SCHEDULING PROJECT

1.1INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT TIME MANAGEMENT

- Project schedule can be constructed once the work breakdown structure
(wbs) has been constructed.
- Once a project is scheduled, the budget can be identified and resources
assigned, risks, and a quality management plan can be located.
- The buildings blocks of a project schedule are schedule are activities. An
activity is a component of work performed during the course of a project.
“Activities to be useful as schedule building characteristics.
1. Clear starting and ending points.
2. Tangible output that can be verified
3. Scope small enough to understand and control without micromanaging
4. Labor, other costs, and schedule that can be held accountable for each
activity ( even if more than one person does the work, one person should be
responsible)
- Each activity should be clearly differentiated from other activities, so it is
often helpful to write the activities in verb-adjective- noun format, such as
“write draft report” and “write final report” to prevent confusion.
- Project management institute (PMI) has divided time management into the
following six work processes. Each will be briefly introduced here:-
1. Define activities- the process of identifying the specific actions that need to be
performed to produce project deliverables.
2. Sequence activities- the process of identifying the specific actions that need to
be performed to produce project deliverables.
3. Estimate activity resources – the process of estimating the type and quantities
of materials, people, equipment, or suppliers required to perform each activity.
4. Estimate activity durations- the process of approximating the number of work
periods needed to complete individual activities with estimated resources.
5. Develop schedule- the process of analyzing activity sequences, durations,
resources requirements, and schedule constraints to create the project schedule
6. Control schedule- the process monitoring the status of the project update
progress and managing changes to the schedule baseline.
1.2HOW PROJECT SCHEDULES ARE LIMITED AND CREATED

Five factors may limit how fast a project can be completed.

1. Logical order in which activities need to be completed. For example, one

poured in it.
2. How long each individual activity will take.
3. How many key resources are available to be painted at the same time, and
fewer than six painters were available, progress would be slowed.
4. Imposed dates. For example, a project working on government contract may
not be able to start until the government’s new fiscal year.
5. Cash flow. Projects may not start until money is approved, but progress may
also be slowed until enough revenue arrives to cover expenses
1.3DEFINE ACTIVITIES
- The first process in developing a project schedule is to define all of the work
activities.
1.4 SEQUENCE ACTIVITIES
- Once the activities have been identified, it is time to determine the logical
order in which they can be accomplished.
- The initial activity is called a predecessor activity, which is “the scheduled
activity that determines when the logical successor can begin or end “. The
following activity is called a successor activity which is “the schedule
activity that follows a predecessor activity, as determined by their logical
relationship”
1.5 ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATION
- Once the activities have been defined and sequenced, both estimating
activity durations can take place. Duration is the total number of work
periods (not including holidays or other non-work time/ required to complete
a schedule activity, usually expressed as workdays or workweeks.
1.6 DEVELOP PROJECT SCHEDULES
- Once you have defined, sequenced, and estimated the duration for all the
schedule activities, now is the time to use all of this information to develop a
project schedule.
 - The first major task in developing the project schedule is to identify the
critical path which is “sequence of activities that determines the duration of
the projection the longest path through the project.
- The critical path gets its name not because it is the most critical in terms of
cost, technical risk, or any other factor, but because it is most critical in
terms of time. Since virtually everyone wants their projects completed at the
promised time, the critical path gets a great deal of attention.

Two methods for determining the critical path

1. Two-pass method
2. Enumeration method

(1) Two – pass method

- To perform this method, two logical passes should be made through the
networks. The first pass s called the forward pass
- The forward pass is “the calculation of the early start and early finished
dates for the uncompleted portions of all activities
- The first activity can begin after zero days. To envision this, consider the
following example
- The first activity name is “determine new product features”. The estimated
duration for this activity is five days. This activity is coded with the letter A.
The four corners of each block display four important times for each
activity.
 Early start date (ES) “the earlier possible point in time is
uncompleted portion of a schedule activity can finish, based upon the
schedule network logic, the data date , and any schedule constraints
 Late start date (LS) – “the latest possible point in time that a schedule
activity way begin, based upon the schedule network logics without
violating a schedule constraint or delaying the project completion
date.
 Late finish date (LF) – “the latest possible point in time that a
schedule activity may be completed, based upon the schedule activity
constraint or delaying the project competitions date.
 ´determine new product features” for example has an early start time
of zero since it can begin as soon as the project is authorized.

First or forward pass

The pass is then is then used to calculate the early finish, which is the early start
plus the estimated duration (FS + Duration = EF). In this case 0 + 5 =5 means the
activity “determine new product features’ can be completed after five days. Each
activity that is a source or can start as soon as its predecessor activity is complete.
Therefore, the next two activities can each start after five days. To calculate the
early finish for each of these activities, add its duration to the early start of 5, for
early completion times of 25 and 15, respectively. The difficult part of calculating
the first pass comes when an activity has more than one predecessor. For example,
“perform sales calls” cannot begin until all three preceding activities (“produce
prototypes, “design graphics,” and “conducting marketing”) are complete.
Therefore, its early start is 45. This is true even though “produce prototypes “ and
“design graphics” have earlier finish times because “conduct marketing “ cannot
be completed until day 45.

