what is schedule management (sm)
- processes required to ensure timely completion of the project
what is plan schedule management (psm)
- process of establishing policies, procedures and documentation for creating and controlling project schedule
what are ‘define activities’ (da)
- process of identifying and documenting the specific activities that must be performed in order to produce the deliverables in the work breakdown structure
what are ‘sequence activities’ (sa)
- process of identifying and documenting inter-activity dependencies (relationships/logics among project activities)
what is the ‘estimate activity duration (ead)
- process of assessing the number of work periods likely to be needed to complete each identified activity with the estimated resources
what is the ‘develop schedule’ (ds)
- process of determining the start and finish dates for all project activities, considering the activity sequences, durations as well as resource requirements and constraints
what is the ‘control schedule’ (cs)
- process of monitoring the status of project activities with a view of updating progress and managing changes to the schedule baseline
what is the equation for schedule management (sm)
sm = psm + da + sa + ead + ds + cs
why is schedule management important
contains a definite start and definite end which are
= key components of a project
- often part of the business case for a project - hence what happens about them can contribute to project success
- contractual requirements which could result in penalties for delay
what must defining activities have
- a work breakdown structure of the project (WBS)
what is a work breakdown structure
- a deliverable oriented grouping of project elements that organises and defines total scope of the project
how is a WBS produced
- often produced using a technique called decomposition and normally presented in chart or tabular form
describe the levels of a WBS
- each descending level of the WBS represents and increasingly detailed description of the project elements
what are work packages
- elements at the lowest level of the WBS
what does a successful list of defining activities lead to
- activity list
- activity attributes document
what is an activity list
- shows all activities to be performed on the project
- should be organised as an extension to the WBS to help ensure that it is complete and that it does not include any activities that are not required as part of the project scope
what is an activity attributes document
- detailed information about each activity to ensure that the project team members have a very clear picture of what each activity entails
what may an activity attributes document include
- activity code/identifier
- activity name
- activity description
