A Brief History of Scheduling
The science of ‘scheduling’ as defined by Critical Path Analysis (CPA) celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2007. In 1956/57 Kelly and Walker started…
5 Feb 2013 · Patrick Weaver · 5 min read
Knowledge
Blog
Longer-form writing from the community: procedures, opinion, case studies and career advice.
362 articles
The Scheduling Conundrum
The scheduling conundrum is simple:We know effective scheduling makes a significant difference to project success and we know what effective scheduling looks like but in most projects, the schedule is ignored, bad scheduling practice is the norm and most projects finish late.
22 Jan 2013 · Patrick Weaver · 5 min read
Project task durations
Probably the most common action undertaken by project planners everywhere is assigning a duration to a task; most of us do this almost automatically. Generally it is only when a dispute arises that the complex interaction of the factors discussed involved in setting the duration come into play.There
9 Jan 2013 · Patrick Weaver · 2 min read
Distributed -v- Consolidated Contingencies
Distributed contingencies are normal in most aspects of project management but often result in sub-optimal use of resources. Typical examples include allowing some safety margin in each CPM duration estimate (eg, setting the durations at an 80% probability), allowing contingencies on a project by pr
6 Jan 2013 · Patrick Weaver · 2 min read
Scheduling For Effect
As the end of 2012 approches, and assuming the world won't end of the 12/12/12 I have a few thoughts for every scheduler’s New Year resolutions.
11 Dec 2012 · Patrick Weaver · 1 min read
My Project Is Making No Progress!
I had a situation recently where a client stated that despite his people working as fast and seemingly efficiently as they could, he was seeing next to no progress reflected in his performance reporting, his end date was pushing out, his efficiency was down, people were asking questions.
7 Dec 2012 · James Clements · 4 min read
The CPI Stability Myth
Undoubtedly the longest running ‘urban myth’ in circulation within the general project management community, arising from US Defence based research from the early 1990s, that the Cost Performance Index (CPI) always stabilizes at the 20% completion and the final outcome will be within 10% of this val
27 Nov 2012 · Patrick Weaver · 3 min read
"The Project Must Be Finished On This Date - Or Else!"
These are words of desperation, a client or senior manager who's got his back to the wall.I was faced with this exact situation on a consulting job a few weeks back, the business owner, facing heavy penalties for late delivery was desperate for answers and didn't know a better way to react.Unfortuna
24 Nov 2012 · James Clements · 5 min read
A though on PMOs and Project Controls
The quality guru W. Edwards Deming said ‘In God we trust, all other bring data’. However, developments in the Victorian Government health system (Australia) offer a salient reminder to any PMO manager on the value of data.
16 Nov 2012 · Patrick Weaver · 2 min read
Blog
Good Planner - The foundation
It is failry common to come across lots of people in planning who are actively engaged in planning but have never visited or worked on the site. This is deeply disturbing. It also applies to other industries as well as you must have noticed. Well, in any case, I belong to the Construction industry a
14 Nov 2012 · Raj Singh · 1 min read