Chapter 6:

Project Schedule
Management
Information Technology Project Management, Ninth
Edition
Note: See the text itself for full citations

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Learning Objectives (1 of 2)

• Illustrate the importance that project schedules and good

project schedule management can have in helping to
make projects successful
• Discuss the process of planning schedule management
• Define activities as the basis for developing project
schedules
• Describe how project managers use network diagrams
and dependencies to assist in activity sequencing
• Explain how various tools and techniques help project
managers perform activity duration estimates
• Use a Gantt chart for planning and tracking schedule
information, find the critical path for a project, and
describe how critical chain scheduling and the Program
Evaluation
Information Technology ProjectandManagement,Review
Ninth Edition. ©Technique
2019 Cengage. May not be(PERT) affect
copied, scanned, or schedule
duplicated, in whole or in part, except
development
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Learning Objectives (2 of 2)

• Compare how schedule management is addressed using

Agile vs. more predictive project approaches
• Discuss how reality checks and discipline are involved in
controlling and managing changes to the project
schedule
• Describe how project management software can assist in
project schedule management and review words of
caution before using this software
• Discuss considerations for agile/adaptive environments

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
The Importance of Project Schedules (1 of 3)

• Managers often cite delivering projects on time as one of

their biggest challenges
• Time has the least amount of flexibility; it passes no matter
what happens on a project
• Individual work styles and cultural differences may also
cause schedule conflicts
• Different cultures and even entire countries have different
attitudes about schedules

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Media Snapshot

• In contrast to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic

Games (see Chapter 4’s Media Snapshot), planning and
scheduling was very different for the 2004 Athens
Summer Olympic Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter
Olympic Games
• Many articles were written before the opening ceremonies in
Athens predicting that the facilities would not be ready in time
• The Greeks even made fun of critics by having construction
workers pretend to still be working as the ceremonies began,
but the games cost more than twice the planned budget
• The 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia,
suffered even greater financial loss
• Originally budgeted at $12 billion, final costs reached over $51
billion, making it the most expensive games in history

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
The Importance of Project Schedules (2 of 3)

• Project time management processes

• Planning schedule management
• Defining activities
• Sequencing activities
• Estimating activity resources
• Estimating activity durations
• Developing the schedule
• Controlling the schedule

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
The Importance of Project Schedules (3 of 3)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Planning Schedule Management

• Elements of a schedule management plan

• Project schedule model development
• Scheduling methodology
• Level of accuracy and units of measure
• Control thresholds
• Rules of performance measurement
• Reporting formats
• Process descriptions

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Defining Activities (1 of 2)

• Defining activities involves identifying the specific

actions that will produce the project deliverables in
enough detail to determine resource and schedule
estimates
• Activity list: a tabulation of activities to be included on a project
schedule
• Activity name, activity identifier or number, and brief description of the
activity
• Activity attributes provide more information
• Predecessors, successors, logical relationships, leads and lags, resource
requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and assumptions related to
the activity

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Defining Activities (2 of 2)

• A milestone is a significant event that normally has no

duration
• It often takes several activities and a lot of work to complete a
milestone
• They’re useful tools for setting schedule goals and monitoring
progress
• Examples: obtaining customer sign-off on key documents or completion
of specific products

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
What Went Wrong?

• At the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), poor

time management was one of the reasons behind the
failure of Trilogy
• System was supposed to integrate intelligence within the
Bureau
• In May 2006, the Government Accounting Agency said that the
Trilogy project failed at its core mission of improving the FBI’s
investigative abilities and was plagued with missed milestones
and escalating costs
• Sentinel replaced Trilogy in 2007
• During a test exercise in 2011, Sentinel experienced two
outages, and the FBI determined that the current hardware
structure was inadequate
• In 2014, the system still wasn’t working well

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Sequencing Activities (1 of 6)

• Sequencing process involves evaluating the reasons for

dependencies and the different types of dependencies
• A dependency or relationship is the sequencing of project
activities or tasks
• Mandatory dependencies: inherent in the nature of the work being
performed on a project, sometimes referred to as hard logic
• Discretionary dependencies: defined by the project team, sometimes
referred to as soft logic. and should be used with care since they may
limit later scheduling options
• External dependencies: involve relationships between project and non-
project activities

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Sequencing Activities (2 of 6)

• Network diagrams are the preferred technique for

showing activity sequencing
• Schematic display of the logical relationships among, or
sequencing of, project activities
• Two main formats are the arrow and precedence diagramming
methods

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Sequencing Activities (3 of 6)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Sequencing Activities (4 of 6)

