Deadline-Orientated Projects

A project schedule should be a reflection of the WBS, the accumulation of all of the work packages within the project, and then the assignment of resources for each task. Most new project managers work around specific target dates for milestones, phases, and a completed project. This makes the most sense, right? IT professionals are used to working from a specific calendar for so much of their lives that this next concept can be a little confusing at first: do not schedule project tasks to happen on a specific date if at all avoidable.

Project managers should not work around specific dates when creating the project plan, but instead should initially work around units of time ”for example, one day, two weeks, three months, and so on. Rather than saying a specific work unit will take place next Thursday and Friday, it s better to say that a specific task will take two days to complete. Why? Isn t next Thursday and Friday the same as two days? Yes, and no. Assigning two days to complete a task rather than two specific days allows you to move the task around within your project plan. Figure 7-1 demonstrates the concept of working in units of time rather than specific dates. This little trick allows for a process you ll learn more about later in this chapter: project compression.

Figure 7-1: Assign tasks to be completed in units of time rather than by specific dates.

Working with units of time rather than specific dates for each of the tasks within your project plan allows you to tally your plan to a specific amount of time ”regardless of when the actual project is implemented. For example, if tasks within your project were all assigned a deadline based on the project start date of July 9 and end date of November 2, each task is very time constrained and date specific. However, this same project takes 90 workdays (depending on the year and allowing for weekends). When you assign tasks units of time within the span of 90 workdays, regardless of when the actual start date commences, the project can shift 90 days into the future from the start date.

As you learned during the creation of the WBS, certain work units can be tackled simultaneously with others. Rather than assigning dates to specific tasks, assigning time units to tasks allows the project manager to move activities closer to the start or finish of the project. For some tasks that are effort driven, a project manager can assign additional resources to reduce the amount of elapsed time required to complete the task. Of course, the task still takes the same number of work hours to complete, it is just being accomplished faster as more people are working together on the work unit to complete it.

Often, however, project schedules and deadlines are determined before the project even begins. We ve all been there, right? You ve been handed a project to create an application that must be delivered by April 1. There hasn t been real reflection on the needed time to create a quality application by the given date. In these instances the project manager needs to still address the project, the work decomposition, and the assignment of resources to complete the work just as with a project where the end date is not known.

Once the project manager has determined how long the project will really take, based on accurate time estimates, activity sequencing, and identified resources, he can make realistic decisions about scheduling the work, assigning resources, and, ultimately, negotiating for more time, more resources, or less scope to complete the project by the preset deadline.