Part 154: Schedule Management Plan
(OUTPUT Project Schedule Management: Plan Schedule Management)

  • The Schedule Management Plan establishes activities & criteria for developing, monitoring, and controlling the schedule
  • Can be Formal or Informal, Detailed or Broad
  • Can contain
    • Project Schedule Model Development
      • The methods and tools to be used in the development of the schedule
    • Release and Iteration Length
      • This includes Time-Boxing (a period where you work towards a single goal).
        • This forces you to complete the most important parts of the project first.
        • If you complete the most important parts first, you avoid scope creep.  Less essential features can wait!
      • In an adaptive life cycle, how long should each iteration last?
      • In Rolling Wave Planning, how often should each wave occur?
    • Level of Accuracy
      • Acceptable range for determining activity durations
      • Should contain space for contingencies
    • Units of Measure
      • How each schedule component will be measured (hours, days, weeks, etc.)
    • Organizational Procedures Links
      • We use the Work Breakdown Structure we developed earlier to help us build the schedule
      • Remember that the WBS contains all the components we need to build, so we can now schedule each component
    • Project Schedule Model Maintenance
      • The process we will use to update status and record project progress in the schedule
    • Control Threshold
      • Remember that we aren’t going to be able to estimate each activity’s schedule exactly to the second, or even to the day.  Some variation is permitted.
      • The Control Threshold is the amount of schedule variation permitted before action must be taken
      • Usually expressed as a percentage of the baseline
    • Rules of Performance Measurement
      • How will we measure performance?
      • Earned Value Management (EVM) rules or other physical management rules can be used
      • We can also specify
        • Rules for determining percentage of completion
        • EVM techniques to be used
        • Schedule performance measurements like Schedule Variance (SV) or Schedule Performance Index (SPI)
        • Control accounts that will be used to measure progress
        • Reporting formats (how often will we report on the schedule and in what format?)