Chapter 27: Time Management during Monitoring & Controlling the Project

Aim: To understand the Control Schedule Process

After the project enters the executing phase, work is performed to produce the project’s deliverables. All work should be performed according to the project schedule, budget, and quality standards. But does it happen that way all the time? Unfortunately No. As Project Manager, we must closely monitor these constraints to ensure that the project progresses as planned and adheres to the scope/time/cost baselines decided during the Planning Phase.

Manage the Project Schedule

The control schedule process helps the project manager to ensure that project work is being carried out according to the planned schedule.

The table below shows the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs for the control schedule process.

Control Schedule
Inputs	Tools & Techniques	Outputs
Project management plan Project schedule updates Work performance information Organizational process assets	Performance reviews Variance analysis Project management software Resource leveling What-if scenario analysis Adjusting leads and lags Schedule compression Scheduling tool	Work performance measurements Organizational process assets Change requests Project management plan updates Project document updates

The control schedule process identifies any deviations from the project schedule. What happens if work is falling behind? Your recourse is to implement corrective or preventive actions or a change request to align the project execution with its expected results and timelines.

Exam Trivia:

A corrective or preventive action is an action that is implemented to bring future project events and tasks into alignment with the project plan and its baseline.

Some options available at this time could be to

• Update the project baseline to reflect the current situation using the documented change process.
• Level resources. When possible, reassign over-allocated resources to avoid schedule conflicts.
• Crash the schedule. Add people (internal/external) or resources to the tasks that have fallen behind and have a direct effect on the critical path; the down side is that this might cause unscheduled expenses.
• Fast track. Rearrange your activities to perform activities in parallel.
• Outsource the project or the affected part.
• Reduce the scope of the project.

Exam Trivia:

Reducing the Project Scope should be the last resort measure only. As the manager you must exhaust all other possibilities to bring the project schedule back on track and if all measures fail, then we must use Scope Reduction. Do remember that you are likely to face significant heat from both your management as well as the customer if you suggest scope reduction.

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Next: Chapter 28

Points to Remember: Project Time Management

Resources are people, equipment, locations, or anything else that you need in order to do all of the activities that you planned for. Every activity in your activity list needs to have resources assigned to it.

Bottom-Up Estimating is a technique that you may have used before without even knowing it! It means breaking down complex activities into pieces, and working out the resource assignments for each of those simpler pieces using the other four tools and techniques.

Almost all of the outputs of Estimate Activity Resources are immediately used as inputs for Estimate Activity Durations, which is where your estimates come from.

Three-Point Estimates are when you come up with three numbers: a realistic estimate that’s most likely to occur, an optimistic one that represents the best-case scenario, and a pessimistic one that represents the worst-case scenario. The final estimate is the average. There is a formula associated with how you get the final value, but for simplicity sakes, remember that it is an average of these 3 numbers.

The Formula is:

Expected Duration = (Optimistic Duration + 4 times Most Likely duration + Pessimistic Duration) ÷ 6

Why 6? you are going to find the average of 6 numbers and hence 6. How 6? 1 Optimistic + 1 Pessimistic + 4 Most likely which means 1 + 1 + 4 = 6

Develop Schedule brings everything you’ve done in the other time management processes like Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Resources, Estimate Activity Durations etc into one final schedule. All of the outputs from the other time management processes are inputs to Develop Schedule.

The Critical Path is the string of activities that will delay the whole project if any one of them is delayed.

The float for any activity is the amount of time that it can slip before it causes your project to be delayed. You might also see the word “slack” – it’s the same thing.

Early start - Is the earliest time that an activity can start. An activity near the end of the path will only start early if all of the previous activities in the path also started early. If one of the previous activities in the path slips, that will push it out.

Early finish - Is the earliest time that an activity can finish. It’s the date that an activity will finish if all of the previous activities started early and none of them slipped.

When you find the early start and early finish for each task, you know exactly how much freedom you have to move the start dates for those activities around without causing problems.

Late start - Is the latest time that an activity can start. If an activity is on a path that’s much shorter than the critical path, then it can start very late without delaying the project – but those delays will add up quickly if other activities on its path also slip!

Late finish - Is the latest time that an activity can finish. If an activity is on a short path and all of the other activities on that path start
and finish early, then it can finish very late without causing the project to be late.

Figuring out the late start and late finish will help you see how much “play” you have in your schedule. An activity with a large late start or late finish means you have more options.

Calculating the early start (ES) of an activity isn’t hard. All you need to do is look at the early finish (EF) of the previous activity and add one. If there’s more than one predecessor, then you take the largest EF and add one.

It’s just as easy to calculate the late finish (LF). Look at the following activity, take its LS (late start), and subtract one. If there’s more than one following activity, use the one with the lowest LS.

The float for an activity is the amount that its duration can slip without causing the project to be delayed. The float for any activity on the critical path is zero.

Managing schedule change means keeping all of your schedule documents up to date. When your schedule changes, you need to take performance measurements so you can keep your stakeholders up to date.