• Arrow diagramming method (ADM) (i.e., activity-on-arrow

network diagrams)
• Activities are represented by arrows
• Nodes or circles are the starting and ending points of activities
• Only show finish-to-start dependencies
• Refer to the text for the step-by-step process of creating AOA
diagrams
• Precedence diagramming method (PDM)
• Network diagramming technique in which boxes represent
activities
• Types of dependencies or relationships between
activities
• Finish-to-start
• Start-to-start
• Finish-to-finish
Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
• asStart-to-finish
for use permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Sequencing Activities (5 of 6)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Sequencing Activities (6 of 6)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Estimating Activity Durations

• Duration includes the actual amount of time worked on

an activity plus elapsed time
• Effort is the number of workdays or work hours required to
complete a task and does not normally equal duration
• People doing the work should help create estimates
• An expert should review them
• A three-point estimate is an estimate that includes an
optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimate
• Three-point estimates are needed for PERT and Monte Carlo
simulations

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Advice for Young Professionals

• Some people find estimating to be challenging,

especially for their own work
• It is very important to develop this skill
• Practice estimating how long it takes you to do different activities and
then take actual measurements
• Define the activity in detail to help make better estimates
• If you realize that an activity estimate might not be a good one, let your
team know as soon as possible so that adjustments can be made early in
the project

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Developing the Schedule

• Uses results of the other time management processes to

determine the start and end date of the project
• 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
• Gantt charts
• Critical path analysis
• Critical chain scheduling
• PERT analysis

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Gantt Charts (1 of 5)

• Provide a standard format for displaying project schedule

information by listing project activities and
corresponding start and finish dates in a calendar form
• Symbols
• Black diamond: milestones
• Thick black bars: summary tasks
• Light gray horizontal bars: durations of tasks
• Arrows: dependencies between tasks

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Gantt Charts (2 of 5)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Gantt Charts (3 of 5)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Gantt Charts (4 of 5)

• Adding milestones to Gantt charts

• Many people like to focus on meeting milestones, especially for
large projects
• Milestones emphasize important events or accomplishments on projects
• SMART Criteria for milestones
• Specific
• Measurable
• Assignable
• Realistic
• Time-framed

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Best Practice

• Shawn Anchor suggests the 20-second rule in his book,

The Happiness Advantage
• People prefer the path of least resistance
• For example, if you have to wait in line 20 seconds to get a second scoop
of ice cream, you might resist it
• Anchor recommends making it more difficult for yourself to be
distracted at work by keeping email or websites closed while
you are working
• Save time by adding time to the distracting behaviors at work

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Gantt Charts (5 of 5)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Critical Path Method (CPM) (1 of 2)

• Network diagramming technique used to predict total

project duration
• Critical path: series of activities that determine the earliest time
by which the project can be completed
• The longest path through the network diagram and has the least amount
of slack or float; amount of time an activity may be delayed without
delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date
• Calculating the critical path
• Develop a good network diagram and add the duration
estimates for all activities on each path through the network
diagram
• Longest path is the critical path
• If one or more of the activities on the critical path takes longer
than planned, the whole project schedule will slip unless the
project manager takes corrective action

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Critical Path Method (CPM) (2 of 2)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Growing Grass Can Be on the Critical Path

• The fact that its name includes the word critical does not
mean that it includes all critical activities
• Only accounts for time
• Example: growing grass for Disney’s Animal Kingdom
• There can be more than one critical path if the lengths of
two or more paths are the same
• Project managers should closely monitor performance of
activities on the critical path to avoid late project completion
• Critical path can change as the project progresses

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Using Critical Path Analysis to Make Schedule
Trade-Offs (1 of 3)

• Free slack or free float

• Amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the
early start of any immediately following activities
• Total slack or total float
• Amount of time an activity may be delayed from its early start
without delaying the planned project finish date
• Forward pass
• Determines the early start and finish dates
• Backward pass
• Determines the late start and finish dates

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Using Critical Path Analysis to Make Schedule
Trade-Offs (2 of 3)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Using Critical Path Analysis to Make Schedule
Trade-Offs (3 of 3)
Task Name Start Finish Late Start Late Finish Free Slack Total Slack

