PMD 913
Project Progress and Cost Control
Module 2: Project Time Control
Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport
Graduate School of Business - Alex
Prof. Hesham Bassioni
PhD, ME, MBA, PMP
April 2025
“Time is of the Essence”
“It is important to have a schedule,
but it is more important to use it”
(Hinze 2004)
Project Schedule Updates
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Project Management in Practice
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Types of Schedules
Over the Project Timeline
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Correcting Schedule Deviations
◼ More than often projects are subjected to delays or
unexpected events.
◼ Late projects can pose several problems such as
contractual penalties / liquidated damages, lost
opportunities, and increased project costs.
◼ The main strategies to bring back a project on target
are – Schedule Compression:
➢ Fast Tracking - Review / reconsider precedence
requirements and doing critical path activities in parallel.
➢ Crashing – Making cost and schedule tradeoffs to get the
most schedule compression with the least incremental cost.
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Correcting Schedule Deviations
◼ Schedule Compression: Crashing and Fast tracking
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Baseline Schedule Revision
◼ Schedule baseline revision is needed when:
➢ Changes are approved
➢ Actual duration and resources are not the same as planned.
➢ The actual sequencing of activities is not as planned.
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Project Time Management
Processes
The basic processes included in the PMBOK Time
Management knowledge area are:
➢ Define Activities
➢ Sequence Activities
➢ Estimate Activity Resources
➢ Estimate Activity Durations
➢ Develop Schedule
➢ Control Schedule
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Project Time Management
Processes
1. Define Activities:
➢ The project WBS is decomposed to the WP level and further
decomposed to the activity level.
➢ The activity is the building brick of estimating, scheduling,
executing, and monitoring and controlling project work.
➢ The determination of the level of activity detail is an
important concern for managing the project efficiently.
➢ A general rule of thumb is less than 1/3 – 1/2 the
monitoring period.
➢ Comprehensive of the project scope.
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Project Time Management
Processes
2. Sequence Activities:
➢ Identifying and documenting logical relationships among
schedule activities.
➢ Network diagramming methods.
3. Estimate Activity Resources:
➢ Involves determining what resource and how much is
required for each activity.
➢ Availability of resource to perform project activities.
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Project Time Management
Processes
4. Estimating Activity Durations:
➢ Durations can be estimated through Expert Judgment,
Analogous estimating, Parametric estimating, Three-Point
estimates, and heuristics.
➢ Reserves can be accommodated in the project to account for
risks of time delays. Contingency reserve, time reserves or
buffers resemble risk remaining after risk response planning.
Management reserve is set aside to cover unforeseen risks.
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Project Time Management
Processes
5. Develop Schedule:
➢ The necessary calculations are made to obtain the time
estimate.
➢ The schedule is finally expressed in calendar dates.
6. Control Schedule:
➢ Monitoring and information gathering.
➢ The current status of the project schedule (update).
➢ Correcting schedule deviations.
➢ Managing changes – “Integrated Change Control“.
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Project Days & Calendar Dates
◼ Project (working) days in a precedence diagram or bar chart are
converted into calendar dates based on the project calendar
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Schedule Updating
◼ The scheduler should choose and formally express an activity
representation format for the project.
◼ The representation of the activity using the Precedence
Diagramming method throughout this course is:
Early Start Total Float Early Finish Early Start Total Float Early Finish
Task Name Task Name
Late Start Duration Late Finish Late Start Duration Late Finish
Activity Representation
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Schedule Updating
Data Date
Early Start Total Float Early Finish Early Finish
Task Name Actual Start Task Name Actual Start Task Name Actual Finish
Remaining
Late Start Duration Late Finish Duration Late Finish
Planned Activity Underway Activity Completed Activity
Updating Activity Representation
When activity is underway:
RD = OD – OD x PCT = OD (1 – PCT) or UD (1 – PCT)
EF = DD + RD
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Detecting Delays in Schedule Updates
◼ Delays can be detected by comparing the dates of baseline and
updated schedule milestones.
◼ A more efficient way of detecting delays is through negative floats.
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Schedule Updating
◼ Calculate the planned and 4-week updated schedule for
the following project. A typical week has 5 working days. A
‘Must Finish By’ constraint is set to the project completion.
Activity Activity Description Dependency Planned Actual Actual Remaining
Code Duration Start Finish Duration
A Mobilization --- 3 0 3 0
B Surveying A 4 3 7 0
C Excavation B 3 7 12 0
D Formwork C 5 12 17 0
E Pour concrete D 5 17 --- 2
F Excavate trench D 10 15 --- 8
G Strip forms E 2 --- --- 2
H Lay pipes F 15 --- --- 15
I Inspection G, H 1 --- --- 1
J Remove equipment H 2 --- --- 2
K Backfill trench H 6 --- --- 6
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Schedule Updating
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Schedule Updating
◼ Careful monitoring of a project’s schedule provides
insight to the project team about problems requiring
action.