Schedule example first pas complete C

Produce
Example prototype
10
B
Acquire
prototype E G
materials Design Performs
20 graphics 10 sales calls 25

A D F
Determine Conduct
new product Design
Marketing marketing 30
features 5
campaign 10
Legend and
activity code
ES EF
Activity
Name
Duration

LS LF
 Solutions
25 C 35
Produce
prototype
5 B 25
Acquire
15 E 25 45 G 70
prototype
materials 25
Design Performs
20 graphics sales calls 25

0 A 5 5 D 15 15 F 45
Determine Conduct
new product Design
Marketing marketing
features 5
campaign 10
Legend
Activity code
ES EF
Activity
Name
NB: the earliest the entire project can be completed is 70 work days. Duration
LS LF

SECOND OR BACKWARD PASS

The second pass is sometimes called the background pass. The background is “ the
calculation of late finish dates and late start date for the uncompleted portions of
all schedule activities “ when performing the backward pass, teams starts at the
end and work backwards asking ,”How late each activity be finished and started “
unless there is an imposed date , the late finish for the last activity during
planning is the same as the early finish date . In our example we know the
earliest we can finish the entire project is 70days so we will use that as late
finish date for the last activity . If the activity “perform sales calls “ must end no
later than 700 and it takes 25 days , then it must start no later than day 45. In other
words, calculate the late start by subtracting the duration from the late finish (CF –
duration = LS). The confusing part of calculating the second pass is when there is
 more than one successor. In example one place this occurs at the first activity
“Determine new product features “since two activities are immediate successors.
Enough time must be left for all of the successors, so whichever one must start
soonest dictates the late finish date of the predecessor. In this example, “design
marketing campaign “ must start no later than after day 5, therefore, five days is
the late finish for the first activity.

Example 2

Schedule example second pass complete

25 C 35
Produce
prototype 10

5 B 25
Acquire
prototype 35 E 45 45 G 70
materials Design Performs
20 graphics 10 sales calls 25

Legend
0 A 5 15 F 45
5 D 15 Activity code
Determine new Conduct
product Design ES EF
marketing marketing 30
features 5 Float Activity
campaign 10
Name
Duration
5 15 LS LF

FLOAT AND THE CRITICAL PATH

- Once both passes are complete, the early and late start dates for every
activity and the amount of time the entire project will take to complete are
known. However, the team also wants to know the critical path. This is
calculate easily by first determining each activity’s float can be total float,
which is “the total amount of time a schedule activity may be delayed from
its early start date without delaying the early start of any immediacy
 following schedule activities” A project manager wants to know how much
float each activity has in order to determine where to spent her time and
attention.
- Activities with a great deal of float can be scheduled in a flexible manner
and do not cause a manager much concern.
- Activities with no float or very little float that on the other hand, need to be
scheduled very carefully.
- Float is calculated by the equation float = late start - Early start ( float =LS-
ES)
- The critical path is the sequence of activities from start to finish in the
network that have no float in example 3, activities A, D, F and G have no
float and, therefore, create the critical path.
- It is typical to mark the critical path in red or in bold face to call attention to
it. Activities B, C, and E each have float and are not on the critical path. If
activity B would delay the start of activity C. on the other hand, activities C
and E can be delayed by 10 and 20 days, respectively, without causing any
other activity to be delayed. Therefore, their float is free float impacting
neither the overall project nor any activity in it.
- Project managers carefully monitor the critical activities. They also closely
watch activities that have little float – think of these as “near critical
activities. A project with many activities that have little float is not very
stable. Even small delays on near – critical activities can change the critical
path. Project managers can sometimes “borrow “resources from an activity
with plenty of float to use first on activity that is either already critical or
nearly critical.
 Two pass complete schedule example
25 C 35
Produce
prototype 10

5 B 25
Acquire
prototype 35 E 45 45 G 70
materials Design Performs
20 graphics 10 sales calls 25

Legend
0 A 5 15 F 45
5 D 15 Activity code
Determine new Conduct
product Design ES EF
marketing marketing 30
features 5 Activity
campaign 10
Name
Duration
5 15 LS LF

(2) Enumeration method.

The second method of determining the critical path is the enumeration method to
complete this; a person lists or enumerates all of the paths through the network.
The advantages of this method are that since all of the paths are identified and
timed, if a team needs to compress the project schedule, they will know both the
critical path and the other paths that may be nearly critical for those with very little
float). It is imperative to keep track of both critical and near- critical paths when
compressing a schedule. In example 4 below, three paths are identified and the
total duration for each is calculated. ADFG is the critical path with an expected
duration of 70 days just as was determined with the two pass method. Now
however, we also know that path ABCFG is expected to take 60 days (10 less than
the critical path), and path ADEG is expected to take 50 days (20 less than the
critical path)
 Example 4

Enumeration method example schedule

C
Produce
prototype
10
B
Acquire
prototype E G
materials Design Performs
20 graphics 10 sales calls 25

A D F
Determine Conduct
new product Design
marketing marketing 30
features 5
campaign 10

Legend
Activity code
ES EF
Activity
Name
Duration
LS LF

Path Total duration

ABCG 40

ADEG 50

ADFG 70
 Show the project schedule on a Gantt chart

Gantt chart- is a graphic display of schedule relate information

The Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart showing each activity’s early start and
finishes each activity stretched out finish. The simplest Gantt charts show a bar for
each activity stretched out over a time line. The units of time are the units the
projects team used in creating the schedule, whether that is hours, days, weeks or
another measure a Gantt chart is shown in example 5. It is easy to understand when
each activity should be performed. However the basic Gantt chart does not show
other useful information such as critical path predecessor – successor relationships,
late start and finish dates so forth.

Gantt chart example

Time in workdays

Determine new
product features

Acquire prototype
pre-materials
Produce prototype
Design marketing
campaign
Design graphics
Conduct marketing
Perform sales calls