PMI RMP – PMBOK GUIDE – FAST REVIEW part 3 Question. part 2

Now what’s the relation of the standard deviation to the rest? The greater the range created by the standard deviation calculation, the greater is the risk associated with this activity. How to find out the beta standard deviation? The formula is simple. It’s p minus O divided by six and the range of estimate equals expected activity duration plus minus the standard deviation. That means that the range of the estimate will start from the expected activity duration minus the standard deviation. It will end with the expected activity duration plus the standard deviation. An example an activity with optimistic duration estimate of 20 days and Pessimistic estimate of 32 days.

Knowing that the most likely estimate of the activity is 24 days, what is the range of the estimate for the risk management professional exam? Expect to see two or three questions about this topic. Applying the formula expected activity duration equals the pessimistic plus four by the most likely plus the optimistic divided by six, it’s 32 plus four by 24 plus 20 divided by six. So the expected activity duration is 24. 66 days. Applied in the formula, standard deviation equals p minus O divided by six, it’s 32 -20 divided by six so it’s two that means that the range of estimates is 24. 66 plus minus two. Remember that as the range of estimate becomes greater, the rest in this activity will be more and more so. For the exam, expect to see a question with three activities.

Asking you which one of these activities includes the highest thrust. You need to find out that standard deviation of each and the highest number will be the right answer. Now, what are the types of estimates before we move to the following process? We have the rough order of magnitude ro one which is usually done during the initiating process group with a group accuracy level of -25% to plus 75%. We have the budgetary estimate of minus ten plus 25% done during the planning processing group. The most accurate one is the definitive estimate from -5% to plus 10% it is done as a part of the executing process group. Now, the last process in the planning phase of the schedule management is the developed schedule process.

It’s the process of analyzing activities, sequences, durations, resource requirements and schedule constraint to create a schedule model for project execution and monitoring and controlling. It’s the process where we are going to use all the inputs of the previous schedule management process. Key benefit of the process is that it generates a schedule model with plan dates for completing project activities and this process is performed throughout the project. And the schedule model is to plan the start and finish dates of project activities and milestones based on the best available information. So the plan start and the plan finish each activity will be defined in this process.

Revising and maintaining the project schedule model to sustain a realistic schedule continues throughout the duration of the project. The inputs of this process are the outputs of the previous schedule management processes. We will have the project management plan with the schedule and management plan and the scope is line. We will have the project documents, the assumption of the activity list and activity attributes, the duration and basis of estimates, the recent plan register, the minestrone list, the tool diagram of the project, project team assignments from the resources management, resources, calendars and resources requirements. In addition to the risk registered, any type of contracts or agreements will be an input to this process.

Few enterprise environmental factors and few organizational process assets. Now, the tools and techniques we have the schedule network analysis techniques. The primary one is a critical path. Next up we have the resource optimization techniques, data analysis techniques like the what if scenario analysis and the simulation lace and Lag schedule compression techniques, project management information system and. Agile relief plan. The outputs are the schedule baseline, the project schedule, the schedule and data, the project calendars. These are the primary outputs project Management Plan Updates updates might be on the schedule management plan and the cost baseline.

Also, few project documents might be updated like the Assumption lot activity attributes, duration estimates, listen, learn, register, resource requirements and rest register. Now, what is the critical path method? It’s very important even for the risk management professional exam. It’s a technique that involves determining the longest duration path through the network diagram. The earliest and latest an activity can start and the earliest and latest an activity can be completed. Critical path aims to estimate the minimum project duration and determine the amount of schedule flexibility on logical network paths within the schedule model. The easiest way to find the critical path this is the simplest way to identify all the paths available on the network telegram and to add the activity durations of each path.

The path with the longest duration is the critical path. The nearest critical path is the path closest in duration to the critical path. The closer in length the nearest critical path and the critical path are, the more risk the project has. Now, what is the flu? It’s an asset for the project. It’s the amount of time an activity or a project can be delayed without delaying in the successor activity on the final date of the project. It’s an asset. It’s an asset for the project and for the project manager. There are three main types of the flow. The first one is the total float. It’s the amount of time and activity can be delayed without delaying the project end date or project milestone. The second one is the free float.

It’s the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of sexy set the project flow. It’s the amount of time a project can be delayed without delaying the external project composition date required by the customer or management. Here is a rule, a golden rule. Activities on the critical path have zero float. This is why it’s called the critical path. Because any activity located on the critical path has a zero float. Any delay in critical path activities will lead to a negative fluid. Now, here is an example of the activity box model with the early start in the left hand corner, the early finish here the lead start and the late finish. Usually the activity name comes here, the duration.

You can put it here or above the box and the float. Now, the float of an activity equals the lead start minus the early start. This figure minus this figure or the lead finish minus the early finish. Both formula should give you the same number. Now, the activity duration equals the early finish minus the early start of the lead finish minus the lead start. Usually in order to find out the early and delete figures. A forward path will be performed which is beginning to end through the network diagram to determine the early figures of activities. I’m going to show you this in an example. A backward path end to beginning through the network diagram is used to determine the lead triggers of activities.

