Project Management: Scheduling Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Milestones Part Of Top-down Approach Break Large Project Into Small Problems, Each Of Which Can Be Estimated And Planned A Milestone Is: An Objectively Identifiable Point In A Project Good Checkpoints Are: Clear, Unambiguous, Crisp, Verifiable Binary: Done Or Not Done Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005) Milestones Good Examples: Design Document Reviewed And Signed-off By Management System Software Successfully Passes Test Data Suite Bad Examples: Coding Is 90% Complete (In Terms Of Time, Or Loc? How Do You Know?) I Have Designed The Program (What’s This Mean? In Your Head, Or On Paper? Has It Been Reviewed, Agreed Upon?) Be Careful With This Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005) Advice on Milestones Small, One-person Projects: Have A Milestone For Every Five Hours Of Work At Least One Milestone Per Week For Multi-week Projects (From Watts Humphrey, Introduction To The Personal Software Process) Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Milestones Must Be Visible To Management, Possibly Customer Advice on Milestones For Team Projects Milestones Often Tied To Sign-off (After Review) Of Major Work-products, Such As: Project Management Plan Document Software Requirements Specification (SRS) Document Architecture Document Detailed Design Document Stage 1 Code Released (Stage 2,...) Final Product Released Milestones Must Be Visible To Management, Possibly Customer Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Schedules and Gantt Charts What Is A Schedule? A Schedule Is A Listing Of Planned Events Properties: Ordered By Time Shows Dependencies Between Tasks Might Show Assignment Of Tasks To Personnel Planned Events Tied To Milestones Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Schedules and Gantt Charts Schedules Must Be: Realistic Documented Updated As Time Passes Monitored Schedule Must Embody Parallel Activities Care Is Needed To Manage Simultaneous Work On Multiple Tasks Developing A Schedule Assumes You Have A Way Of Estimating Effort... Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Advice on Using Schedules Schedule Is A Major Risk: Easy To Fool Yourself Easy To Be Overly Optimistic Remember Murphy’s Law! Schedule Changes And Missed Milestones: Might Make Original Schedule Unusable Document Might Require Revision Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Advice on Using Schedules Suggestions: Make Sure Milestones Are Clearly Defined And Documented If Schedule Needs Major Changes, Repeated All Or Part Of Your Planning Process Do Not Change The Schedule Just To Make Things Look Better Keep Copies Of Your Original Schedule And All Updates Recognize That Schedule Has Slipped And Adjust Your Schedule If Needed Recognize That You Need To Learn To Do A Better Job Next Time So Keep Old Schedules And Compare Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005) Gantt Charts A Tabular Notation To Document Schedule Rows Represent Task Ids And Names (Listed In Order). Columns—Many Variations And Many Optional Notations: Start-date Column, End-date Column Task Duration Column (How Long? Hours, Days, Etc.) Task Assignment Column (Who Is Doing This?) Task Completion: Percentage-complete Column, Or A Line Through The Task Bar Timeline—May Be In Terms Of Days, Weeks, Months, Quarters, Etc. In The Timeline, A Task Bar Indicates Duration Of Task. Milestones (Aka Checkpoints) Shown Like A Task And A Task Bar, But With A Special Symbol. Summary “Tasks” And Bars: Higher-level Name Showing A Collection Of Related Tasks (E.g. Requirements Analysis, Or Any “Phase” Or Spiral) Vertical Line Showing Today's Date Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005) Building Gantt Charts Make List Of Tasks Assign Each Task Tentative Start And Stop Dates (Or Durations) Assign People Responsible For Each Task List Important Milestones And Their Dates If There Are More Than About ~15, Split Project Into Main Tasks & Subtasks Make An Overall Gantt Chart For The Main Tasks With Sub-Gantt Charts For The Subtasks Determine Time Resolution (Day, Week, Month) Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Tool Support For Gantt Charts Microsoft Project: Data File Standard: Mpx Files (“Ms Project Exchange”) Visio (Drawing Tool In Olsson 001): Known As “Project Timeline” Diagram Can Import/export Data In Mpx Format CS340 Web Page Has Documentation On Available Tools Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Comments on Example Chart Two “Summary” Tasks: Requirements Analysis And Requirements Specification (Note The Yellow Triangles On The Ends Of The Bars) Timeline: Days In A Month Duration Column: In Days, Hours Purple-lines In Task Bars Indicate How Much Is Completed Vertical Line Shows Today's Date. (Task 3 Is Late!) Milestones: Black Diamonds, Duration Of Zero “Who” Column Shows Personnel Assignments Task Dependencies: Arrows From One Task To Another: First Task Must Be Completed Before The Second Starts Milestones Depend On Preceding Task(s) Tool Automatically Adjusts Chart According To Durations, Dependencies Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