Remember: Gantt charts — the bar charts you make with MS Project, are just one tool for scheduling. You may use them a lot in your day-to-day work, but they’re only one piece of time management. And remember, on the exam they’re called bar charts, not Gantt charts!

Any time you generate data about your project, you should add it to your organizational process assets so you can use it for future projects.


Points to Remember - Other Topics:

Introduction to Projects & Project Management
Relationship Between Knowledge Areas & Process Groups
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Human Resource Management
Project Communication Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Ethics & Professional Responsibility

Points to Remember: Relation Between Knowledge Areas & Process Groups

Knowledge Area	Initiating Process Group	Planning Process Group	Executing Process Group	Monitoring and Controlling Process Group	Closing Process Group
Project Management Integration	Develop Project Charter	Develop Project Management Plan	Direct and Manage Project Execution	Monitor and Control Project Work Perform Integrated Change Control	Close Project or Phase
Project Scope Management	-	Collect Requirements Define Scope Create WBS	-	Verify Scope Control Scope	-
Project Time Management	-	Define Activities Sequence Activities Estimate Activity Resources Estimate Activity Durations Develop Schedule	-	Control Schedule	-
Project Cost Management	-	Estimate Costs Determine Budgeting	-	Control Costs	-
Project Quality	-	Plan Quality Management	Perform Quality Assurance	Perform Quality Control	-
Project Human Resources Management	-	Develop Human Resource Plan	Acquire Project Team Develop Project Team Manage Project Team	-	-
Project Communications Management	Identify Stakeholders	Plan Communications	Distribute Information Manage Stakeholder Expectations	Report Performance	-
Project Risk Management	-	Plan Risk Management Identify Risks Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis Plan Risk Responses	-	Monitor and Control Risks	-
Project Procurement Management	-	Plan Procurements	Conduct Procurements	Administer Procurements	Close Procurements

Points to Remember - Other Topics:

Introduction to Projects & Project Management
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Human Resource Management
Project Communication Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Ethics & Professional Responsibility

Points to Remember: Introduction to Projects & Project Management

Introduction to Projects & Project Management

1. Knowledge, performance, and personal skills are the three areas that project managers focus on to get better at their jobs.
2. When you’re talking about things like the people in your organization, the market you compete in, your company’s risk tolerance, and standards that your company needs to meet (like government-imposed standards for any contractor bidding on a government project), you’re talking about Enterprise Environmental Factors.
3. A program is a collection of projects that should be managed together in order to achieve a specific goal or benefit to the company.
4. A portfolio is a collection of projects or programs.
5. A project gathers a team together to do work that’s temporary, creates a unique result, and is progressively elaborated.
6. An operation (or process) is work that’s done in a way that’s repeatable and ongoing, but is not a project.

Organizational Structure

1. Functional managers have all the power in a functional organization. Project managers have the power in a projectized organization.
2. If a question on the exam doesn’t state an organization type, assume it’s referring to a matrix organization. That means the PM is responsible for making budgets, assigning tasks to resources, and resolving conflicts.
3. Project coordinators and expediters don’t exist in a projectized organization.
4. A project expediter keeps track of project status only.
5. A project coordinator has some authority, and usually reports to someone higher up in the company. Neither role has as much power or authority as a real project manager, even though an expediter or coordinator may have “Project Manager” written on their business cards.

Project Management Knowledge Areas

There are a total of 9 Knowledge Areas as per the PMBOK Guide. They are:

Integration Management: Coordinating all of the work so that it happens correctly. Making sure changes are approved before they happen.
Scope Management: Figuring out what work needs to be done for your project. Making sure your end product has everything you said it would.
Time Management: Figuring out the time it will take to do your work and the order you need to do it in. Tracking your schedule and making sure everything gets done on time.
Quality Management: Making sure you work as efficiently as you can and don’t add defects into the product.
Cost Management: Knowing how much you’re able to invest in the project and making sure you spend it right.
Human Resource Management: Getting the people to work on the team and helping them stay motivated. Rewarding them for a job well done and resolving conflicts that come up
Communications Management: Making sure that everybody knows what they need to know to do their job right. Tracking how people talk to each other and dealing with misunderstandings or miscommunications if they happen.
Procurement Management: Finding contractors to help you do the work. Setting the ground rules for their relationships with your company.
Risk Management: Figuring out how to protect your project from anything that could happen to it. Dealing with the unexpected when it does happen.

Points to Remember - Other Topics:

Relationship Between Knowledge Areas & Process Groups
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Human Resource Management
Project Communication Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Ethics & Professional Responsibility

Chapter 7: Project Management Knowledge Areas

In the previous chapter, we saw the project lifecycle in detail. In this chapter, we are going to take a look at the Project Management Knowledge Areas.

So, lets get started!!!

