Finally, the Schedule

Finally, the Schedule

We start planning time by creating activities. We check the items in the lowest level of the WBS, which are the smallest pieces of product in our project, and we ask ourselves, “what should we do to create it?” The answer to that question is a set of activities.

Then we identify the dependencies among activities and add them to the model. There are many rules that help you have a more dynamic model; e.g., don’t use SF relationships (because they don’t represent reality), and model more than 90% of dependencies with FS (most FF and SS relationships are just misinterpretations of FS relationships).

Finally, we estimate the required resources and time. Well, there’s a relationship between time, number of resources, and amount of work; you estimate two of them, and the third one will be calculated.

All data is entered in your planning software, and it schedules the plan using CPM (Critical Path Method). Having an acceptable “schedule” at this time is not enough because we’re building a model and expect it to generate appropriate schedules all the time.

So, the other target we have to set is cost. How?