Marginalia

• Organizational process assets in this context refer to specific items like company specific project calendars and so on (comp. PMBOK3, page 143).

(3.5) Schedule Development

(3.5.1) Process Input

... generated by predecessor processes

... introduced by external units

  • Organizational process assets

(3.5.2) Process Definition

Schedule Development is the process of "[...] analyzing activitiy sequences, durations, resource requirements, and schedule constraints to create the project schedule" (comp. PMBOK3, p. 123). Putting all components together, one gets not only the order of the tasks, but also the durance and the needed resources. Formally one can see at this point whether the project will fullfill the schedule constraints (by respecting the cost and quality constraints too) or not. If this act of aggregation fails the first time one should try to solve the contradictions by redoing the small row 'resource estimating, durances estimating and schedule development'. If this aggregation fails again the more expanding iteration is following which is starting at the 'wbs creation ...' and so on (comp. PMBOK3, pp. 143ff).

The subject Time operates on the base of other time concerning concepts

(3.5.3) Tools and Techniques

PMBOK Mentioned Methods

  • Schedule network analysis is the main step of "[...] (calculating) the early and late start and finish dates [...]" by using the generated project schedule network diagram, inserting the estimated durance and analysing the result. The main purpose is to met the wished project end or to communicate necessary prolongations or possible abbreviations (comp. PMBOK3, p. 145).
  • Critical Path Method is the method to determin the path in the network with the longest durance and no float: "Critical paths have either a zero or negative total float, and schedule activities on a critical path are called critical activities (comp. PMBOK3, p. 145).
  • Schedule compression refers to methods for shorten the critical path whithout changing the scope (comp. PMBOK3, pp. 145f):
    • Crashing means the changement of resources for shorten the durance which often means an increasing of the costs
    • Fast tracking means the total or partial parallelizing of activities which normally schould be executed sequentially
  • What-if scenario analysis is a method for determining consequences: Monte Carlo Analysis for example, computes all combinations of optimistic, most likely and pessimistic estimatings and computes on the base all possible outcomes for the total project (comp. PMBOK3, p. 146)
  • Resource leveling is a method to organize that a necessary resource level will be respected at special points of the diagram. Therefore it might be necessary to accelerate (or decelerate) some activities by increasing or decreasing the resources. And this might evoke a change of the critical path (comp. PMBOK3, pp. 146f).
  • Critical chain method is a method to add buffer into the network using reasonable viewpoints (comp. PMBOK3, p. 147).
  • Project management software often is used to computed the diagramm and its consequences on the base of the estimated data (comp. PMBOK3, p. 148)
  • Applying calendars like "project calendars" or "resource calendars" have the task to "[...] identify  periods when work is allowed" (comp. PMBOK3, p. 148).
  • Adjusting leads and lags are necessary to avoid the distortion of the project schedule (comp. PMBOK3, p. 148).
  • Schedule model is the act of modelling the overall picture of all aspects of the project schedule and the ordered activities (comp. PMBOK3, p. 148).

Open Source Tools

  • Planner offers a complete project schedule file.

(3.5.4) Process Output

  • The Project Schedule is the great picture of the project time horizon, containing "[...] at least a planned start date and planned finish date for each schedule activity" and may be presented - sometimes as summary - in form of a project schedule network diagramm, a bar chart and/or as chart of milestones.
  • The Schedule Model Ddata is the collection and aggregation of all aspects  of the time management planning process, especially it contains the activity list and the activity attributes.
  • The Schedule Baseline is a "specific version" of the project schedule, which contains the main start and finish dates and which will be accepted and approved by the project management team.
  • Updates of the (Activity) Resource Requirements might be generated by iterations for reaching the best target
  • Updates of the Activity Attributes might be generated by iterations for reaching the best target
  • Updates of the Project Calendars might be generated by iterations for reaching the best target
  • Requested Changes might be generated by iterations for reaching the best target
  • Updates of the Project Management Plan::Schedule Management Plan might be updated on the base of cognitions concerning the improvement of the how to manage the project scheduling.

(comp. PMBOK3, pp. 149ff).

(3.5.5) Output Using Successor Processes

Successors using the initially generated output as own input(1):

Processes using the updates as input(2):

  1. For details see FAQ::Q001:1
  2. For details see FAQ::Q001:2