Control Schedule

00:01 Hello and welcome.

00:03 This module looks at the control schedule process and the PMBOK guide.

00:11 It's of high exam importance because any of the controlling processes, particularly those that deal with our three main baselines of scope, cost and time, are very important for successful project management.

00:25 The difficulty is rated as medium.

00:29 Because you may not do it to the extent required in the exam, but the concepts introduced aren't new.

00:35 And as such, the memorization is regarded as low but still pay particular attention to this.

00:41 Also, this particular process, the control schedule process has very close links with the control costs process, particularly around the use of the earned value management technique.

00:57 So they need to be viewed together, particularly with the earn value management technique, which we actually cover in depth during the control costs process.

01:11 The control schedule process is the single monitoring and controlling process in the project time management knowledge area.

01:21 The thing that it's controlling is the result of those six time management Planning processes.

01:28 The plan schedule management process, where we develop the schedule management plan, the defined activities process, where we produce the activity list, the sequence activities process, where we produced our network diagram, the estimate activity resources, where we produced our activity resource estimates, the estimate activity durations process, where we produced individual activity duration estimates and then the developed schedule process where we put all of that information together to produce our project schedule or schedule baseline for our project.

02:04 The control schedule process is focused on checking all of those and, if necessary, amending those.

02:13 The particular domain task that the control schedule process focused upon is the monitoring and controlling task one which says measure project performance using appropriate tools and techniques in order to identify and quantify any variances and corrective actions.

02:39 The key themes of this module are that we're going to use the approved project schedule or our schedule baseline as a guide. That's what we expect to happen on the project and compare that to what is actually occurring on the project in relation to project time or schedule and look for variance between the two.

03:03 If we do detect variance between what we plan to do and what's actually happening, then we act on it.

03:10 Most usually by issuing a change request to either change what we plan to do or change what we're actually doing.

03:19 And as such, this controlling process is very similar to a lot of the other controlling processes.

03:26 In fact, most of the controlling processes look very similar in their inputs.

03:33 They will always have a description of the work that we think we should be doing in that particular area.

03:38 And this can be in the form of a baseline or a register or a document.

03:43 The inputs will also feature.

03:46 Some information about the work that we're actually doing on the project in the form of work performance data or work performance information, the tools and techniques for this controlling process and the other controlling process will focus on variance analysis.

04:03 Now, sometimes the tool and technique is simply called variance analysis like it is for control scope.

04:11 At other times, variance analysis is achieved through rather complicated tools, as we'll see in control costs.

04:18 Variance analysis is achieved with the earned value management technique.

04:25 Then the controlling processes always output a change request as well if variants is detected.

04:32 So look out for that as a tip with the controlling processes on the inputs, a description of the work we think we should be doing.

04:40 A description of the work we are actually doing.

04:43 A tool and technique for detecting variants and then some change requests as outputs.

04:50 Let's have a look at this one and see if we can find those things in the inputs, the tools and techniques and the outputs.

04:58 In the inputs, we have the project management plan and the project schedule. These describe the work that we think we should be doing on the project.

05:10 So the project schedule is actually your baseline.

05:12 It's what we expect to do.

05:14 The project management plan and all of its subsidiary plans and other documents also describe the work that we expect to do on the project in relation to project schedule.

05:26 Work performance data is specifically about how we're actually performing in terms of project schedule.

05:33 So we need that information in order to figure out if there's a difference between what we are planning to doing and what we're actually doing.

05:41 We might also go looking for project calendars, which is the periods of time when the project will be working and when it will not be working.

05:50 We may also want some specific work performance data specifically about the schedule, how the schedule is doing.

05:58 And of course, like many other processes, another input is the organizational processes, such as our project management methodology and associated templates. So we take those inputs and we apply the following tools and techniques.

06:16 Now, unfortunately, none of them are simply called variance analysis like it is for control scope, but this is what they are all doing.

06:23 Each of these tools and techniques is looking for variance between what we plan to do and what we're actually doing.

06:30 The first being performance reviews, specifically scheduled performance reviews. We take a look at what our schedule baseline says we should be doing.

06:39 We take a look at what we're actually doing.

06:42 We look for trends.

06:43 We look for variance.

06:45 And we use those performance reviews to help us keep us on track when it comes to the project schedule.

06:53 Of course, we don't do project schedules using lined graph paper and pencils and rollers. We use project management software.

