The document outlines the phases of project scheduling in civil engineering, emphasizing the importance of setting objectives, preparing schedules, and submitting them for approval. It details the processes for defining activities, sequencing them, estimating resources, and durations, highlighting techniques such as expert judgment and parametric estimating. Additionally, it discusses the tools and outputs involved, particularly the use of project management information systems to facilitate schedule management.

1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT-
Civil Engineering

2. LEARNING OUTCOME 2……..
Prepare project schedule and submit for approval
 2.1 Set project objectives
 2.2 Prepare project Schedule
 2.3 Submit project schedule for approval
 2.4 Allocate tasks and resources
 2.5 Review project schedule where necessary
 2.6 Produce a Gantt chart

3. PROJECT SCHEDULE
 It is scheduling that provides us with the foundation for many of the important
functions that are part of the project management process. Without the definition of the
work scope and the scheduling of the work, we would not have a basis for planning the
assignment of resources or for managing the cash flow.
 The timing of the work and the management of the project end date are two of the most
watched and sensitive areas of most projects.
 So, without falling into a false sense that the schedule is everything, we must
recognize that scheduling is a very critical component of the project management
process.

4. PROJECT SCHEDULE
 Develop the project schedule based on the approved project deliverables and
milestones, scope, and resource management plans in order to manage timely
completion of the project.
Knowledge and Skills:
 Estimation tools and techniques
 Human resource planning
 Lean and efficiency principles
 Time management planning, including scheduling tools and techniques Workflow
diagramming techniques
 The Planning process group has more processes than any other process group

5.  As with all the Planning processes, it’s up to the project
manager to tailor the scheduling processes for the
project. Consider the life-cycle approach you’re using
for the project (Agile, predictive, or hybrid), the resource
availability of key team members, the project
complexity and/or any uncertainty surrounding the
project, and the technology you’ll use to construct, store,
and display the project schedule model

6. Creating the Schedule Management Plan
 The Plan Schedule Management process describes how the project schedule
will be developed, executed, and controlled as well as how changes will be
incorporated into the project schedule.
 The inputs of this process include the project charter, project management
plan (scope management plan, development approach), enterprise
environmental factors, and organizational process assets.
 Enterprise environmental factors include the culture of the organization and
availability of resources as well as the scheduling software, the guidelines for
the tailoring approach you’ll use, and estimating data that might be found in
commercial databases. The organizational process assets that are important to
this process are templates, change control processes, historical information,
control tools for managing schedules, and reporting tools.

7. Defining Activities
 To develop the schedule, you first need to define the activities, sequence them
in the right order, estimate resources, and estimate the time it will take to
complete the tasks.
 The Define Activities process is a further breakdown of the work package
elements of the WBS. It documents the specific activities needed to fulfill the
deliverables detailed on the WBS and the project scope statement.
 Much as with the work package level of the WBS, activities can be easily
assigned, estimated, scheduled, and controlled.
 The Define Activities process might be performed by the project manager, or
when the WBS is broken down to the subproject level, this process (and all the
activity-related processes that follow) might be assigned to a project manager.

8. Define Activities Process Inputs
The following are inputs (including the key elements of each input) to the Define
Activities process:
 Project management plan (schedule management plan, scope baseline)
 Enterprise environmental factors (project management information systems, organizational culture,
published commercial databases)
 Organizational process assets (existing standards and policies, templates, lessons learned knowledge
base, and policies relating to activity planning)
 The purpose of the Define Activities process is to decompose the work packages into schedule
activities where the basis for estimating, scheduling, executing, and monitoring and controlling the
work of the project is easily supported and accomplished.

9. Tools and Techniques for Defining Activities
The tools and techniques of the Define Activities process are as follows:
 Expert judgment
 Decomposition
 Rolling wave planning
 Meetings
 Decomposition in this process involves breaking the work packages into smaller, more manageable units
of work called activities. These are not deliverables but the individual units of work that must be completed
to fulfill the work packages and the deliverables listed in the WBS.
 Activities will help in later Planning processes to define estimates and create the project schedule. Activity
lists (which are one of the outputs of this process) from prior projects can be used as templates in this
process. Rolling wave planning involves planning near-term work in more detail than future-term work.
 Expert judgment, in the form of project team members with prior experience developing project scope
statements and WBSs, can help you define activities.