◼ The schedule has to be “Realistic” – i.e. bears
reasonable resemblance to the actual project – to be
an effective management tool.
◼ When differences are noted between the actual
project and the planned schedule, this is termed as
“Updating the Schedule”.
◼ The schedule update is a “snapshot” of the project at
that point in time.
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Schedule Updating
◼ Updating should be performed on a regular periodic basis, such
as weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.
◼ The updating period can be mandated by a contract with the
project sponsor / owner, or by the project manager or the
organization’s top management.
◼ As a general rule, the updating period should be selected such
that updating benefits exceed the cost of updating.
◼ Changes and actual data are made progressively to the
schedule until the updated schedule turns into an “As – Built”
schedule at the end of the project.
◼ A copy of the original schedule and each update should be
retained for comparison and documentation purposes.
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Module 2: Project Time Control
Monitoring and Information Gathering
◼ Monitoring can be accomplished through many ways:
➢ In small projects simple techniques can be used such as
direct observation, photography, check-off lists or marked
up bar charts / networks.
➢ In larger, more complex or intangible oriented projects,
more formal techniques are preferred, such as resource time
sheets and activity status reports.
◼ The efficiency of information gathering is affected by:
➢ Coding systems can be used to facilitate reporting and for
reporting consistency.
➢ Adoption of the same reporting formats in large projects can
seriously affect efficiency of monitoring.
➢ Trade-off between activity duration and accuracy of
reporting.
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Monitoring Priorities in Schedules
◼ The project management team might decide to focus
and closely monitor certain activities (priority
activities) to decrease the risk of a delay occurring.
◼ These activities can be:
➢ Critical path activities
➢ Activities with no free float
➢ Activities with less than a specified float – near critical path
➢ High risk or long activities
➢ Activities using expensive or scarce resources
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Module 2: Project Time Control
Measuring Work Element Progress
◼ Progress can be measured at the activity level or a WBS element
level in projects.
◼ Measuring work element progress is also termed as “Earned Value
Measurement Techniques” and “Measurement of Project Work”.
◼ At a certain point in time through
the execution of the project –
“The Data Date” any work element
can be:
➢ Unstarted, its percent complete
(PCT) = 0.
➢ Completed, PCT = 100%.
➢ Underway, with a particular PCT.
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Measuring Work Element Progress
Several techniques exist for measuring work element
progress:
1. Percent Complete
2. Level of Effort
3. Weighted Milestone
4. Fixed Formula.
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Measuring Work Element Progress
1. Percent Complete:
➢ Simplest and easiest and most straight forward method.
➢ Objective Percent Complete (Units Completed):
• An objective indicator is used to calculate the PCT, such as units of
product completed, e.g. length of wire to be installed in m.
Number of units performed
PCT =
Forecasted total number of units
• Example: 500 m3 of concrete are planned to be poured. At the data
date, 135 m3 were installed.
• PCT = 135/500*100 = 27%
➢ Subjective Percent Complete (Supervisor Opinion):
• Responsible worker, manager or supervisor makes a subjective estimate
of the percentage of work completed.
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Measuring Work Element Progress
2. Level of Effort:
➢ Used in work elements with intangible outcomes that can be
measured objectively in terms of effort exerted (e.g. work hours,
work days, project days, …etc.) or any other common unit of
measure, such as cost (Cost Ratio Method).
Actual cost or effort to date
PCT =
Forecasted total cost or effort
➢ A design activity requires 200 workhours of designers. Three
designers exerted 30 workhours this week on the activity.
PCT = 30/200*100 = 15%
➢ An activity requires 50 days for completion and 30 days have
elapsed while the activity is in progress.
PCT = 30/50*100 = 60%
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Measuring Work Element Progress
3. Weighted Milestone:
➢ Work is divided into segments / subtasks each ending with an
observable milestone. A value is assigned to the achievement
of each milestone / segment / subtask.
➢ More suitable for longer duration work elements having
intermediate tangible outcomes.
➢ Also known as the “Incremental Milestone” method.
➢ A reinforced concrete activity has subtasks / milestones:
- Formwork 0.2
- Steelfixing 0.3
- Pouring Concrete 0.3
- Dismantling Forms 0.2
1.0
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Measuring Work Element Progress
4. Fixed Formula:
➢ Most suitable for work elements whose
PCT is too complicated or estimating
effort is not justifiable.
➢ A fixed amount is given if the work
element is underway.
➢ In the 50/50 technique, activity is
considered 50% complete once it starts.
25/75 and 0/100 are also used.
➢ Common in research or software
development projects. Inspection or QC
activities are typical examples.
➢ Also termed as the “Start/Finish” method.
➢ Most effective in small, short-duration
tasks
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Measuring Work Element Progress
◼ Guidelines by PMI EVM Standard to Select Work
Element Measurement Method
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