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building a sound schedule in an
enterprise environment using
schedule metric analysis
Dr Dan Patterson, PMP l CEO & Founder, Acumen
Dr Dan Patterson PMP Founder, CEO Acumen
20 years project management software
Risk/schedule thought leader
Welcom, Pertmaster, Primavera, Acumen legacy
Acumen Project analytics
World-recognized risk workshops
S1 > S5 schedule maturity
Acumen Fuse project analysis tool
May 8, 2012
2
Introductions
Importance of a sound basis of schedule
The CPM schedule building blocks
Introduction to metric analysis
Industry standards
Your metric toolkit: key metrics
Scorecarding
Metrics for execution & forensics
Results from research on planning quality
Q&A
May 8, 2012
3
Presentation Overview
The Importance of a
Sound Basis of Schedule
S1
• Schedule Basis
• Reflects latest scope/contractor updates
S2
• Critiqued Schedule
• Structurally sound, no contingency, sound logic
S3
• Risk-Adjusted Schedule
• Estimate uncertainty, risk events
S4
• Optimized Target Scenarios
• Reduced hot spots, higher confidence
S5
• Team Validated Scenario
• Buy-in on mitigation plans
May 8, 2012
4
A schedule is a
forecast
Used as a benchmark
against which to
measure performance
Means of defining &
capturing scope
Means of
communicating the
plan to stakeholders
Linking Scope to Work
May 8, 2012
5
Schedule needs to reflect the work needed to achieve the overarching objective of the project
Separate deliverables from work
Start your plan with a WBS…
• What are we building?
• Criteria
Project Objective
• Performance
• Cost, quality etc
Project Scope
• List of ‘features’ Project
Deliverables
• Breakdown of deliverables WBS
• Detailed work, durations, sequencing etc
Activities
• Capacities, demands etc Resources
Scheduling tools are
an excellent means of
modeling these
moving parts.
But…
They do little for
making sure the
building blocks are
used correctly….
May 8, 2012
6
CPM Building Blocks Project Defines start or finish of the job
Encapsulates the defined work
Activities
Defines duration for a given scope
of work
Logic Links Defines sequence of work
Calendars Defines when an activity/resource
can work
Constraints Defines date overrides
Resources Defines who/what is available to
execute work
Resource
Assignment
Links the “executors” to their work
The Problem with Gantt Charts…
May 8, 2012
7
Highly vertical in nature
A row per activity required
Humans like timelines!
Logic adds complexity
Difficult to trace
Detail lost in summaries
Just shows earliest/latest
Activity-centric
Doesn’t show by resource
Objective means of determining schedule quality
Analytics for a previously subjective science
Analyzing output from schedule, cost, risk models
Doesn’t replace need for a sound CPM tool
Objective of pinpointing hotspots
Shortcomings, issues, overruns, trends
Thresholds measure acceptability
Comparison against benchmarks/tripwires
Trending over time
Comparisons, performance improvements
May 8, 2012
8
Introduction to Metric Analysis
May 8, 2012
9
Metrics Metric definition
“a measurement used to mathematically gauge a quantity”
Metric Score
Typically a count of activities
Can be a summation e.g. cost
Metric percentage
Provides context e.g. within a set of activities
Threshold or Tripwire
Acceptable bandwidth relative to a given basis
Metric Examples
Sli
de
10
Government agency (compliance)
Government-wide
Department of Defense (DoD)
NDIA’s Generally Accepted Scheduling Principles
(GASP)
Non-government specific (best practice)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
AACE International
Thought leaders e.g. Acumen
Company-specific
May 8, 2012
11
Industry Standards
Compliance Metrics
1. Capturing all activities: Schedule should reflect all
activities in WBS (government and contractor)
2. Sequencing all activities: Activities sequenced in
the logical order they are to be carried out
3. Assigning resources to all activities: reflect what
resources are needed to do the work
4. Establishing duration of all activities: realistically
reflect how long each activity will take
5. Integrating schedule activities horizontally and
vertically: breadth & depth scope
6. Establishing critical path for all activities: driving
path through schedule
7. Identifying float between activities: schedule
flexibility can be determined
8. Conducting schedule risk analysis: predict level of
confidence
9. Updating schedule using logic and durations to
determine the dates: realism
10. Creating a baseline schedule
May 8, 2012
12