07:01 Now, most project management software, I know, can automatically detect variance and show it to you graphically, and that's its real benefit.

07:09 A tip from me throughout your career.

07:12 Make sure you become extremely proficient in using project management software, particularly for scheduling.

07:19 In my experience, most people use project management software for about five per cent of what it's capable of doing.

07:27 Another tool or technique we may choose to use at this point is resource optimization techniques, and this is where we choose to resource level or resource smooth in order to get better allocation of resources and maybe the job done faster as well.

07:46 Here's an example of a resource optimization technique we saw this earlier on in the developed schedule process, as well as a total technique.

07:55 Here we may choose to take all of that extra work that needs to be done in January above our maximum of one hundred seventy five hours and do it later on, and it will have implications for our project duration.

08:08 So that's an example of resource leveling.

08:10 Moving things more efficiently and throughout our project is always going to be changes to our resource availability and we may need to take that into account and controlling our schedule and keeping things on track.

08:25 Other tools and techniques we may choose to use include modeling techniques.

08:29 Now the term modeling techniques refers to computer simulations using linear regression or statistical analysis, and particularly the What If scenario analysis or Monte Carlo analysis modeling techniques and what each of them do is present to us.

08:47 Different possibilities and permutations of our project schedule and an associated probability of each of those possible outcomes.

08:57 And we can see what may happen to our project schedule if this happens or that happens. So using modeling techniques to keep an eye on your project schedule and what may or may not happen, we may choose to adjust the leads and lags as well.

09:14 Remember, during the development of the schedule, we applied leads and lags.

09:18 Here, we may choose to adjust them just to keep things on track.

09:23 Remember, a lead is the amount of time a successor activity can start before the completion of the predecessor activity.

09:32 A lag is the amount of time a successor activity must wait after the completion of its predecessor activity before it can start.

09:42 We may also choose to use schedule compression tools.

09:46 These are crashing and fast tracking.

09:50 If it's becoming apparent that we're behind schedule and need to make up time we have available to us crashing or fast tracking.

09:58 Crashing involves throwing extra resources, approving over time, bringing in external consultants.

10:07 Obviously, that involves money, so crashing involves money.

10:11 If you see a question in the exam about crashing, know that it involves money, and therefore if you have no money, you can't crash a schedule.

10:21 And which case? You may choose to look at fast tracking, which means taking activities that would normally be done in sequence and doing them in parallel or overlapping them.

10:31 You take on a bit of extra risk, but you can generally reduce the project duration by doing fast tracking.

10:39 And we may use a specific scheduling tool.

10:43 As part of our project management software as well, you probably use one of these already and there are many fine ones on the market.

10:52 The outputs that we will produce by doing this controlling process are work performance information.

10:59 Now remember, we had work performance data as an input that was raw data.

11:05 Work performance information is that data once it's been massaged and made useful and understandable.

11:11 In this case, the work performance information that we probably want to use is our Schedule Variance and Schedule Performance Index, which we're going to cover in depth in the Earn Value Management section of the Control Costs module. We may also have a schedule forecast based on the existing information about schedule performance.

11:34 We will be able to forecast when our project is now going to finish as well using trend analysis and modeling techniques.

11:45 As a result of comparing what we thought we would do with what we're actually doing and detecting variance, we may also raise a change request. And of course, the change request is an output from this process goes on to be an input into the perform integrated change control process where it's assessed and decisions made according to our agreed change control process.

12:11 The other outputs that we may choose to produce a project management plan updates.

12:18 Project document updates and also organizational process asset updates, these are small changes that we can make to any of these documents or policies or templates just to reflect continuous improvement in our approach to controlling the schedule.

12:39 So in summary, the control schedule process takes our approved projects schedule uses that as a description of what we expect to occur on the project in relation to time or schedule.

12:52 It takes the baseline and compares that to what's actually going on and checks for variance between the two.

12:59 If variance are detected between the two.

13:02 Then we must consider bringing them back into line by either changing what we plan to do or what we're actually doing, and a change request is the easiest way to do that. Now keep in mind, as I said at the beginning of this module, this module ties in very closely with the control cost module, particularly the earned value management technique, where we're going to use that technique to come up with useful information about our schedule variance and our Schedule Performance Index.

13:34 So make sure that you pay particular attention to that module as well and link it back to the controlling schedule module.

13:44 Thank you very much.

13:45 This has been an introduction and overview to the control schedule process in the Pim Bot guide.