10. Define Activities Outputs
Define Activities has five outputs:
 Activity list
 Activity attributes
 Milestone list
 Change requests
 Project management plan updates (schedule baseline, cost baseline)

11. Understanding the Sequence Activities Process
 During Sequence Activities, you will use a host of inputs and tools and
techniques to produce the primary output and project schedule network
diagrams. You’ve already seen all the inputs to this process. They are the project
management plan (schedule management plan, scope baseline), project
documents (activity list, activity attributes, milestone list, assumption log),
enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets.

12. Sequence Activities Tools and Techniques
Sequence Activities has four tools and techniques:
 Precedence diagramming method (PDM)
 Dependency determination and integration
 Leads and lags
 Project management information system
 Dependencies are relationships between the activities in which one activity is dependent on another to
complete an action, or perhaps an activity is dependent on another to start an action before it can
proceed. Dependency determination is a matter of determining where those dependencies exist.
Thinking back to the house-painting example, you couldn’t paint until the scraping and priming
activities were completed.

13. Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)
 The precedence diagramming method (PDM) is what most project management software programs
use to sequence activities into a schedule model. Precedence diagrams use boxes or rectangles (called
nodes) to represent the activities. The nodes are connected with arrows showing the dependencies
between the activities. This method is also called activity on node (AON).
 Sometimes the nodes are displayed with activity name, activity number, start and stop dates, due dates,
slack time, and so on.
 The PDM is further defined by four types of logical relationships. The terms dependencies and
precedence relationships also are used to describe these relationships

14. The four dependencies, or logical relationships,
are as follows:
 Finish-to-Start (FS) The finish-to-start relationship is the most frequently used
relationship. This relationship says that the predecessor—or from activity—must
finish before the successor—or to activity—can start. In PDM diagrams, this is the
most often used logical relationship.
 Start-to-Finish (SF) The start-to-finish relationship says that the predecessor
activity must start before the successor activity can finish. This logical relationship
is seldom used.
 Finish-to-Finish (FF) The finish-to-finish relationship says that the predecessor
activity must finish before the successor activity finishes.
 Start-to-Start (SS) I think you’re getting the hang of this. The start-to-start
relationship says that the predecessor activity must start before the successive
activity can start.

16. Applying Leads and Lags
 Leads are used to accelerate the project schedule to take advantage of available resources or to
mitigate risks. On the other hand, lags are used to introduce a delay between activities to ensure that
a task is not started too early or to allow for a safety margin.
 Leads and lags should be considered when determining dependencies. Lags occur when time elapses
between two activities, which delay successor activities (those that follow a predecessor activity)
from starting, and as a result, time is added either to the start date or to the finish date of the activity
you’re scheduling.
 Leads, conversely, speed up the successor activities, and as a result, time needs to be subtracted from
the start date or the finish date of the activity you’re scheduling.
 Leads and lags speed up or delay successor activities but should not replace schedule logic.
 A predecessor is an activity that must be completed before another activity can start or finish —
i.e. it’s a task that potentially prevents other tasks from starting or ending.
 On the other hand, a successor is an activity that follows another activity — i.e. it’s a
task waiting on other tasks to start or finish.

18. PRACTICAL EXAMPLE OF PAINTING A
HOUSE
 In order to paint, you first need to scrape the peeling paint and then prime.
However, you can’t begin painting until the primer has dried, so you shouldn’t
schedule priming for Monday and painting for Tuesday if you need the primer
to dry on Tuesday. Therefore, the priming activity generates the need for lag
time at the end of the activity to account for the drying time needed before you
can start painting.
 Lead time works just the opposite. Suppose, for this example, you could start
priming before the scraping is finished. Maybe certain areas on the house don’t
require scraping, so you don’t need to wait until the scraping activity finishes to
begin the priming activity. In this example, lead time is subtracted from the
beginning of the priming activity so that this activity begins prior to the
previous activity finishing.

