Pat III

Project Scheduling
What is project scheduling?
 Scheduling may be defined as :
 Forming a network of activities and event relationships
that portrays the sequential relations between the tasks
in a project.
 Placing the project and its activities in a workable
sequenced timetable.
 Detailed outline of activities/tasks with respect to time
 The process of converting a general plan for a project
into a time-based graphic presentation using
information on available resources and time constraints

 The development of planned dates for performing

project activities and meeting milestones.
 Whatis the difference between
planning and scheduling?
Differences between planning and
scheduling
 Planning involves making decisions with the
objective of influencing the future.
 planning is as the ―thinking phase.
 There are certain set of questions that needs to
be addressed in relation to project planning:
 1. What will be performed?
 This question is answered by determining the
final project product necessary for achieving
project success.
 This is done in the initiation phase before the
development of your WBS.
 2. How will it be performed?
 This question is answered by determining

the processes, procedures, and

methodologies used to complete the project.
 3. Where will it be performed?
 This answer varies for each type of project.
 4. Who will perform the work?
 This question is answered by determining if

the work will be contracted or will use in-

house resources.
 5. In what sequence?
 •This question involves determining the order in
which activities will be performed to complete the
project.
 These five questions are commonly attached with
planning component of project planning and
scheduling.
 With five main questions answered, only one last
question remains. That is:
 6. When will the work be performed?
 This question involves scheduling.
 Scheduling includes the project start and
completion dates, project deliverables and
milestones dates, and the start and completion
dates for all activities needed to successfully
complete the project.
 Scheduling is a management tool that can be used
to satisfy a number of objectives such as:
coordination, analysis and forecasting, reporting
against a baseline, integrating the activities of the
various project participants, and showing interface
responsibilities particularly with respect to timing.
Developing schedule
 At the core project scheduling is schedule development
 Project schedule development requires:
 Referring to Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and work
packages and understanding activities derived from
each Work Package (activity definition),
 Staffing and resources required, or available, for each
task.
 Understanding the logical flow or sequence of task
activities (activity sequencing) and
 Being able to estimate activity durations (activity
duration estimating).
 Schedule development and control
I. Understanding the Activity
Sequencing Process
 Once the activities are identified (referring to WBS
and Work packages), the next task is sequencing
them in a logical order and finding out if
dependencies exist among the activities.
 Inputs to activity sequencing
 1. Activity list: The activity list must include all
activities which will be performed on the project
or needed to complete a part of it
 Activity list should include descriptions of each
activity to ensure that the project team members
will understand how the work is to be done.
 2 Product description: the product description
documents the characteristics of the product or
service that the project was undertaken to create.
 3. Dependencies:
 There are three types of dependencies to be
considered as the inputs to Activity Sequencing:
 mandatory dependencies: The nature of the work
itself dictates the order the activities should be
performed in.
 discretionary dependencies: and
 external dependencies.
 Outputs of sequencing: are a project network
diagram and activity list updates.

 Once we‘ve identified the dependencies and

assembled all the other inputs for the Activity
Sequencing process, we‘ll take this
information and produce a diagram, or
schematic display of the project activities.
Precedence or network diagram
 Dependences among project activities are shown
using precedence diagram
 There two conventions regarding precedence
diagram: AON and AOA
 With AON activities are represented by nodes/or
boxes connected by arrows
 With AOA diagram, activities are represented by
arrows while nodes mark starting and ending point
 It is a method of constructing a project network
diagram using arrows to represent the activities and
connecting them at nodes to show the dependencies
Example of AON (precedence
diagramming method)
AOA (Arrow diagramming method)
 Four types of dependencies can be used to show logical
relationships among activities:
 Finish to start (FS). This is the most frequently used logical
relationship. This relationship says that the independent
activity, must finish before the dependent activity, can start.
 Start to finish (SF). The start to finish relationship says that
the independent activity must start before the dependent
activity can finish. This logical relationship is seldom used.
 Finish to finish (FF). This relationship says that the
independent activity must finish before the dependent
activity finishes.
 Start to start (SS): This relationship says that the independent
activity must start before the dependent activity can start.
 While all these four dependences are linked
to PDM, only the first one (Finish-to-start) is
commonly suggested for use

