Chapter 6. Schedule Management Flashcards
What is Project Schedule Management concerned with primarily?
Activities, Scheduling and Schedule Management.
What are the 6 processes and their associated outputs to Schedule Management?
Develop Schedule:
- Project Schedule
- Schedule Baseline
Estimate Activity Durations:
- Activity Duration Estimates
Define Activities:
- Activity List
- Activity Attributes
Control Schedule:
- Work Performance Information
- Change Requests
- Schedule Forecasts
Sequence Activities:
- Project Schedule Network Diagram
Plan Schedule Management:
- Schedule Management Plan
What topics of project management are heavily intertwined, with changes in one affecting the other(s)?
Scope, Schedule, & Cost
When dealing with Schedule Managmenet, it is best to?
Start from the bottom up:
WBS will define the work to be carried out in order to produce the deliverables.
The individual schedule activities can then be sequenced, and the resource and duration estimates applied to those activities.
What Process Groups do the Schedule Management Processes belong to?
Plan Schedule Management, Define Activities, Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Durations, and Develop Schedule = Planning Process Group
Control Schedule = Monitoring and Controllng Process Group
What are the key outputs of each Process of Schedule Management?
Plan Schedule Management - Schedule Management Plan
Define Activites - Activity List, Activity Attributes
Sequence Activities - Project Schedule Network Diagrams
Estimated Activity Durations - Activity Duration Estimates
Develop Schedule - Project Schedule, Schedule Baseline
Control Schedule - Work Performance Information, Change Requests, Schedule Forecasts
What process of Schedule Management defines how the other 5 will be carried out?
Plan Schedule Management
What are the inputs of Plan Schedule Management?
Project Charter
Project Management Plan
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
What are the tools used in Plan Schedule Management?
Expert Judgement
Data Analysis
Meetings
What are the outputs of Plan Schedule Management?
Schedule Management Plan (becomes part of the project plan, outlines how schedule will be defined, measured, how and how often the team will track progress and consequences of veering from the plan).
Define Activities does what?
Take scope baselines and breaks down (decomposes) the work into activities it will take to turn it into a reality, ie. generates a activity list.
What processes is the activity list used as the basis for?
Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Duration, Develop Schedule, and Control Schedule.
When is Define Activities performed?
After scope baseline is established, after requirements documentation, project scope statement, work breakdown structure (WBS), and the WBS dictionary have been created and are in stable forms.
What are the inputs to Define Activities?
Project Management Plan:
- Schedule Management Plan
- Scope Baseline
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
What are the tools use in Define Activities?
Expert Judgement
Decomposition
Rolling Wave Planning - assumes more detailed info on activities at the front of the project, and that activities in the future may not be as detailed or fully/easily understood. Popular among Agile Projects
Meetings
What are the outputs of Define Activities?
Activity List Activity Attributes Milestone List Change Requests Project Management Plan Updates
What is the difference between a work package and an activity?
Work packages are deliverable-based, focusing on the scope of the project, while activites are focused on the work that needs to be done in order to execute the work package.
The usefulness of an activity list is tied to what?
Its completeness and accuracy.
The activity list is an extention of, but separate from, what?
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Work Breakdown Structures have the following characteristics:
Deliverable-based
Used as a central tool to management the project
Contain information on deliverables, resources, schedule, and cost
One work package maps to one or many schedule activities
Activitiy Lists have the following characteristics:
Effort based; focused on effort required to complete the work packages
Used to build the schedule
Contains activity name, description and an estimated duration
Each schedule activity maps back to a single work package
What are activity attributes?
Additional information stored with the activity list, or in a separate document, typically added after the intial activity has been established. They document the person responsible for the activity, parts that need to be procured before this activity may be started, and the location at which the work will be performed. Essentially they are an extension of the activity list.
What are milestones?
Significant dates or events, and have zero duration.
What is the Sequence Activities process concerned with?
Taking the activity list created under Define Activities and arranging those into the order that they must be performed. About understanding and diagramming the relationship that scheduled activities will have with each other.
What is a network logic diagram?
Visual, preferred method for representing activities, their dependencies, and sequences
When is Sequence Activities performed?
After Define Activities and before Develop Schedule
What are the inputs to Sequence Activities?
Project Management Plan:
- Schedule Management Plan
- Scope Baseline
Project Documents:
- Activity List
- Activity Attributes
- Assumption Log
- Milestone List
Enterprise Environmental Factors
Organizational Process Assets
What are the tools used in Sequence Activities?
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
Dependency Determination and Integrations
Leads and Lags
- Project Management Information System
What is Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)?
It creates a graphical representation of the schedule activities in the order in which they must be performed on the project. Activities are represented by nodes (rectangles) with arrows representing the dependencies that exist between the activities. Units of duration are usually shown above the nodes. (see p. 227 for example)
What are dependencies?
Those things that influence which activities must be performed first.
What are the four main kinds of dependencies that exist among activities?
Mandatory dependencies - one that cannot be broken, it is unavoidable
Discretionary dependencies - often the result of best practices but may vary organization to organization and even project to project. Also known as “soft logic” or “preferred logic.” Typically based on historical information, expert judgement and best practices.
External dependencies - must be considered but are outside of the project’s control and scope.
Internal dependencies - within the project team’s control.
