24 April 2009

Print

Quick Quiz

By Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP

“No matter how careful I am, the estimated timeframes for my projects are always too long. What am I doing wrong?

A. Cut each team member’s estimate by 10%, as they have probably padded the time.

B. Never give an estimate as to how long it will take to complete a project.

C. Always plan at least one hour of overtime per employee per day.

D. Follow a checklist of suggestions to quickly see ways to reduce the schedule time.

Answer: D. Follow a checklist of suggestions to quickly see ways to reduce the schedule time.

Create your schedule. Take organizational holidays and team member vacations into account. Plan project tasks for 60% of the standard working hours in your organization. An eight-hour day equates to roughly five hours of project assignments; the other three hours are typically tied- up in breaks, phone calls, meetings, e-mail and other non-project work.

Once you have prepared your best schedule, look at the following list of suggestions to see if you can shorten the timeframe. There are six ways you can shorten a project schedule without changing the project scope.

Assign additional resources. Extra resources will usually enable you to finish some tasks faster. These resources can be internal workers who are available, or temporary help that you bring in on a short-term basis.

The addition of resources will have repercussions on your project budget, but it can be worth it if schedule length is your primary concern.

Assign critical task overtime. The critical path is the longest path through the project. It shows the shortest time in which the project can be completed without slack or float (which is time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the project finish date).

Only by shortening tasks on the critical path can you be sure that overtime expense will shorten the length of the project path.

Be aware of any local or cultural work habits or expectations before you choose this option. If labor unions are involved, check their rules to see if overtime is allowed or is cost prohibitive.

Change task relationships. To shorten the schedule time, you can change Finish to Start, Start to Start, Finish to Finish, and Start to Finish relationships.

Fast track or overlap the activities that you would prefer to finish in sequence.

Lead time (starting a little early) or lag time (starting a little late) may allow you to move tasks into a shorter time frame after you change the task relationships.

Change working times. Perhaps all resources will need to increase their work time on a regular basis to come in early, shorten lunch hours, stay late or work on weekends. Consider implementing these options for the duration of the project if a shorter schedule is mandatory.

Change the duration of a critical task. A more experienced person may be able to finish a critical task sooner than the original resource assigned. Be aware that the more experienced person will probably come at a higher price and affect the project cost.

After the project starts, you can ask workers to re-estimate the time needed to complete activities. They may have a better sense of how difficult or time consuming the tasks will be once a portion of the work is completed.

Break up tasks. Look at critical tasks first. If you broke them into smaller pieces, could you do the pieces out of order? Could you assign the pieces to multiple people instead of just one person?

For example, the task “Create a training manual” could be broken into the tasks: order paper, create content, print covers and assemble pages. In this manner, the tasks could be done out of sequence and assigned to several resources.

Portions of the task can often overlap when the task is divided, and thus shorten the schedule. Typically, task durations should be a week, maximum, or no longer than a typical reporting period.

To shorten the schedule, you may need to make some tough decisions and compromises. Having a checklist of suggestions will quickly help you find ways to compress the time line when doing so is crucial.

Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP, is a reviewer for the global PMI Registered Education Provider Review Team. She owns Davis Consulting and is a published author, speaker, writer of training materials and an innovator in presentation skill workshops for corporate trainers. She holds a Black Belt in MS Project and teaches at the university level. Ms. Davis encourages your questions or comments.