 ADM (AOA) uses only finish-to-start

dependencies and may require the use of
dummy activities to define all logical
relationships correctly
II. Estimating Activity Durations
 The Activity Duration Estimating process takes the
activities defined in the WBS and activity list and
assesses the number of work periods needed to
complete these activities.
 Inputs to Activity Duration Estimating:
 1 Activity list: See description under activity
sequencing
 2. Constraints: Constraints are factors that will limit
the project management team‘s options.
 3. Assumptions. Assumptions are factors that, for
planning purposes, will be considered to be true,
real, or certain.
 4 Resource requirements: The duration of
most activities will be significantly influenced
by the resources assigned to them.
 5. Resource capabilities: The duration of most

activities will be significantly influenced by

the capabilities of the humans and material
resources assigned to them.
Approaches to activity duration estimation:

 Activity duration estimation may be done using

 1. Expert Judgment: using team members
having experiences with similar activities in the
past

 2, Analogous Estimating : also called top-down

estimating, uses the actual duration of a
similar activity completed on a previous project
to determine the duration of the current
activity
Scheduling methods/tools/
There are many ways of scheduling project
activities, each with different objectives
 The most common techniques are:
 Gantt or bar charts
 Milestone charts
 Networks (CPM and PERT)
Scheduling methods/tools/ cont’d:
Gantt chart
 Developed around 1917 by Henry L. Gantt,
one of the pioneer contributors in the field of
scientific management
 shows planned and actual progress for a

number of tasks displayed as bars against a

horizontal time scale
 provides a standard format for displaying

project schedule information by listing

project activities and their corresponding
start and finish dates in a calendar format
 Particularly effective and easy-to-read method of
indicating the actual current status for each of a
set of tasks compared to the planned progress
for each item of the set.
 Advantages:
 they are easily understood
 they are easy to maintain as long as task
requirements are not changed or major
alterations of the schedule are not made
 provide a picture of the current state of a project.
 weakness
 If a project is complex with a large set of

activities, it may be very difficult to follow

multiple activity paths through the project.

 Example: considering the following as action

plan for certain project, develop the Gantt
chart for it
If we assume the first activity will start on January 21, the Gant chart for
these activities may look like the one presented below
Scheduling methods/tools/ cont’d:
Milestones
A milestone is a significant event that
normally has no duration.
 As a significant event in the course of a

project it is used to give visibility of progress

in terms of achievement of predefined
milestone goals.
 Failure to meet a milestone indicates that a

project is not proceeding to plan and usually

triggers corrective action by management.
 It often takes several activities and a lot of work to
complete a milestone.
 Milestones are useful tools for setting schedule
goals and monitoring progress
 Examples may include
 completion of customer sign-off on key documents.
 completion of a project phase
 approval of a deliverable
 completion of a scheduled review
 completion of an activity
 commencement of an activity.
Setting Milestone Goals
 Make sure your milestone goals are verifiable.
 You should be able to verify a goal with a yes

or no answer.
 Tips in Milestone goal setting: In setting

milestones some people suggest using what

is called SMART (specific, measurable,
attainable, relevant, and time-bound) criteria,
which is borrowed from goal setting theory or
approaches in management
Scheduling methods/tools/ cont’d:
Network scheduling
 a graphical display of the logical order of
activities that defines the sequence of work in
a project.
 Networks are usually drawn from left to right

with lines drawn between the boxes or circles

(also called nodes) to show the precedence
relationships between them.
 show the interdependencies among activities
 The following management information can be
obtained from such a representation:
 Interdependencies of activities
 Project completion time
 Impact of late starts
 Impact of early starts
 Trade-offs between resources and time
 What if exercises
 Cost of a crash program
 Slippages in planning/performance
 Evaluation of performance
Terminologies

