Schedule Control

Schedule Control involves understanding what influences a schedule change, knowing that the schedule has changed, and managing schedule changes, and it is "a portion of the Integrated Change Control process" (PMBOK, p. 152). After the project schedule has been approved, the project manager can baseline the schedule, which results in the "schedule baseline." This sets the performance measurement for the project. As execution begins, this is what you are measured against.

The approved project schedule must be technically realistic and realistic in terms of resources. I know as an experienced project manager that you are usually given a due date you must meet. Your job is to come up with alternative schedules to meet this deadline but also to explain the risks involved with meeting an aggressive due date. Your sponsor then will approve the schedule with the risk threshold that he or she can handle.

Q.	The approved project schedule is called the:
		A.	Sponsored schedule
		B.	Performance schedule
		C.	Baseline schedule
		D.	Approved schedule

The answer is C.

During project execution, you will post progress to the project schedule, and your performance reporting will show variance. As you know, no project runs exactly according to the baseline schedule. Your project management software is helpful to quickly identify variances of dates, work, or costs.

The way you decide how to handle variances is called variances analysis. If you see variances between what was expected and the actual results, then you need to decide whether corrective action is necessary. You should pay attention to critical and sub-critical tasks first when examining variances. Corrective actions could include additional planning to revise duration estimates, activity dependencies, and maybe alternative schedules.

Other changes might come from change requests, which can be both internal and external. Your schedule change control system should determine how you will identify, analyze, and approve these changes. The schedule change control system may already be a part of your organizational process assets, and it should certainly be a part of your overall project change control system.

After you gather these data on project progress variances, the variances may make it necessary to do schedule updates or corrective actions. Corrective actions are anything done to bring expected future schedule performance in line with the project plan (PMBOK, p. 155). To put it another way, corrective actions are anything done to meet the current finish date. Overtime, Fast Tracking and Crashing are examples of time management corrective actions.

Updates or modifications to project schedule information are schedule updates. Scope changes or changes to estimates usually require a special type of schedule update called revisions. Revisions are changes to the schedule start and finish dates in the approved project schedule (PMBOK, p. 155). The project sponsor must approve all schedule updates.

Q.	Anything done to bring expected future schedule performance in line with the project plan is known as ________.
		A.	Replanning
		B.	Schedule arrangement
		C.	Corrective actions
		D.	Rebaselining

The answer is C. Fast Tracking and Crashing are examples of corrective actions that can be taken.

Q.	If you update the schedule, the updates must be approved by the ________.
		A.	Project manager
		B.	Project team
		C.	Line management
		D.	Sponsor

The answer is D. The sponsor must be told that schedule changes have occurred as soon as they occur.

When schedule changes or variances happen, some project managers want to rebaseline the project schedule. This will certainly make the project look good, but rebaselining should only occur if the variances are so severe that the current performance measurements (baselines) make no sense. Variances are not evil by themselves. They serve a purpose of identifying areas that need improvement in similar and maybe all future projects. When a project is rebaselined, all historical data is lost, making it impossible to note in the lessons learned why this variance happened. In the lessons learned documentation, you explain not only variances but also corrective actions and other schedule control updates.

Q.	Revisions are a special type of schedule updates that make changes to:
		A.	Costs
		B.	Resources
		C.	Same as Fast Tracking
		D.	Start/Finish Dates

The answer is D.

Q.	Rebaselining should occur only if the current baselines ________.
		A.	Are off by 10%
		B.	Are off by 20%
		C.	Make no sense
		D.	Are bad

The answer is C. You should rebaseline only if the actual project progress has little to do with the original baseline.