19. Project Management Information System (PMIS)
 The project management information system (PMIS) is an automated system
used to document the project management plan and component plans, to facilitate
the feedback process, to revise the documents, to create reports, and to develop the
schedule. It incorporates the configuration management system and the change
control system. Later in the project, the PMIS can be used to control changes to
any of the plans.
 When you’re thinking about the PMIS as an input (that is, as part of the enterprise
environmental factors), think of it as a collection and distribution point for
information as well as an easy way to revise and update documents. When you’re
thinking about the PMIS as a tool and technique, think of it just that way—as a tool
to facilitate the automation, collection, and distribution of data and to help monitor
processes such as scheduling, resource leveling, budgeting, and web interfaces

20. Sequence Activities Outputs of PMIS
 There are only two outputs of the Sequence Activities process: project schedule
network diagrams and project documents updates (activity attributes, activity
list, assumption log, milestone list).
 You typically generate project schedule network diagrams on a computer. Like
the WBS, these diagrams are visual representations of the work of the project
and might contain all the project details, or they might contain only summary-
level details, depending on the complexity of the project.
 Summary-level activities are a collection of related activities, also known as
hammocks. Think of hammocks as a group of related activities rolled up into a
summary heading that describes the activities likely to be contained in that
grouping.

21. Estimating Activity Resources
 All projects, from the smallest to the largest, require resources. The term resources, in this
case, does not mean just people; it means all the physical resources required to complete the
project.
 The PMBOK® Guide defines resources as people, equipment, materials, and supplies. In reality,
this includes people, equipment, supplies, materials, software, hardware—the list goes on
depending on the project on which you’re working.
 The Estimate Activity Resources process is concerned with determining the types of resources
needed (both human and materials) and in what quantities for each schedule activity within a
work package.
 That’s because resources whether people or material or both are typically the largest expense
you’ll have on any project. Identifying the resources becomes a critical component of the project
planning process so that estimates and ultimately the project budget can be accurately derived.

22. Estimating Activity Durations
 The Estimate Activity Durations process attempts to estimate the work effort, resources, and
number of work periods needed to complete each activity. The duration estimates are the
primary output of this process.
 These are quantifiable estimates expressed as the number of work periods needed to complete a
schedule activity. Work periods are usually expressed in hours or days. However, larger projects
might express duration in weeks or months. Work periods are the activity duration estimates,
and they become inputs to the Develop Schedule process.
 When estimating activity duration, be certain to include all the time that will elapse from the
beginning of the activity until the work is completed. For example, consider the earlier example
of the house-painting project. You estimate that it will take three days, including drying time, to
prime the house. Now, let’s say priming is scheduled to begin on Saturday, but your crew doesn’t
work on Sunday.
 The activity duration in this case is four days, which includes the three days to prime and dry
plus the Sunday the crew doesn’t work. Most project management software programs will handle
this kind of situation automatically once you’ve keyed in the project calendar and work periods.

23. Estimate Activity Durations Tools and Techniques
The Estimate Activity Durations process has several new tools and
techniques:
 Expert judgment
 Analogous estimating
 Parametric estimating
 Three-point estimating
 Bottom-up estimating
 Data analysis (alternatives analysis, reserve analysis)
 Decision making
 Meetings

24. Analogous Estimating
 Analogous estimating, also called top-down estimating, is a form of expert
judgment. With this technique, you will use the actual duration of a similar
activity completed on a previous project to determine the duration of the current
activity provided the information was documented and stored with the project
information on the previous project.
 This technique is most useful when the previous activities you’re comparing are
similar to the activity you’re estimating and don’t just appear to be similar. You
want the folks who are working on the estimate to have experience with these
activities so they can provide reasonable estimates.
 This technique is especially helpful when detailed information about the project is
not available, such as in the early phases of the project.