 Activity – An item of work that consumes time

and resources to produce some result. It is an
element of work that must be accomplished.
 Path- a sequence of activities that leads from the
starting node to the finished node on the
precedence diagram.
 Critical Path – The series of activities all of which
must finish on time for the whole project to
finish on time .
 A critical path has zero float.
 Event - A point in time when certain conditions have
been fulfilled, such as the start or completion of one
or more activities .
 Unlike an activity, it does not consume time or
resources. Hence, it expresses a state of being.
 Activities take place between events
 Float or Slack Time – The additional time available to
complete a non-critical activity
 Time Estimate – The prediction of the most likely
duration of an activity
 Duration: The total time required to complete the
activity.
Scheduling with PERT/CPM
 PERT (program evaluation and review technique) and
CPM (critical path method) are the most widely used
two network based techniques for scheduling large
scale projects.
 What is the difference between the two methods?
 By using PERT and CPM management is able to obtain:
 A graphical display of project activities
 An estimate of how long the project will take
 An indication of which activities are the most critical to
timely completion of the project and,
 An indication of how long any activity can be delayed
without delaying the project
 The Network diagram: One of the main
feature of PERT and CPM is their use of a
network or precedence diagram to depict
major project activities and their sequential
relationships.
 There are two slightly different conventions

for constructing the network diagrams: AON

(PDM) and AOA (ADM)
Network connections (developing the
diagram)
 Developing and interpreting net-work
diagrams requires some familiarity with
networking connection or features.

 One of the main features of a network

(precedence) diagram is that it reveals which
activities must be performed in sequence and
which can be performed independently of
each other.
 Some rules regarding A-O-A diagram
Activity time estimates (CPM and
PERT)
 The main determinant of the way PERT and
CPM networks are analyzed and interpreted is
whether activity time estimates are
probabilistic or deterministic.
 If time estimates can be made with a high

degree of confidence that actual time will not

differ significantly, we say the estimates are
deterministic.
 CPM works with or uses deterministic
estimates
 On the other hand, if estimated times are
subject to variation, we say the estimates are
probabilistic.

 PERT works with or uses probabilistic time

estimate
Example on deterministic time
estimates (analyzing CPM diagram)
 Given the information provided in the
accompanying network diagram, determine
each of the following:
 a. The length of each path
 b. The critical path
 c. The expected length of the project
 d. The amount of slack time for each path
Example cont’d
 b. The longest path (20 weeks) is 1-2-5-6, so it is the
critical path.
 The critical path is vital for successful control of the project

because it tells management two things:

 Because there is no slack time in any of the activities on

this path, any slippage will cause a corresponding slippage

in the end date of the project unless this slippage can be
recovered during any of the downstream activities (on the
critical path).
 Because the activities on this path are the most critical for

the success of the project, management must take a hard

look at these activities in order to improve the total program.
Slack time for individual activity

 This requires developing four pieces of

information about the network activities:
 ES, the earliest time activity can start,
assuming all preceding activities start as early
as possible.
 EF, the earliest time the activity can finish
 LS, the latest time the activity can start and

not delay the project

 LF, the latest time the activity can finish and

not delay the project.

Computing ES and EF times

 Computation of earliest starting and finishing times

is aided by two simple rules:
 1. The earliest finish time for any activity is equal to
its earliest start time plus its expected duration, t:
 EF =ES+ t
 2. For nodes with one entering arrow: ES for
activities leaving such nodes equals the EF of
entering arrow.
 For nodes with multiple entering arrows: ES for
activities leaving such nodes equals the largest EF
of entering arrows.
The EF and ES of the Activities in the above diagram
Computing LS and LF times
 Computation of the latest starting and finishing
times is aided by the use of two rules:
 1. The latest starting time for each activity is

equal to its latest finishing time minus its

expected duration. LS = LF – t
 2. For nodes with one leaving arrow: LF for arrow

entering that node equals the LS of the leaving

arrow.
 For nodes with multiple leaving arrows : LF for

arrows entering that node equals the smallest LS

of leaving arrows.
 Note:
 Finding ES and EF times involves a "forward

pass" through the network,

 Finding LS and LF times involves a "backward

pass" through the network.

