Performance Scheduling

The importance of scheduling a project and then monitoring of its performance is a key element in the success of any project. No other management task is more demanding of a project team’s time. The development of a project’s schedule and its routine updating takes time and effort, which must be made available to the project team. The skills required for scheduling a project successfully are learnable and the proper application of scheduling a project can be framed into a logical order; that is what this text is all about. While this text is focused on the construction industry, the scheduling concepts are universal in their application to all industries. I focused on the construction industry for the basis of this book since typical construction projects involve: dynamic changes in scope, limited resources, tight budgets, multiple subcontractors, a wide assortment of risk elements, tight specifications, unreasonable contracts, a requirement for mass communications, the maintenance of high quality objectives, and most of all, a predefined completion date.

To be successful in today's marketplace, you must have a plan of action and must transform that plan into a schedule and then execute that schedule.

Time is money, and money is based on time.

BASICS OF SCHEDULING

STATEMENT OF work

In the development and the monitoring of a project schedule, we begin with the project’s Statement of Work (SOW). This brief statement describes the essence of the project. In this statement the project is described, at minimum, by the project’s triple constraints, namely its anticipated duration, its projected cost and the anticipated quality of the project. With these elements of the project identified, the project team can begin to design the project schedule.

The project team must analyze the relationships between the project’s triple constraints and other elements of the project to understand what will delight the customer at the project's completion.

Project Breakdown Structure - PBS

The Project Breakdown Structure, sometimes referred to as a Product Breakdown Structure, describes the deliverables of the project. It outlines all the major deliverables that will fulfill the objectives of the project as stated in the project’s Statement of Work. In describing the deliverables of the project, a specific written description is made using nouns. This description describes what is to be delivered, not how it is to be accomplished. The triple constrains of the project, or of a deliverable, are not addressed at this level. Once the Project Breakdown Structure (PBS) has been identified, a unique numeric code is assigned to each deliverable. Descending sub-deliverables carry the master deliverable identifier so that a logical grouping of project deliverables is maintained. The project’s management team determines the depth or level of detail of these deliverables. The level of detail of a deliverable is normally based on the project team’s reasonable ability to monitor the execution of the deliverable.

On determining the level of sub-deliverables for the project, the project team must also think through addressing the project’s Code of Accounts. The Code of Accounts establishes areas of the project that the financial benefactor of the project requires to detail or summarize all costs associated with a particular deliverable or an area of the project. Very often this accounting practice deals with the benefactor’s plans to later segment tax depreciation on a project’s deliverables. An example of an identifiable deliverable, which may require a unique account code, may be for a specific piece of HVAC equipment that has a short life expectancy. The project’s benefactor may wish to specifically identify this piece of HVAC equipment for rapid depreciation/replacement purposes.

WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE - WBS

The Project Breakdown Structure defines all the project deliverables; the Work Breakdown Structure describes how these deliverables are to be accomplished. While nouns were primarily used to describe the PBS, the WBS uses verbs to describe actions to be taken to satisfy the PBS. The WBS outlines how these deliverables of the PBS are to be executed. These executable portions of the WBS are referred to as work packages. Individual work packages are then assigned to a discipline or contractor who will be responsible and accountable for the work. Some of these work packages can then be grouped together for competitive bid purposes for subcontractor support on the project.

Work packages continue with the logical decomposition of numeric identification as predefined by the PBS. Once again the level of detail of these action items, work packages, are to be determined by the project’s management team.

As work packages are assigned to individual organizations of the project, the work packages should then be further broken down into work activities that describe the actions required to complete a work package. This level of planned execution, work activities to satisfy the assigned work package, is the responsibility of the assigned organization - not the project management team. This work package breakdown forms an Operational Schedule for the assigned organization.

The Operational Schedule of an organization may stop at this work package activity level as far as reporting to the project management team as to the assigned project’s work package performance status. Many organizations will elect to subdivide these operational work package work activities into an operational task schedule so that the individuals working on the activity will have a step-by-step procedural guideline to insure quality control.