When someone tells me they have a schedule, they have a budget, they've got a set of requirements. One starting response is:
Are these schedules, budgets, and requirements credible?
What are the units of measure of credible? How would we recognize credible if it walked in the door?
Let's Look At The Attributes of a Credible Schedule
The National Defense Industry Association (NDIA) has quarterly meetings of the Industrial Committee for Program Management (ICPM). These meetings are a gathering of the industry and government program management community.
During the February 2010 meetings there was a presentation of the Program Planning and Scheduling Subcommittee (PPSS) Initiative, by Ms Lil Vayhinger and Ms Rebecca Davies. One slide in a presentation listed essential elements of the "generally accepted" scheduling principles. These are:
A valid schedule provides reasonable and credible information based on realistic logic, durations, and dates. This information is:
- Complete: The schedule captures the entire discrete, authorized project effort from start through completion.
Schedules represent authorized discrete effort for the entire contract, with essential subcontracted or other external work or milestones integrated yet distinguishable from internal work.
- Traceable: The schedule logic is horizontally and vertically integrated with cross-references to key documents & tools.
Schedules reflect realistic & meaningful network logic that horizontally and vertically integrates the likely sequence for program execution. Schedules are coded to relate tasks or milestones to source or dependent documents, tools, and responsible organizations.
- Transparent: The schedule provides visibility to assure it is complete, traceable, has documented assumptions, and provides full disclosure of program status and forecast.
Schedules provide full disclosure of program status and forecast and include documented ground rules, assumptions, and methods for building and maintaining schedules. Documentation includes steps for analyzing the critical paths, incorporating risks and opportunities, and generating schedule health and performance metrics.
- Statused: The schedule has accurate progress through the status date.
Schedules reflect consistent and regular updates of completed work, interim progress, achievable remaining durations relative to the status date, and accurately maintained logic relationships.
- Predictive: The schedule provides meaningful critical paths and accurate forecasts for remaining work through program completion.
Schedules accurately forecast the likely completion dates and impacts to the program baseline plan through valid network logic and achievable task durations from the status date through program completion.
An effective schedule is useful, helps align time-phased resources, and is built and maintained using a controlled process. This information is:
- Usable: The schedule is an indispensable tool for timely and effective management decisions and actions.
Schedules produce meaningful metrics for timely and effective communication and tracking and improving performance, mitigating issues and risks, and capturing opportunities. Schedules are robust and functional to help stakeholders manage different levels, groupings, or areas as needed. Schedules are developed and maintained at a size, level, and complexity such that they are timely and enable effective decision-making.
- Resourced: The schedule aligns with actual and projected resource availability.
Resources align with the schedule baseline & forecast to enable stakeholders to view & assess the time-phased labor & other costs required to achieve project baseline & forecast targets. Each program is unique and uses varying techniques to load, baseline, & maintain the time-phased resources at levels that are practical & produce meaningful and accurate projections. When resource-loaded schedules are used they enable flexible updates to resource requirements as conditions change. Whether or not resource-loaded schedules are used, cost & schedule data are integrated for internal & external reporting.
- Controlled: The schedule is built, baselined, and maintained using a stable, repeatable, & documented process.
Schedules are baselined and maintained using a rigorous, stable, and repeatable process. Schedule additions, deletions, and updates conform to this process and results in valid and accurate results for sound schedule configuration control and maintenance.
These attributes are the basis of a credible schedule and the costs associated with the work delivered by the work elements of the schedule. They are independent of the domain or context of the project. They are independent of the size of the project or program. They are the basis of a "credible" schedule and therefore a "credible" project.
If you have a project that does not have these attributes, you're likely in trouble and you may not know it.