 Hence, we must begin with the EF of the last

activity and use that time as the LF for the

last activity.
 Then we obtain the LS for the last activity by

subtracting its expected duration from LF.

Summary of LF and LS for activities in
the above diagram
Computing activity slack times
 The slack time for any activity can be computed in
either of two ways: Activity slack=LS-ES or= LF – EF
Summary of activity slack for
activities in the above diagram
 Note: The critical path using this computing algorithm
is denoted with zero slack time.
 Thus, the table in the preceding example indicates
that activities 1-2, 2-5, and 5-6 are all critical
activities
 Knowledge of individual slack times provides
managers with greater detail for:
 Planning
 Allocation of scare resources and
 Directing control efforts toward those activities that
might be most susceptible to delaying the project
than the simplistic intuitive approach does.
 Note:
 Slack times of activities are based on the assumption
that all other activities on the same path will be
started as early as possible and will not exceed their
expected times.
 If two activities are both on the same path (e.g.,
activities 2-4 and 4-5 in the preceding example) and
have the same slack (e.g. two weeks), this will be the
total slack available to both.
 Hence, if the first activity uses all this slack there will
be zero slack for the other activities and that much
less slack for all following activities on that same path.
Probabilistic time estimates
 Our discussion so far assumed that activity
times were known and not subject to variation.
 Although that assumption is appropriate in
some situation, there are many others in which
it is not.
 Consequently, those situations require a
probabilistic approach.
 The probabilistic approach involves three time
estimates for each activity instead of one:
 Optimistic time: the length of time required under
optimum conditions. It is represented by the letter a. This
time assumes that everything will go according to plan
and with minimal difficulties. This occurs, however, very
rarely.
 2. pessimistic time: the amount of time that will be
required under the worst conditions. It is represented by
the letter b. This time assumes that everything will not go
according to plan and maximum difficulties will develop.
This also occurs very rarely.
 3. Most likely time: the most probable amount of time
that will be required. It is represented by the letter M.
 These three times can be combined into a
single expression through expected time (Te)
 Te = (a + 4m+b)÷6
 Te = expected activity time
 a= Optimistic time
 b= pessimistic time
 m= Most likely time (receives more weight)
 The probability time estimates is based on the
assumption that activity time is normally distributed
with mean te and variance σ2, where,

 Hence, the standard deviation of each activity‘s time is

estimated as one-sixth (1/6) of the difference between
the pessimistic and optimistic time estimates.
 Analogously, essentially all of the area under a normal
distribution lies within 3 standard deviations of the
mean, which is a range of six standard deviations.
 The size of the variance reflects the degree of
uncertainty associated with an activities time.
 The larger the variance, the greater the uncertainty.
 Hence, an activity with a variance of 16 would have
more uncertainty as to its eventual duration than
one with a variance of, say, 6.
 It is also desirable to compute the standard
deviation of the expected time for each path.
 This can be accomplished by summing the
variances of the activities on a path and, then,
taking the square root of that number.
 Hence, path standard deviation is obtained by
summing the variances of activities along the
path and taking the square root of the sum
 The purpose of calculating standard deviation
is that it allows us to establish a confidence
interval for each activity and the critical path.

