other sources of uncertainty to evaluate their potential impact on achieving project objectives. The most common simulation technique is Monte Carlo analysis

SCHEDULE COMPRESSION

techniques are used to shorten or accelerate the schedule duration without reducing the project scope in order to meet schedule constraints, imposed dates, or other schedule objectives

negative float analysis

The critical path is the one with the least float. Due to violating a constraint or imposed date, the total float can become negative.

Crashing

A technique used to shorten the schedule duration for the least incremental cost by adding resources.

Fast tracking

A schedule compression technique in which activities or phases normally done in sequence are performed in parallel for at least a portion of their duration. Only works when activities can be overlapped to shorten the project duration

PROJECT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (PMIS)

include scheduling software that expedites the process of building a schedule model by generating start and finish dates based on the inputs of activities, network diagrams, resources, and activity durations.

AGILE RELEASE PLANNING

provides a high-level summary timeline of the release schedule (typically 3 to 6 months) based on the product roadmap and the product vision for the product's evolution.

SCHEDULE DATA

is the collection of information for describing and controlling the schedule

PROJECT CALENDARS

identifies working days and shifts that are available for scheduled activities. It distinguishes time periods in days or parts of days that are available to complete scheduled activities from time periods that are not available for work.