25. Parametric Estimating
 Parametric estimating is a quantitatively based estimating method that multiplies the
quantity of work by the rate or uses an algorithm in conjunction with historical data to
determine cost, budget, or duration estimates.
 The best way to describe it is with an example. Suppose you are working on a
companywide network upgrade project. This requires you to run new cable to the switches
on every floor in the building.
 To come up with an estimate, you can use parametric estimates to determine activity
duration estimates by taking a known element in this case, the amount of cable needed
and multiplying it by the amount of time it takes to install a unit of cable. In other words,
suppose you have 10,000 meters of new cable to run.
 You know from past experience it takes 1 hour to install 100 meters. Using this
measurement, you can determine an estimate for this activity of 100 hours to run the new
cable. Therefore, the cable activity duration estimate is 100 hours.

26. Three-Point Estimating
 Three-point estimating, as you can probably guess, uses three estimates that, when
averaged, come up with a final estimate.
 The three estimates you’ll use in this technique are the most likely estimate (tM), an
optimistic estimate (tO), and a pessimistic estimate (tP). The most likely estimate
assumes there are no disasters and the activity can be completed as planned.
 The optimistic estimate is the fastest time frame in which your resource can complete
the activity. The pessimistic estimate assumes the worst happens, and it takes much
longer than planned to get the activity completed.
 You’ll want to rely on experienced folks to give you these estimates. Then you can
choose to use one of two formulas to calculate the expected duration estimate (tE).
 The first formula, called the triangular distribution, consists of summing the
optimistic (tO), the pessimistic (tP), and the most likely (tM) estimates and then
dividing that sum by 3. The formula looks like this:
tE = (tO + tM + tP) / 3

27. Three-Point Estimating
 Use the triangular distribution when you don’t have enough historical data to
assist with the estimates or you’re using expert judgment to derive estimates.
 The second formula is called a beta distribution, which is taken from the
program evaluation and review technique (PERT) that we will review in depth
in the Develop Schedule process later in this process. The formula for beta
distribution, or PERT, looks like this:
tE = (tO + 4tM + tP) / 6
 The beta distribution method is preferred when you have a good set of historical
data and samples to base the estimates on.

28. Bottom-Up Estimating
 Bottom-up estimating is performed by obtaining individual estimates for
each project activity and then adding all of them up together to come up with a
total estimate for the work package.
 Bottom-up estimating is a good technique to use when you aren’t confident
about the type or quantity of resources you’ll need for the project. This is an
accurate means of estimating, provided the estimates at the schedule activity
level are accurate.
 However, it takes a considerable amount of time to perform bottom-up
estimating because every activity must be assessed and estimated accurately to
be included in the bottom-up calculation. The smaller and more detailed the
activity, the greater the accuracy and cost of this technique.

29. Advantages and Disadvantages of Estimating Techniques
Technique Advantage Disadvantage
Analogous estimating
Can ensure no work is
inadvertently omitted
from work estimates.
Can sometimes be difficult
for lower-level managers.
to apportion cost
estimates.
Bottom-up estimating
Is very accurate and gives
lower-level managers
more responsibility.
May be very time
consuming and can be
used only after the WBS
has been well defined.
Parametric estimating Is not time consuming.
May be inaccurate,
depending on the integrity
of the historical
information used.

30. Data Analysis—Reserve Analysis
 Contingency reserves—also called buffers or time reserves means a portion of time (or money
when you’re estimating budgets) that is added to the schedule to account for risk or uncertainty. You
might choose to add a percentage of time or a set number of work periods to the activity or the
overall schedule or both.
 Contingency reserves are calculated for known risks that have documented contingency or
mitigation response plans to deal with the risk event should it occur, but you don’t necessarily know
how much time it will take to implement the mitigation plan and potentially perform rework.
 For example, you know it will take 100 hours to run new cable based on the quantitative estimate
you came up with earlier. You also know that sometimes you hit problem areas when running the
cable. To make sure you don’t impact the project schedule, you build in a reserve time of 10 percent
of your original estimate to account for the problems you might encounter.
 This brings your activity duration estimate to 110 hours for this activity. Contingency reserves can be
and should be modified as the project progresses. As you use the time, or find you don’t need the
time, you will modify the reserve amounts.

