M2.1 Planning & Schedule Development

By the end of this section, the learner should be able to take a credible current schedule and use it to forecast likely future outcomes, explain what is driving those outcomes, test alternative scenarios, assess the effect of uncertainty and management interventions.

1. Practical outcomeBy the end of this section, the learner should be able to take an approved schedule and turn it into a trustworthy current control model at each reporting cycle. They should be able to establish a clear data date, collect and validate actual progress, record actual starts and acomplishments.

By the end of this section, the learner should be able to test whether a logically valid schedule is actually deliverable with the people, skills, equipment, facilities and other constrained resources available to the project. They should be able to distinguish resource demand from capacity.

The learner should be able to construct and analyse a logically linked schedule, choose relationships, recognise missing or inappropriate logic, distinguish logic from constraints, identify critical and near-critical paths, understand total and free float, recognise negative or unusually high float.

By the end of this section, the learner should be able to turn authorised scope and an agreed delivery strategy into a credible, structured and maintainable project schedule that explains what work must be performed, in what broad sequence, and over what durations and calendars etc.

By the end of this section, the learner should be able to establish and operate a project-controls data environment in which important information is complete enough, accurate enough, timely enough, consistent enough and traceable enough to support management decisions.

By the end of this section, the learner should be able to design, apply and challenge progress-measurement rules that convert evidence of completed work into a credible statement of physical accomplishment. They should be able to choose an appropriate measurement method.

By the end of this section, the practitioner should be able to establish, test and explain an integrated project baseline that brings authorised scope, schedule, budget, assumptions, progress rules and accountability into one coherent reference position.

By the end of this section, the practitioner should be able to design and apply a coherent set of coding and control structures that allows project information to be organised, integrated, aggregated, reconciled and reported without repeatedly rebuilding the underlying data.

By the end of this section, the practitioner should be able to take an authorised project scope and turn it into a Work Breakdown Structure.

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