1. Logic: identify how schedule is linked together
2. Leads: leads distorts total float in schedule
3. Lags: hides detail in schedule
4. Relationship Types: Focus on Finish-to-Start (FS)
5. Hard Constraints: overrides natural CPM
6. High Float: network may not be logic-driven
7. Negative Float: result of forced planning
8. High Duration: lack of detail
9. Invalid Dates: errors around the data date
10. Resources: verification that tasks have resources
11. Missed Tasks: comparison to baseline
12. Critical Path Test: tests validity of driving path
13. Critical Path Length Index (CPLI): “realism”
14. Baseline Execution Index (BEI): performance
DCMA 14 Point GAO Scheduling Best Practices
Use of FS, FF, SF, SS links
SS links don’t account for durations
Lags hide schedule detail
Leads cause reverse dates
Circular logic between projects
Out of sequence updates
Open start/finish: hidden open ends
Logic Density™
Logic Hotspot™
Redundancy Index™
May 8, 2012
13
Sound Logic
A
B
C
redundant
May 8, 2012
14
Logic Density™
Great measure of complexity
Dual-band threshold: 2 to 5…
Determine Logic Hotspots™ in your schedule
Overly complex, non-necessary logic
Negatively impacts a schedule risk analysis
Look for less than 15% redundancy in schedule
May 8, 2012
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Redundancy Index™
Understand the use of constraints
Delivery dates?
Look for open ends with constraints
These are OK
Understand float around constraints
Float often artificially generated
Avoid hard constraints
They go against the whole premise of CPM!
May 8, 2012
16
Appropriate use of Constraints
Appropriate use of calendars
Use reasonable number of calendars
Use reasonable level of detail
Don’t use hourly calendar on a 3 year construction project!
Be careful about multiple calendars in sequences of activities
Logic links inherit either predecessor or successor
May 8, 2012
17
Calendars
Durations define level of detail in schedule
Ensure sufficient level of detail to:
Track performance
Publish status
Collaborate the work with the project team
Differentiate between critical/non critical
Great indicator as to how risky a project is
May 8, 2012
18
Durations & Level of Detail
Average Float
Maximum Float
Float ratio (# of days float per day of work)
Float Map™
May 8, 2012
19
Float Analysis
Means of grouping activities
Against which we can apply metrics
Means of quickly changing grouping
Multiple dimension slice and dice
Means of also slicing by time period
May 8, 2012
20
Visualization
Ribbon Visualization
Metrics are useful but don’t give overall picture
Scorecarding: group individual metrics into single score
Schedule Quality Index™
Scores can be either
Activity based: number of activities that fail a test (less detailed,
higher scores)
Metric based: number of metrics that fail a test (more detailed,
lower scores)
Weight importance of metrics
May 8, 2012
21
Scorecarding
Driving Logic trace shows key path(s)
Based on:
Forwards only view
Backwards only view
View between any two given activities
Analyze the driving path through metrics
May 8, 2012
22
Tracing Driving Logic
Traditional measures include:
Earned value: heavy time investment to implement
Earned schedule: similar to EV
% complete: what does this really tell us?
Ahead/behind baseline: too granular a scale…
Baseline Compliance™
Used to determine how close a schedule is planned and executed against it’s baseline
Measure of well the plan is being executed
More than just date comparison
Looks at period-compliance
May 8, 2012
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Metrics for Execution
Baseline Compliance™
Compliance Scenarios
Compliance Metrics
Hidden critical paths
Risk Hotspots
Risk exposure over time
May 8, 2012
27
Metrics for Risk Analysis
Compare multiple updates, iterations etc
Means of pinpointing
Changes e.g. duration, logic
More importantly, should be:
Insight into impact of changes e.g. float
Scorecarding
Use as means of showing improvements
May 8, 2012
28
Metrics for Schedule Forensics
Sound basis of schedule is “king” for all things project
management…
Scheduling tools provide excellent framework for
developing CPM schedules
Yet they do little to help guide scheduling maturity –
garbage in, garbage out…
Metric analysis provides objective measurement
Visualization is as important as the analysis
Sound planning drives project success…
May 8, 2012
30
Conclusions
Dr Dan Patterson PMP
Acumen Fuse Website
www.projectacumen.com
May 8, 2012
31
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