31. Management reserves
 Management reserves are a type of reserve used for unknown events. Since they
are unknown, you have not identified them as risks.
 Management reserves are for that funny feeling you have that something could
come up that you haven’t thought about during the Planning process.
Management reserves set aside periods of time for this unknown work but are
not included in the schedule baseline.
 Keep in mind this is not time that is available to throw in extra deliverables that
didn’t make it into the scope statement. Management reserves must be used for
project work that is within scope.
 If you do use management reserves during the project, you must change the
schedule baseline to reflect the time used.

32. Developing the Project Schedule
 The Develop Schedule process is the heart of the Planning process group.
 This is where you lay out the schedule for your project activities, determine
their start and finish dates, and finalize activity sequences and durations.
 Develop Schedule, along with Estimate Activity Resources and Estimate
Activity Durations, is repeated several times before you come up with the
project schedule.
 Most project management software programs today can automatically build a
schedule for you once you’ve entered the needed information for the activities.
 The project schedule, once it’s approved, serves as the schedule baseline for
the project that you can track against in later processes.

33. Developing the Project Schedule
 Remember that you cannot perform Develop Schedule until you have completed at
least the following processes in the Planning group (some of these can be
performed at the same time for smaller, less complex projects): Collect
Requirements, Define Scope, Create WBS, Define Activities, Sequence Activities,
Estimate Activity Resources, Estimate Activity Durations, and Plan Resource
Management. In practice, it’s also beneficial to perform Identify Risks, Perform
Qualitative Risk Analysis, Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis, Plan Risk
Responses, and Plan Procurement Management prior to developing the schedule.

34. Schedule Network Analysis
 Schedule network analysis produces the project schedule model. It involves
calculating early and late start dates and early and late finish dates for project
activities (as does the critical path method).
 It uses a schedule model and other analytical techniques such as critical path and
critical chain method, what-if analysis, and resource leveling (all of which are other
tools and techniques in this process) to help calculate these dates and create the
schedule.
 These calculations are performed without taking resource limitations into
consideration, so the dates you end up with are theoretical. At this point, you’re
attempting to establish the time periods within which the activities can be scheduled.
 Resource limitations and other constraints will be taken into consideration when you
get to the outputs of this process.

35. Critical Path Method
 The critical path method (CPM) is a schedule network analysis technique that
estimates the minimum project duration.
 It determines the amount of float, or schedule flexibility, for each of the network
paths by calculating the earliest start date, earliest finish date, latest start date, and
latest finish date for each activity (without taking resource availability into account).
 This is a schedule network analysis technique that relies on sequential networks
(one activity occurs before the next, a series of activities occurring concurrently is
completed before the next series of activities begins, and so on) and on a single
duration estimate for each activity
 Keep in mind that CPM is a method to determine schedule durations without regard
to resource availability.

36.  The critical path (CP) is generally the longest full path on the project. Any
project activity with a float time that equals 0 or with negative float is
considered a critical path task.
 The critical path can change under a few conditions. When activities with float
time use up all their float, they can become critical path tasks. Or you might
have a milestone midway through the project with a finish no later than
constraint that can change the critical path if it isn’t met.
 Float time is also called slack time, and you’ll see these terms used
interchangeably. There are two types of float: total float and free float. Total
float (TF) is the amount of time you can delay the earliest start of a task without
delaying the ending of the project. Free float (FF) is the amount of time you can
delay the start of a task without delaying the earliest start of a successor task.

37. NETWORK DIAGRAM

38. CRITICAL PATH NETWORK DIAGRAM
REMEMBER..The critical path (CP) is the longest full path on the project.

39. Let's consider an example to understand the critical path algorithm better.
Suppose you have a list of tasks as shown below. Columns C and D list the tasks that must be
accomplished for the activity to begin and the duration of the activity, respectively.

40. Since the project manager's goal is to complete the project as quickly as possible (without
compromising on quality), we'll try to find the earliest finish time for each activity.
To do this, organize all tasks into a flowchart and note their durations next to the task ID. The arrows
indicate the sequence of activities. We'll mark the Earliest Start (ES) time to the left of the activity and
the Earliest Finish (EF) time to the right
Mark the Start Time (S) to the left and right of the first activity. Usually, this would be 0.
Now mark the Earliest Start (ES) time of each activity. This is given by the largest number to the right of the
activity's immediate predecessor (i.e. its Earliest Finish time, or EF).
If the activity has two predecessors, the one with the later EF time would give you the ES of the activity.