Project Management Knowledge Areas

Managing projects requires applying knowledge, skills, and tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet the project objectives. You do this by performing some processes at various stages of the project, as discussed in the previous chapter. That means processes are part of the knowledge required to manage projects. Each aspect of a project is managed by using the corresponding knowledge area. For example, each project has a scope that needs to be managed, and the knowledge required to manage scope is in the knowledge area called project scope management. To perform the project work within the project scope, you need human resources, which need to be managed; the knowledge used to manage human resources is called human resource management.

I guess, by now you have a fair idea of where we are getting to.

Each process belongs to one of the nine knowledge areas:

1. Scope Management
2. Time Management
3. Cost Management
4. Human Resource Management
5. Procurement Management
6. Risk Management
7. Quality Management
8. Integration Management
9. Communications Management
10. Stakeholder Management (This Knowledge Area was introduced in PMBOK 5th Edition)

Each knowledge area has its own place in the project lifecycle and they are all equally important from a project managers point of view. In practical experience you might fine one or more areas to have a greater impact on the outcome of the project, but nonetheless they are all important and play a vital role in the success or failure of a project.

Let us now look at each of these knowledge areas in detail…

Project scope management

The primary purpose of project scope management is to ensure that all the required work and only the required work is performed to complete the project successfully. This is accomplished by defining and controlling what is included in the project and what is not.

Obviously, these activities are performed by using the corresponding processes. So, project scope management, in part, defines the work required to complete the project. It’s a finite amount of work and will require a finite amount of time and resources. These need to be managed as well. The other knowledge areas cover them.

Project time management

The primary purpose of project time management is to develop and control the project schedule. Any project has a timeline by which it is expected to be completed and a well managed project is expected to complete by the set timelines.

Trivia:
Even though project time management takes care of all requisite parameters to manage the timelines of a project effectively, in reality you might find that the project managers are running around like headless chickens trying to get the project completed on time. This usually happens almost always. As an efficient manager, we should ensure that we don't become one of those headless chickens.

Project cost management

The primary goal of project cost management is to estimate the cost and to complete the project within the approved budget. This is one of the important activities because our bosses wouldn't approve if we exceed our approved budgets and it might have severe repercussions. Not to mention, finishing a project within budget with money to spare will always help you during your own appraisal!


The resources needed to complete the project activities include human resources, which need to be managed as well.

Project human resource management

The primary purpose of project human resource management is to obtain, develop, and manage the project team that will perform the actual project work.


There will be situations in which your organization does not have the expertise to perform certain schedule activities in-house. For this or for several other reasons, you might want to acquire some items or services from a vendor Ex: Servers from IBM. This kind of acquisition is called procurement, which also needs to be managed.

Project procurement management

The primary purpose of procurement management is to manage acquiring products (that is, products, services, or results) from outside the project team in order to complete the project. The external vendor who offers the service is called the seller.

Project Risk Management:

Any work, that is done will always have some uncertainties that give rise to project risks, which need to be managed. A project risk is an event that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on meeting the project objectives. The primary purpose of project risk management is to identify the risks and respond to them should they occur.

The goal of risk management is to help meet the project objectives and to help avoid/handle situations that might compromise the project schedule or outcome.

Project quality management

Project quality is defined as the degree to which a project satisfies its objectives and requirements. For example, a high-quality project is a project that is completed on time and with all the work in the project scope completed within the planned budget.

Project integration management

The project is initiated, planned, and executed in pieces, and all those pieces are related to each other and need to come together. That is where integration management comes in. For example, integrating different subsidiary plans into the project management plan needs to be managed. Project integration management includes developing the project charter, developing the project management plan, directing and managing project execution, monitoring and controlling project work, performing integrated change control, and closing the project or a phase of a project.

While managing all the aspects of the project, you as the project manager, will need to coordinate different activities and groups, and for that you need to communicate.

Project communication management

It is absolutely mandatory for the success of the project that the project information is generated and distributed in a timely fashion and to all the stakeholders involved. Experienced managers would say communication is the most important aspect of a project and the most important skill a project manager must have. Without any doubt, communication management is certainly a critical component of project management and a common thread that runs through the project lifecycle.

Project Stakeholders Management

As of the PMBOK 4th Edition there was no such knowledge area. In fact, processes related to stakeholders were actually part of Communications Management. Considering how critical managing stakeholders is, to the success of a project, PMBOK 5th edition included a separate knowledge area for the same. Anyone who is involved with or impacted by a project is a stakeholder and this knowledge area deals with how the project manager is supposed to manage them.

As you can see, managing a project involves performing a set of processes at the various stages of the project. Accordingly, processes are grouped corresponding to these stages and the groups are called process groups.

Processes are part of the knowledge required to manage projects. Each of these processes belongs to one of the nine knowledge areas identified in the PMBOK Guide. So a process has a dual membership—one in a process group, indicating at what stage of the project the process is performed, and the other in a knowledge area, indicating what aspect of the project is managed by using the process.

Below is a table that relates these two aspects:

Now that we know all the processes involved in project management, we will next take a look at the Project Stakeholders.

Previous: Project Lifecycle

Next: Project Stakeholders