10. Project Schedule Planning
Adrienne Watt
In order to develop our schedule, we first need to define the activities, sequence them in the right order, estimate the resources needed, and estimate the time it will take to complete the tasks.
Defining Activities
The activity definition process is a further breakdown of the work package elements of the WBS. It documents the specific activities needed to fulfill the deliverables detailed in the WBS. These activities are not the deliverables themselves but the individual units of work that must be completed to fulfill the deliverables. Activity definition uses everything we already know about the project to divide the work into activities that can be estimated. You might want to look at all the lessons learned from similar projects your company has done to get a good idea of what you need to do on the current one.
Expert judgment in the form of project team members with prior experience developing project scope statements and WBS can help you define activities. If you are asked to manage a project in a new domain, you might also use experts in that particular field to help define tasks so you can understand what activities are going to be involved. You may want to create an activity list and then have the expert review it and suggest changes. Alternatively, you could involve the expert from the very beginning and ask to have an activity definition conversation with him or her before even making your first draft of the list.
Sometimes you start a project without knowing a lot about the work that you’ll be doing later. Rolling-wave planning lets you plan and schedule only the portion that you know enough about to plan well. When you don’t know enough about a project, you can use placeholders for the unknown portions until you know more. These are extra items that are put at high levels in the WBS to allow you to plan for the unknown.
A Case Study
Susan and Steve have decided to tie the knot, but they don’t have much time to plan their wedding. They want the big day to be unforgettable. They want to invite many people and provide a great time. They’ve always dreamed of a June wedding, but it’s already January. Just thinking about all of the details involved is overwhelming. Susan has been dreaming of the big day since she was 12, but it seems that there’s so little time for all the tasks to be completed. When they were choosing the paper for the invitations, the couple realized that they needed help.
| Susan: | Steve, we need some help. |
| Steve | Don’t worry. My sister’s wedding planner was great. Let me give her a call. [Steve calls the wedding planner Sally.] |
| Wedding Planner | Hello Susan and Steve. |
| Steve | We want everything to be perfect. |
| Susan | There is so much to do! Invitations, food, guests, and music. |
| Steve | Oh no, we haven’t even booked a place! |
| Susan | And it has to be done right. We can’t print the invitations until we have the menu planned. We can’t do the seating arr