Now step by step for the critical path method. First of all, you need to throw the network diagram as part of the question sequence. The sequence given in the question will be in a form of an article or in a table. Then you need to write a duration of each activity above the activity box. Determine all paths of the network diagram from the start to the end. Check the duration of each path. The longest path in duration is the project critical path. It’s also okay to have more than one critical path. The second path in duration is called the near critical path. Step number six, start the forward path moving from the beginning to the end. The first activity, early start is almost zero unless something difference is stated in the question.

The first activity, early finish equals the early start plus the duration of the activity. Now the activity early start equals its predecessor activity early finish unless there is a path convergence. A path convergence means two activities leading into one activity. This is a path convergence. Now if we don’t have a path convergence the normal way, once you have the first activity early start and early finish, what I’m mentioning in step number seven that the early finish of this activity number one will equal the early start of the successor activity. This is the rule. Number eight, perform a backward pass starting from the last activity. Given that this is again a rule, the last activity late finish equals the project duration.

If your project duration is ten days, the late finish of the last activity will be ten days. The last activity late start equals the late finish minus the duration. The activity late finish equals the successor activity late start unless there is a path divergence. So I’m going to explain these steps in a practical example. Your project includes the following dependencies. Activity one can start immediately. So activity one is the first activity on the metro diagram and has an estimated duration of three weeks. Activity two can start after activity one is completed and has an estimated duration of three weeks. Activity three can start after activity one is completed and has an estimated duration of six weeks.

Activity four can start after activity two is completed and has an estimated duration of eight weeks. Activity five can start after activity four is completed and after activity three is completed and has an estimated duration of four weeks. So what’s the duration of the critical path? This is the first question, what’s the flow of activities two and three? And if an issue in activity three, you will make the duration ten weeks. Activity three, original duration, six weeks. If an issue with this activity makes the duration ten weeks, how will this affect the project? So following the steps I just explained, first of all, you need to draw the network diagram. Always put a start box and then follow the sequence described in the question.

Activity one can start immediately with a duration of three weeks. Activity two after activity one, completion with three weeks as well. Activity three after activity one, completion with six weeks. Activity four, after activity two, completion with eight weeks. After activity three and four, completion. We will have activity five with four weeks. And the end here is an example of a path convert. Here we do not have any path convergence and activities leading into one activity. When two activities are leading into one activity, this is a path convergence. Now, first step is to find the duration of each path. How many paths do we have? We have two paths from start to end. We have start 1245 and we have start one, three, five, end.

So the duration of the first path equals three plus three plus eight plus four it’s 18 weeks. The second path is three plus six, nine plus four, it’s 13 weeks. So we have a duration of 18 weeks and then a duration of 13 weeks. The path with the longest duration is the critical path. So the critical path in our case is a start 1245 and this is the critical path. And all the activities located on the critical path have a zero float. So the question asked about activities two and three float. For activity two, it’s zero, because it’s located on the critical path. In order to find out for activity three, you need to find out first the early start and the early finish. The late start and the late finish. So first we will perform a fourth path to find out the early figures.

We stated that the first activity early start is always zero. The early finish of any activity equals early start plus the duration. So zero plus three here will be three. As per the rule, this early finish of activity one, three equals the early start of the following activity. So this three will be copied and inserted here. Three plus three will give you six. The same for activity three, the early finish of activity one equals the early start of the successor. Activity three, with a duration of six weeks. Nine. I will copy the sex here and bought it here. Six plus eight will give you 14. Now we have a path converter, we have two activities, we have two early finishes, we have 14 and nine. So by default I will copy the highest number. 14 is higher than nine.

So I will copy 14 and put it here. You cannot put here nine. How come? This activity will finish on day number 14 and this activity will start on day number nine. It does not make any sense. So in case you have a path convergence, you need to copy the higher number.So in this way we find out the early start and the early finish, all the activities. We will perform a backport path in order to find the late finish and delay start. Before we do that, you can copy the early figures and put them as it is for the late figures. 14 equals 14 here, 1818, 1414. Six, six. The six will be copied here, the three also one. Because all these activities are located in the critical path, they should have a zero float. A zero float.

The float is the late start minus the early start, as it is zero. So the number is the same. So by performing a backward path, we mentioned that the late finish of the last activity equals the project duration. So it’s 18 here. 18 minus four is 14 here. I copied the same numbers because it’s located on the critical path. Delay start, successor activity equals the late finish of the predecessor activity. So I will copy this 14 and positive here. 14 minus six will give you eight. For all other activities the numbers will be the same. So by performing a forward pass we define all the early figures. By performing a backward pass, we define all the late figures. So what’s the duration of the critical path? We define it as 18 weeks.

What is the flow of activity three? It’s 14 minus nine, it’s five weeks. What’s the flow of activity? To zero. And issuing activity three will make the duration ten weeks. How will this affect the project? No effect, as it’s already have a flow of five weeks. We just find out that the flow of activity three is five weeks. There is a flexibility in activity three to be delayed by five weeks. If this issue makes the duration from six to ten, it means there was a delay of four weeks. Still we have one extra week as well. So this issue in activity three that will make the duration ten weeks will have zero effect on the project. Now, the resource optimization techniques are also used in the developed schedule process. They are used to adjust the use of resources.

