The Art of Project Scheduling
Principles of Project Scheduling “Art”:
Rule 1: Never give off-the-cuff or unconsidered responses, i.e. don’t commit to something you can’t deliver
Scheduling is one part prediction and one part expectation management. If you are pressured into picking a date “on-the-fly” at a random meeting you can bet that the date will not only be wrong, it will come back to haunt you. A considered response when you have had time to evaluate all the factors is much better. A date picked out of the air is good to no-one, least of all yourself.
Rule 2: Eliminate uncertainty wherever you can
The more specific you can be in your project planning, the more accurate your schedule will be. If you leave functionality or other items unspecified in your plan, then you will, at best, only be able to approximate them in the schedule. Don’t go overboard, though, there is a balance. If you are spending time adding detail to tasks which will have no impact on the project delivery date, then you are probably wasting your time.
Rule 3: Build in plenty of contingency to cope with variation
No matter how well specified your project and how accurate your schedule, there will be the inevitable random influences that will wreck your carefully crafted schedule. People get sick, equipment fails and external factors join together in a conspiracy to see that you miss your target date. In order to buy yourself some insurance you should build in an adequate amount of contingency, so that you can cope with unexpected delays.
You should also spread contingency throughout your project timeline and not just place it at the end. If you only have one pool of contingency allocated to the end of your project you are leaving yourself with a large slice of uncertainty. By breaking it up and spreading it throughout your project you allow yourself more options and are able to control the project more closely. You can also “buy back” time when you return unused contingency to the project.
Rule 4: Pick the right level of granularity
When drawing up your schedule it is important to pick the right level of detail. If you are going to require daily updates from your team then it makes sense to break into day-by-day chunks. That way everybody has the same understanding of what must be achieved by when.
On the other hand if your project has large portions of time devoted to similar activities, testing for example, then it may be better to simply block-schedule one or two months of testing. Maybe you can leave the details up to your amount of contingency, so that you can cope with unexpected delays.
You should also spread contingency throughout your project timeline and not just place it at the end. If you only have one pool of contingency allocated to the end of your project you are leaving yourself with a large slice of uncertainty. By breaking it up and spreading it throughout your project you allow yourself more options and are able to control the project more closely. You can also “buy back” time when you return unused contingency to the project.
Rule 5: Schedule for the unexpected
Project management is the art of handling the unknown. Often events and circumstances you could not have foreseen will interrupt the flow of your project. It’s your job to take them all in your stride. Schedule for the most likely delays and cope with them should they arise. If experience or instinct tells you that a certain type of task will overrun, then anticipate it, pad it with some contingency and make sure you have adequate resources on hand when it comes up.