A 8/3/15 8/3/15 8/5/15 8/5/15 0d 2d

B 8/3/15 8/4/15 8/3/15 8/4/15 0d 0d

C 8/3/15 8/5/15 8/5/15 8/7/15 0d 2d

D 8/4/15 8/7/15 8/6/15 8/11/15 2d 2d

E 8/5/15 8/11/15 8/5/15 8/11/15 0d 0d

F 8/5/15 8/10/15 8/14/15 8/17/15 7d 7d

G 8/6/15 8/13/15 8/10/15 8/17/15 0d 2d

H 8/12/15 8/19/15 8/12/15 8/19/15 0d 0d

I 8/14/15 8/17/15 8/18/15 8/19/15 2d 2d

J 8/20/15 8/24/15 8/20/15 8/24/15 0d 0d

Table 6-1 Free and Total Float or Slack for Project X

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in
part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website
for classroom use.
Using the Critical Path to Shorten a Project
Schedule

• Main techniques for shortening schedules

• Shortening durations of critical activities/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

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Importance of Updating Critical Path Data

• It is important to update the schedule with actual data

• Note actual activity durations as they are completed
• Revise estimates for activities in progress
• Monitor changes to make informed decisions

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Critical Chain Scheduling (1 of 4)

• Considers limited resources when creating a project

schedule and includes buffers to protect the project
completion date
• Uses the Theory of Constraints (TOC): management philosophy
developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt; attempts to minimize
multitasking when a resource works on more than one task at a
time

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in
part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website
for classroom use.
Critical Chain Scheduling (2 of 4)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in
part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website
for classroom use.
Critical Chain Scheduling (3 of 4)

• Additional concepts
• Buffer: additional time to complete a task
• Murphy’s Law: if something can go wrong, it will
• Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill the time allowed
• Project buffer: additional time added before the project’s due
date
• Feeding buffers: additional time added before tasks on the
critical path

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Critical Chain Scheduling (4 of 4)

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
What Went Right?

• Scheduling at healthcare clinic’s can be more efficient by

using critical chain scheduling
• National University Hospital in Singapore decreased patient
admission times by more than 50 percent
• Improved scheduling lowered average wait times, which went from six to
eight hours to less than three hours
• 63 percent of patients were admitted in less than 1.5 hours

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Program Evaluation and Review Technique
(PERT)

• Network analysis technique used to estimate project

duration when there is a high degree of uncertainty
about the individual activity duration estimates
• Uses probabilistic time estimates: duration estimates based on
using optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimates of
activity durations
• By using the PERT weighted average for each activity duration
estimate, total project duration estimate takes into account the
risk or uncertainty in the individual activity estimates

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Agile and Schedule Management

• Core values of the Manifesto for Agile Software

Development
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
• Example: product owner defines and prioritizes the work
to be done within a sprint
• Collaboration and time management are designed into the
process

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Controlling the Schedule

• Goals of schedule control

• Know the status of the schedule
• Influence the factors that cause schedule changes
• Determine that the schedule has changed
• Manage changes when they occur
• Main inputs to schedule control
• Project management plan
• Project documents
• Work performance data
• Organizational process assets

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Reality Checks on Scheduling and the Need for
Discipline

• Important activities
• Review the draft schedule or estimated completion date in the
project charter
• Prepare a more detailed schedule with the project team
• Make sure the schedule is realistic and followed
• Alert top management well in advance if there are schedule
problems

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Using Software to Assist in Project Schedule
Management

• Software for facilitating communications helps people

exchange schedule-related information
• Decision support models help analyze trade-offs that can be
made to address schedule issues
• Project management software can help in various time
management areas

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Global Issues

• Microsoft tells the customer story of Mexico’s Secretary

of Economy, who wanted to ensure that IT initiatives
aligned with business goals and improved project
management efficiency
• After implementing new software, their IT team could handle
four times the number of concurrent projects without adding
more staff

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Words of Caution on Using Project
Management Software

• Many people misuse project management software

because they don’t understand important concepts and
have not had training
• Example: dependencies must be entered to have dates adjust
automatically and to determine the critical path
• Many project management software programs come with
templates or sample files
• It is very easy to use these files without considering unique
project needs
• Project managers and their teams should be careful not to rely
too much on templates or sample files and ignore the unique
concerns of their particular projects

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Considerations for Agile/Adaptive
Environments

• Schedule management is radically different using Agile

and Scrum
• Projects that rely heavily on the critical path method consider
meeting the project’s estimated completion date as a crucial
component of success
• Agile projects may not even need to estimate activity durations
or project schedules at all; overall project completion time is
not important

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Chapter Summary

• Project time management is often cited as the main

source of conflict on projects
• Most IT projects exceed time estimates
• Main processes
• Plan schedule management
• Define activities
• Sequence activities
• Estimate activity resources
• Estimate activity durations
• Develop schedule
• Control schedule

Information Technology Project Management, Ninth Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.