 From statistics, using a normal distribution,

we know that there is a 68.27 percent chance
of completing the project within one standard
deviation time, a 95.45 percent chance within
two standard deviations, and a 99.73 percent
chance within three standard deviations.
Example
 The network diagram for a project is shown in
the accompanying figure, with three time
estimates for each activity (next slide).
 Activity times are in months. Do the following:
 a. Compute the expected time for each activity
and the expected duration for each path
 b. Identify the critical path
 c. Compute the variance for each activity and
the variance for each path
.
This type of analysis can also be used to
measure the risks in the estimates, the risks
in completing each activity, and the risks in
completing the entire project.
 In other words, the standard deviation, σ,

serves as a measurement of the risk.

 This analysis, however, assumes that normal

distribution applies, which may not always

the case.
 As an example, compute the probability that
the project represented in the above diagram
is completed with in:
 A. 17 months
 B. 18 months
 C. 15 months


 The length of the critical path is 16 months.
 Since the critical path variance is 1.0 and hence path σ too
is 1 month.
 We can now calculate the probability of completing the
project within above specified time limits as follows. The
probability of getting the job done:
 A. Within 17 months is 50% + (1⁄2) × (68.27%), or
84.135%.
 B. Within 18 months is50% + (1⁄2) × (95.45%), or 97.725%.
 C. Within 15 months is 50% - (1⁄2) × (68.27%), or 15.865%.
Time-cost trade-offs (Crashing)
 In some situations project organizations or
managers, may, want to reduce the length of
project by injecting additional resources. This
may be done:
 To avoid late penalties

 To take advantages of monetary incentives for

timely completion of a project

 To free resources for use on other projects
 To reduce the indirect costs associated with

running the project, such as facilities and

equipment costs, supervision, and labor costs.
 However, such decisions makes the objectives of
projects (time and cost) to move in opposite direction
so as to force managers to make some kind of trade-
off decisions
 In order to make a rational decision about which
activates (if any) to crash and the extent of crashing
desirable, a manager needs the following information.
 1.Regular time and crash time estimates for each
activity (how much schedule savings can be gained)
 2. Regular cost and crash cost estimates for each
activity (how much resources will be given up)
 3.A list of potential candidates (activities) for crashing
 The general procedure for crashing is:
 1. Obtain estimates of regular and crash

times and costs for each activity

 2. Determine the lengths of all paths and

path slack times

 3. Determine which activities are on the

cortical path.
 4. Crash critical activities, in order of
increasing costs, as long as crashing costs do
not exceed benefits
 Note that two or more paths may become
critical as the original critical path becomes
shorter, so that subsequent improvements will
require simultaneous shortening of two or more
path.
 In some cases it will be most economical to

shorten an activity that is on two or more of the

critical paths.
 This is true whenever the crashing cost for a

joint activity is less than the sum of crashing

one activity on each separate path.
 Example:

 Using the information on the next slide,

develop an optimum time-cost solution.

 Assume that the crashing decision is initiated

to save indirect project costs, which is $1,000
per day. Accordingly, the crashing will end
when the direct crashing cost exceeds the
this cost savings.
.
 Solution:
 a. Determine which activates are on the

critical path, its length, and the length of the

other path
b. Rank the critical path activities in order of lowest
crashing cost and determine the number of days each
can be crashed
 c. Begin shortening the project, one day at a
time, and check after each reduction to see
which path is critical. Thus;
 1.Shorten activity C one day at a cost of $ 300.
The length of critical path now becomes 19
days.
 2.Activity C cannot be shortened any more.
Shorten activity E by one day at a cost of $600.
The length of path C-D-E-F now becomes 18
days, which is the same as path A-B-F.
 At this point it is good to consider an activity
that appears on both path as it would be
more economical to crash it.
 Thus, shorten f by one day for a cost of

$800. The project duration is now 17 days.

 3. At this point no additional improvement is

feasible. The cost to crash b is $500 and the

cost to crash e is $600 for a total of $1,100,
and that would exceed the project costs of
$1,000 per day.
The crashing sequence is
summarized below:
 In summary,
 Total direct crashing cost =

300+600+800=$2700
 Total indirect cost savings due to crashing=

number of days shortened * indirect cost per

day = 3*1000= $3000