OBS 220
Chapter 8: scheduling projects
Plan schedule management
Activity:
• Activities are building blocks of a project schedule
• A component of project scope work performed during the course of a project
• Characteristics:
- Clear starting and ending points
- Tangible output that can be verified
- Scope small enough to understand and control without micromanaging
- Resources, other costs, and schedule that can be estimated and controlled
- A single person who can be held accountable for each activity (often more than
one person is required to complete task, but one person is responsible)
• Represents work that needs to be performed therefore should be listed as verb-
noun format (prepare budget, build frame etc)
• Each activity be clearly differentiated from each other therefore write in a verb-
adjective-noun format (write draft report, write final report)
• Project time management – seven work processes
1. Plan schedule management
o Arranging how to develop, manage, execute and control project schedule
2. Define activities
o Project planning process that identifies and determines specific actions to
develop and deliver the project outcomes, such as products, services or
results
3. Sequence activity
o Determining the predecessor and successor relationship among the
project activities
4. Estimate activity resources
5. Estimate activity durations
o The process of approximating the number of work periods needed to
complete individual activities with estimated resources
6. Develop schedule
o The process of analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource
requirements and schedule constraints to create the project schedule
7. Control schedule
o The process of regulating changes in project schedule
Purpose of a project schedule
• Projects are undertaken to accomplish important business purposes, and people
often want to use the project results as quickly as possible
• Specific questions can be answered with the schedule
- What is the earliest a particular activity can start, and when will it end?
- What would happen if a delivery of materials was one week late?
Created by: Sabrina Dias
, - What activity must begin before which other activities can take place?
- If one worker is assigned to do two activities which one must go first?
- When will project be complete?
- What time constraints will we encounter?
- How many resource types are required and are they available?
- Which worker or other resource is a bottleneck, limiting the speed of our
project?
- What’s the impact if client wants to add another module?
- How many hours do we need from each worker ?
Historical development of project schedules
(only wants required by indication of the slides)
PERT – Program evaluation and review technique
• Estimate most likely time needed to complete a project
• Estimate level of confidence in completing a project in a particular time
• Useful in (R&D) projects
• Developed in the Navy’s special program office because the navy was developing the
large and complex Polaris Weapons system
CPM – critical path method
• A technique used to determine the amount of scheduling flexibility (float) on various
logical network paths in the project schedule network, and to determine the
minimum total project duration
• Used to plan very large projects
• Single time estimates for each activity
• Focus on longest sequence of activities
• Used to determine how to complete project early
• Useful in construction industry – build and refurbish plants
• Developed in the engineering services division of Dupont
Activity on arrow (AOA) or arrow diagramming method (ADM) and activity on node (AON)
or precedence diagramming method (PDM)
• A method used to display work activities
• Schedule activities are represented by
arrows and connected at points called
nodes
• AOA rarely used
• Common method AON (activity on
node) or PDM (precedence
diagramming method)
• AON or PDM = technique in which the
scheduled activities are represented by
nodes and are graphically linked by one
Created by: Sabrina Dias
Chapter 8: scheduling projects
Plan schedule management
Activity:
• Activities are building blocks of a project schedule
• A component of project scope work performed during the course of a project
• Characteristics:
- Clear starting and ending points
- Tangible output that can be verified
- Scope small enough to understand and control without micromanaging
- Resources, other costs, and schedule that can be estimated and controlled
- A single person who can be held accountable for each activity (often more than
one person is required to complete task, but one person is responsible)
• Represents work that needs to be performed therefore should be listed as verb-
noun format (prepare budget, build frame etc)
• Each activity be clearly differentiated from each other therefore write in a verb-
adjective-noun format (write draft report, write final report)
• Project time management – seven work processes
1. Plan schedule management
o Arranging how to develop, manage, execute and control project schedule
2. Define activities
o Project planning process that identifies and determines specific actions to
develop and deliver the project outcomes, such as products, services or
results
3. Sequence activity
o Determining the predecessor and successor relationship among the
project activities
4. Estimate activity resources
5. Estimate activity durations
o The process of approximating the number of work periods needed to
complete individual activities with estimated resources
6. Develop schedule
o The process of analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource
requirements and schedule constraints to create the project schedule
7. Control schedule
o The process of regulating changes in project schedule
Purpose of a project schedule
• Projects are undertaken to accomplish important business purposes, and people
often want to use the project results as quickly as possible
• Specific questions can be answered with the schedule
- What is the earliest a particular activity can start, and when will it end?
- What would happen if a delivery of materials was one week late?
Created by: Sabrina Dias
, - What activity must begin before which other activities can take place?
- If one worker is assigned to do two activities which one must go first?
- When will project be complete?
- What time constraints will we encounter?
- How many resource types are required and are they available?
- Which worker or other resource is a bottleneck, limiting the speed of our
project?
- What’s the impact if client wants to add another module?
- How many hours do we need from each worker ?
Historical development of project schedules
(only wants required by indication of the slides)
PERT – Program evaluation and review technique
• Estimate most likely time needed to complete a project
• Estimate level of confidence in completing a project in a particular time
• Useful in (R&D) projects
• Developed in the Navy’s special program office because the navy was developing the
large and complex Polaris Weapons system
CPM – critical path method
• A technique used to determine the amount of scheduling flexibility (float) on various
logical network paths in the project schedule network, and to determine the
minimum total project duration
• Used to plan very large projects
• Single time estimates for each activity
• Focus on longest sequence of activities
• Used to determine how to complete project early
• Useful in construction industry – build and refurbish plants
• Developed in the engineering services division of Dupont
Activity on arrow (AOA) or arrow diagramming method (ADM) and activity on node (AON)
or precedence diagramming method (PDM)
• A method used to display work activities
• Schedule activities are represented by
arrows and connected at points called
nodes
• AOA rarely used
• Common method AON (activity on
node) or PDM (precedence
diagramming method)
• AON or PDM = technique in which the
scheduled activities are represented by
nodes and are graphically linked by one
Created by: Sabrina Dias