How to Make a Project Schedule Identify The Individual Component Tasks For Each Phase Or Spiral Estimate The Size Of Tasks And Amount Of Time Required Identify Dependencies Between Tasks: What Inputs Are Required For Each Task? In What Previous Task Are These Inputs Created? Define Milestones: High-level Milestones Intermediate Milestones Low-level Milestones (Separate Personal Schedule Document) Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

How to Make a Project Schedule Assign Tasks To Individual Team Members Review The Schedule And Its Dependencies With All Involved To Ensure There Are No Conflicts, Disagreements, Or Misunderstandings Review Schedule, Ensure It Includes All Tasks Required To Complete Project INCLUDE SLACK TIME AT REGULAR INTERVALS Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

PERT and Similar Techniques Project Evaluation and Review Technique CPM: Critical Path Method Many Other Variations Applied To Many Fields, Like Construction Developed In The 1950’s Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

PERT and Similar Techniques PERT Credited With Saving Time And Costs In The Polaris Submarine Project Start With Another Model Of A Schedule That Shows: Tasks And Their Dependencies Potential Bottlenecks In The Schedule Parts Of The Schedule That Can And Cannot "Slip" (Without Delaying The Entire Project). Useful Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Evaluation_and_Review_Technique Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Modeling A Schedule Using PERT The Model Is A Weighted Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) Tasks Or Activities Are Arcs Connecting Nodes Nodes Are Milestones (Events Just Before And Just After Activities) One Start Node One Finish Node Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Modeling A Schedule Using PERT Weights On Arcs Are Times To Complete Activity Dependencies Between Tasks Are Shown By Creating A Path Through A Set Of Arcs And Nodes. The DAG Clearly Shows: Which Activities Must Be Done In Sequence What Can Be Done In Parallel Very Useful And Sophisticated Technique—We Just Look At A Small Part Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005) PERT Example Milestones for preparing for a party: (A) Invitations Written And Mailed (B) RSVPs Received (C) Food And Drink Purchased (D) Decorations In Place (E) Food Prepared (F) Preparations Inspected Before Guests Arrive Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

PERT Example (continued) Solid Arcs Represent Activities Dashed Arcs Represent A Dependency But Not An Activity Weight The Arcs With Information On Task Duration Most Basic: Label With Time To Complete Task Total Times: To Proceed Through Milestones ABCEF, Time Would Be 13 To Proceed Through Milestones DF, Time Would Be 3 Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Finding the Critical Path Critical Path: The Longest Of All Paths From Start To Finish This Clearly Establishes The Total Required Time To Complete The Project Any Schedule Slippage On Activities On This Path Will Delay The Project These Activities Referred To As "Bottlenecks". Activities Not On The Critical Path May Slip Without Affecting Overall Schedule Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)

Finding the Critical Path Manager Should Consider: Doing Everything Possible To Avoid Delays For Activities On Critical Path How? Start Early, And Apply Risk Analysis And Management! Reassigning Resources From Non-critical Path Activities To Those On The Critical Path. (But Remember Brook’s Law) Possibly Delay Activities Not On The Critical Path (If This Helps) Lower Dependencies Between Tasks, If Possible More Advanced PERT Techniques: More Complex Representation Of Duration E.g. Optimistic/realistic/pessimistic Trade-offs Between Schedule And Cost. Can We Spend More Money Somehow In Order To Complete Critical Tasks More Quickly? Program Management - Schedule (CS340 John Knight 2005)