41. The EF of an activity is given by its Earliest Start time (ES) and its duration (t), i.e. ES + t.
Thus, if an activity's ES is 20 and lasts 10 days, its EF will be 30.
Mark all these figures in the flowchart
The longest path will be the “critical path”.
The final figure to the right of the last task in the sequence shows the minimum time the project will take to finish

42. FLOAT OR SLACK IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT
 A concept related to and crucial for using the Critical Path Method is float
or slack.
 In project management, “float” defines the amount of time a task can be
delayed without causing a delay in:
1. Any subsequent, dependent tasks are called “free float.”
2. Any delay in the overall project is called “total float.”
 Any activity or task on the critical path has zero float. That is, you can’t
delay it without causing a delay in the project or dependent tasks.
 However, plenty of other activities in the project can be delayed. The
quantification of this delay is called the “float.”

43. CPM calculations
 Calculating the Forward and Backward Pass
 Calculating the Critical Path
 Calculating Expected Value Using PERT

44. Calculating Expected Value
 The three-point estimates used to calculate expected value are the optimistic
estimate, the pessimistic estimate, and the most likely estimate
 The formula to calculate expected value is as follows:
{optimistic + pessimistic+ (4x mostlikely)}/6
 The formula for standard deviation, which helps you determine confidence
level, is as follows:
(pessimistic-optimistic)/6

45. Critical Chain Method
 Critical chain method is a schedule network analysis technique that will modify the project
schedule by accounting for limited or restricted resources, or for unforeseen project issues,
by adding buffers to any schedule path.
 First construct the project schedule network diagram using the critical path method. You
will apply the duration estimates, dependencies, and constraints and then enter resource
availability.
 Buffers, called feeding buffers, are added at this time as well. The idea behind feeding
buffers is similar to that of contingencies.
 Adding buffer activities (which are essentially non work activities) to the schedule gives you
a cushion of time that protects the critical path and thus the overall project schedule from
slipping.
 Feeding buffers are added to noncritical chain- dependent tasks that feed into the critical
chain

46. Resource Optimization Techniques
 Now that you have a schedule of activities and have determined the critical path, it’s time
to plug in resources for those activities and adjust the schedule or resources according to
any resource constraints you discover.
 Remember that you identified resource estimates during the Estimate Activity Resources
process. Now during Develop Schedule, resources are assigned to specific activities.
 Usually, you’ll find that your initial schedule has periods of time with more activities than
you have resources to work on them. You will also find that it isn’t always possible to
assign 100 percent of your team members’ time to tasks.
 Sometimes your schedule will show a team member who is over allocated, meaning that
individual is assigned to more work than she can physically perform in the given time
period. Other times, the team worker might not be assigned enough work to keep her busy
during the time period.
 This problem is easy to fix. You can assign under allocated resources to multiple tasks to
keep her busy. Adjusting the schedule for over allocated resources is a harder problem to
fix.

47. Resource Leveling
 Resource leveling—also called the resource-based method—is used when
resources are over allocated, when they are only available at certain times, or when
they are assigned to more than one activity at a time.
 Resource leveling attempts to balance out the resource assignments to get tasks
completed without overloading the individual. You accomplish this by adjusting the
start and finish dates of schedule activities based on the availability of resources.
 This typically means allocating resources to critical path tasks first, which often
changes the critical path and, in turn, the overall project end date.
 You might delay the start of a task to match the availability of a key team member,
or you might adjust the resource assignments so that more tasks are given to team
members who are underallocated.

48. Resource Smoothing
 Resource smoothing accommodates resource availability by modifying activities
within their float times without changing the critical path or project end date.
 That means you’ll also use this technique when you need to meet specific schedule
dates and are concerned about resource availability.
 You can adjust the resource assignments so that more tasks are given to team
members who are under allocated. You could also require the resources to work
mandatory overtime
 Perhaps you can split some tasks so that the team member with the pertinent
knowledge or skill performs the critical part of the task and the noncritical part of
the task is given to a less-skilled team member.

