Why must a PM know about the Scheduling?

25 Feb Why must a PM know about the Scheduling?

A PDF copy of a Project Schedule is a simple document that displays the activities, WBS, Project’s Key Dates and critical activities. Although the planner is responsible for Planning and Scheduling but the PM is ultimate accountable person to deliver the Project as per the contract and specs. Therefore, he/she should know more about the Schedule, assumptions, logics, etc. and should be able to ask the right questions. Some of the questions that a PM should ask are as follows:

• Existence of the Planning procedure: The planning procedure should be related specifically to the Project’s scope of work and not a generic document that might be irrelevant to the Project
• Basis of Schedule (BOS): Any schedule should be accompanied by Basis of Schedule document. The document should indicate the methodology, assumptions, exclusions, data sources, key dates and many more items.
• Schedule Updating process: The PM should ask how the data will be collected and processed to update the Schedule. Especially if PMS is required.
• Schedule Log View file: This file provides a simple statistic about the activities and PM should ask for it after every update

• Lead and Lags Report: They are hidden activities that only the Planner knows about or sees them in the software. Even when they get excessively used the planner would most likely forget what the reason for each lag was. Therefore, using positive lags should be avoided as much as much possible. The Primavera Report could be used to develop the list.

• Negative Total Float: There should not be any negative total float in a Baseline or re-baseline Schedule.
• Critical Path, Float Path and Longest Path reports

And other reports

The above items are simple typical reports that every project manager has to ask from his planners and the PMS should be able to interpret them correctly. The Planning System and Schedule are the Project’s property and Not exclusively the Planner’s. Therefore, the PM should guide his team to support the Planning team in the development of the Project’s Planning System.

To implement an Integrated Planning system that covers all the above items as well as PMS, Resource Loading, EVM/ES, contact us know: info@khonopc.com