Chapter 6:

Project Time Management

Information Technology Project Management,

Fourth Edition

APOLINAR B. FUDALAN, MMBM

College of Engineering and Computer Studies
Holy Name University
 How
important

is a
schedule?
Information Technology
Project
 Figure 6-1. Conflict Intensity
Over the Life ofa Project
0.40
0.35
0.30
Conflict Intensity

Schedules
0.25 Average
Total Conflict
Priorities
Manpower
0.20 Technical
opinions
0.15
Procedures
0.10 Cost
Personality conflicts
0.05
0.00
Project Early Middle Phases End
Formation Phases Phases

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 Project Time
Management Processes
1. Activity definition
2. Activity sequencing
3. Activity resource estimating
4. Activity duration estimating
5. Schedule development
6. Schedule control

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1 Activity Definition
▪ An activity or task is an element of work normally
found on the WBS that has an expected duration, a
cost, and resource requirements.
▪ Project schedules grow out of the basic documents that
initiate a project.
▪ The project charter includes start and end dates and budget
information.
▪ The scope statement and WBS help define what will be done.

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Activity Lists, Attributes, and
Milestones
▪ An activity list is a tabulation of activities to be included
on a
project schedule. The list should include:
▪ The activity name
▪ An activity identifier or number
▪ A brief description of the activity
▪ Activity attributes provide more information about each
activity, suchas predecessors, successors, logical relationships,
leads and
lags, resource requirements, constraints, imposed dates,
and
assumptions related to the activity.
▪ A milestone is a significant event that normally has no duration.

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2 Activity Sequencing
▪ Involves reviewing activities and determining dependencies.
▪ A dependency or relationship relates to the sequencing of
project activities or tasks.
1. Mandatory dependencies: Inherent in the nature of the
work being performed on a project; sometimes referred to as
hard logic.
2. Discretionary dependencies: Defined by the project
team; sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be
used with care because they may limit later scheduling
options.
3. External dependencies: Involve relationships between
project and non-project activities.

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 Network Diagrams
▪ Network diagrams arethe preferred technique for
showing activity sequencing.

▪ A network diagram is a schematic display of the logical

relationships among, or sequencing of, project activities.

▪ Two formats arethe arrow and precedence

main
diagramming methods.

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 Figure 6-2. Sample Activity-on-
Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram for
Project X

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 Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM)
▪ Also called activity-on-arrow (AOA) network diagram.
▪ Activities are represented by arrows.
▪ Nodes or circles are the starting and ending points
of activities.
▪ Can only show finish-to-start dependencies.

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 ofdependencies.

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 Figure 6-3. Task Dependency Types

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3 Activity
Resource
▪ Before estimatingEstimating
activity durations,
you must have a
good idea of the quantity and type of resources that will be
assigned to each activity.
▪ Consider important issues in estimating resources:
▪ How difficult will it be to complete
specific
activities on this project?
▪ What is the organization’s history in
doing similar activities?
▪ Are the required resources available?

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4 Activity Duration
Estimating
▪ Duration includes the actual amount of time
worked
▪ Effort is theplus
on an activity number of workdays
the elapsed time. or work hours
required to complete a task.
▪ Instead of providing activity estimates as a discrete
number, such as four weeks, it’s often helpful to create a
three-point estimate:
▪ An estimate that includes an optimistic, most likely, and
pessimistic estimate, such as three weeks for the optimistic,
four weeks for the most likely, and five weeks for the
pessimistic estimate.

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5 Schedule Development
▪ Uses results of the other time management processes
to determine the start and end dates of the project.

▪ The ultimate 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, critical chain scheduling, and
PERT analysis.

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 Gantt
Charts
▪ 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.
▪ Symbols include:
▪ Black diamonds: Milestones
▪ Thick black bars: Summary tasks
▪ Lighter horizontal bars: Durations of tasks
▪ Arrows: Dependencies between tasks

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 Figure 6-4. Gantt Chart for
Software Launch Project

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 Figure 6-5. Sample Tracking
Gantt Chart

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 Critical Path Method (CPM)
▪ CPM is a network diagramming technique used to
predict total project duration.
▪ A 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 and has the least amount of slack or
network diagram
float.
▪ Slack or float is the amount of time an activity can be
delayed without delaying a succeeding activity or the
project finish date.

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 Figure 6-6. Determining the
Critical Path for Project X

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 Using Critical Path Analysis
to Make Schedule
▪ Trade-offs
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 can be
delayed from its early start without delaying the planned project
finish date.
▪ A forward pass through the network diagram determines the early
start and finish dates.
▪ A backward pass determines the late start and finish dates.

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 Using the Critical Path to
Shorten a Project
Schedule
▪ Three main techniques for shorteningschedules:
▪ Shortening the duration of critical activities or 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.

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 Critical Chain Scheduling
▪ Critical chain scheduling is a method of scheduling that considers
limited resources when creating a project schedule and includes
buffers to protect the project completion date.

▪ Uses the Theory of Constraints (TOC), a management philosophy

developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and introduced in his book The
Goal.

▪ Attempts to minimize multitasking, which occurs when a resource

works on more than one task at a time.

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 Multitasking Example

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 Buffers and Critical Chain
▪ A buffer is additional time to complete a task.
▪ Murphy’s Law states that if something can go wrong, it
will.
▪ Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time
allowed.
▪ Critical chain scheduling removes buffers from individual
tasks and instead creates:
▪ A project buffer or additional time added before the project’s
due date.
▪ Feeding buffers or additional time added before tasks on the
critical path.

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 Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT)
▪ PERT is a network analysis technique used to estimate project duration
when there is a high degree of uncertainty about the individual activity
duration estimates. PERT uses probabilistic time estimates:
▪ PERT weighted average = optimistic time + 4X most likely time + pessimistic time
6
▪ Example:
PERTweighted average = 8 workdays + 4 X 10 workdays + 24 workdays = 12 days
6
where:
optimistic time= 8 days
most likely time = 10 days
pessimistic time = 24 days
Therefore, you’d use 12 days on the network diagram instead of 10
when using PERT forthe above example.

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6 Schedule Control
▪ Goals are to know the status of the schedule,
influence factors that cause schedule changes,
determine that the schedule haschanged,and
manage changes when theyoccur.
▪ Tools and techniques include:
▪ Progress reports.
▪ A schedule change control system.
▪ Project management software, including schedule
comparison charts, such as the tracking Gantt chart.
▪ Variance analysis, such as analyzing float or slack.
▪ Performance management, such as earnedvalue (see
Chapter 7).

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

▪ Main processes include:

▪ Activity definition
▪ Activity sequencing
▪ Activity resource estimating
▪ Activity duration estimating
▪ Schedule development
▪ Schedule control

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