49. Schedule Compression
 Schedule compression is a form of mathematical analysis that’s used to shorten
the project schedule duration without changing the project scope. Compression
is simply shortening the project schedule to accomplish all the activities sooner
than estimated.
 Schedule compression might happen when the project end date has been
predetermined or if, after performing the CPM or PERT techniques, you
discover that the project is going to take longer than the original promised date.
 In the CPM example, you calculated the end date to be July 10. What if the
project was undertaken and a July 2 date was promised? That’s when you’ll
need to employ one or both of the duration compression techniques: crashing
and fast tracking.

50. Crashing
 Crashing is a compression technique that looks at cost and schedule trade-offs. Crashing the
schedule is accomplished by adding resources from either inside or outside the organization
to the critical path tasks.
 It wouldn’t help you to add resources to noncritical path tasks; these tasks don’t impact the
schedule end date anyway because they have float time.
 Crashing could be accomplished by requiring mandatory overtime for critical path tasks or
requiring overnight deliveries of materials rather than relying on standard shipping times.
 You may find that crashing the schedule can lead to increased risk or increased costs or
both.
 Be certain to check the critical path when you’ve used the crashing technique because
crashing might have changed the critical path.
 Also consider that crashing doesn’t always come up with a reasonable result. It often
increases the costs of the project as well.
 The idea with crashing is to try to gain the greatest amount of schedule compression with
the least amount of cost.

51. Fast Tracking
 Fast tracking is performing two tasks or project phases in parallel that were
previously scheduled to start sequentially.
 Fast tracking can occur for the entire duration of the task or phase or for a
portion of the task or phase duration. It can increase project risk and might
cause the project team to have to rework tasks.
 Fast tracking will work only for activities that can be overlapped. For example,
it is often performed in object-oriented programming. The programmers might
begin writing code on several modules at once, out of sequential order and prior
to the completion of the design phase.
 However, if you remember our house-painting example, you couldn’t start
priming and painting at the same time, so fast tracking isn’t a possibility for
those activities.

52. Project Schedule
 The purpose of the Develop Schedule process is to analyze most of the steps we’ve
talked about so far, including sequencing activities, determining their durations,
considering schedule constraints, and analyzing resource requirements.
 One of the primary outputs of this process is the project schedule, which presents the
start and finish dates for each of the project activities, the duration of activities,
dependencies among activities, milestones, and resources in a project schedule model.
 Determining resource assignments occurs in the Acquire Project Team process, and
depending on the size and complexity of your project or your organization’s culture,
this process might not be completed yet.
 If that’s the case, the project schedule is considered preliminary until the resources
are assigned to the activities.
 The project schedule should be approved by stakeholders and functional managers,
who should sign off on it. This assures you that they have read the schedule,
understand the dates and resource commitments, and will likely cooperate.

53. Project Schedule
 Once the schedule is approved, it will become your baseline for the remainder of the
project. Project progress and task completion will be monitored and tracked against
the project schedule to determine whether the project is on course as planned.
 Remember that the project schedule is based on the timeline (derived from the
activity estimates we calculated earlier in this chapter), the scope document (to help
keep track of major milestones and deliverables), and resource plans. These plans are
all used as references when creating the schedule.
 The project schedule presents the activities in graphical form through the use of
project schedule network diagrams with dates, Gantt charts, milestone charts, and
project schedule network diagrams.

54. GANTT CHARTS
 Gantt charts are easy to read and commonly used to display schedule activities. Depending
on the software you’re using to produce the Gantt chart, it might also show activity sequences,
activity start and end dates, resource assignments, activity dependencies, and the critical path.
 Gantt charts are also known as bar charts.
 A bar chart of schedule information where activities are listed on the vertical axis, dates are shown on
the horizontal axis, and the activity durations are shown as horizontal bars placed according to start and
finish dates.

55. GANTT CHARTS EXAMPLE

57. MILESTONE CHART
 Provides a summary level view of a project’s milestones.
 Uses icons or symbols.
 Useful for upper management, who are not interested in fine details.

59. THE END
THANK YOU!