And there are two techniques under the resource optimization techniques. The first one is called resource leveling. It’s used to produce a resource limited schedule. Start and finish dates of the activities are adjusted based on what? Based on the constraints we have for the availability of the project resources, whom they are going to perform the work of the project with the goal of balancing the demand of resources with available supply leveling, usually lengthen the schedule and increase cost to deal with limited number of resources. Now, the other technique under the resource optimization techniques is the resource smoothing, a modified form resource leveling where resources are leveled only within available flow.

So completion dates of activities are not changed the difference between the resource leveling and the resource moving, that the resource leveling will adjust the activities and will adjust the dates and accomplishing date. The resource moving will adjust the resources based only on the availability flows within the activities so the completion date will not be changed. We have also the Agile relief planning used in the developed schedule process. When you are using an Agile development Lifecycle in Agile project, this technique provides a high level of schedule that includes the frequency of releases and the number of iterations per release. Usually a release typically three to six months. Now here is an example of the Agile release planning on a project of three releases.

The release plans show it’s a component of iteration and the iteration plans also are a group of features and user stories. So this is the form of the Agile release planning. The last technique I’m going to explain or sorry, it’s not the last. We have first of all the simulation which you are aware of, the Monte Carlo simulation you also use in the developed schedule and I supplaimed before as part of the Performance Quantitative Risk Analysis process models that combine effects of individual project risks and other sources of uncertainty to evaluate their impact on achieving project objectives. The most common used one is the Monte Carlo simulation which I explained in detail earlier.

Simulation involves calculating multiple work package durations with different sense of activity, assumptions, constraint, thrusts and issues. This technique uses a computed software to simulate the outcome of the project based on the three point estimate, the optimistic pessimistic and the most likely simulation can tell you the probability of completing the project on a specific date or budget. Here is an example of the Monte Carlo simulation result. Now the schedule compression techniques. These techniques are used to shorten or accelerate the schedule length without reducing the project scope. To meet the schedule constraints, sometimes you need to compress the project schedule due to a request from the contract or the sponsor.

The two schedule compression techniques are the fast tracking. First of all, executing critical activities in parallel instead of series as planned. You must give attention to dependencies while performing fast tracking. Usually fast tracking will increase the project. The second one is the crashing, adding or adjusting resources in order to compress the schedule while maintaining project scope. It trades time for money. These are the schedule compression techniques and here’s a chart or graph. Here’s the normal way where you are going to perform the activities. If you are performing the fast tracking, you will do the activities in parallel instead of series. Here is an example of the series and here is an example of the parallel. Usually where you are going to do the fast tracking, the risk will be increased.

Crashing it will usually increase the cost. As you are providing more resources, it creates time for money. What are the outputs of the developed schedule process. First of all, we have the schedule baseline. It’s the approved version of schedule model that is used to compare to actual results. It will be used for the comparison purposes. It should be formally approved and monitored closely. The project schedule is a second output. It’s an output of the schedule model that presents linked activities with planned dates, durations, milestones and resources. At the minimum, it shall include the planned start and finish dates of each activity. It can be shown in any of the following forms. We have three commonly used forms to show the project schedule.

First of all we have the network diagram presented in the activity or not showing activities and relationships. A pure network diagram. It’s very useful to show the relationships between the activities. The second form will be the milestone charts if identified, the scheduled start or composition of major developed and key external interfaces. It’s very useful for senior management reporting. Bar chart is also known as the John chart to present schedule information. Where activities are listed in the vertical axis, dates are shown in the horizontal axis. Here is the activities shown in the vertical axis and here is the date shown on the horizontal axis and activity durations are shown as horizontal bars are replaced according to start and finish dates.

They are commonly used and easy to read and very effective for progress reporting and control. Any project manager will use this schedule model. The milestone chart is very useful for the senior Management reporting. So this is all for the developed schedule process. The last process we have in the schedule management knowledge area is the control project schedule as part of the monitoring and controlling processing group. It’s the process of monitoring the status of the project to update the project schedule and to make changes to the schedule baseline. The key benefit of the process is that the schedule baseline is maintained throughout the project and this process is performed through the project life.

Updating the schedule model requires knowing the actual performance to date. Any change to the schedule baseline can only be approved through the performance agreed change control process. Schedule control also means looking for the things that are causing changes and influencing sources or root causes of that change. Always remember that any change regarding the objective affected by this change shall be treated through the integrated change control process. The Inputs we have the project management plan with the subsidiary schedule management plan, schedule baseline scope baseline and performance measurement baseline. We have the project documents, the license lender, just the project calendars, the project schedule and the schedule data.

We have the work performance data and the organizational process assets, tools and Techniques we have the data analysis techniques, values, trend what if scenario performance reviews and iterations burn down chart. The only one in you to use is the iteration burn down chart, which I’m going to explain. We have also the critical path method, the PMI as, resource optimization techniques, smoothing and Dribbling, leaps and lag schedule compression techniques, the fast tracking and the crashing. As we have the work performance data as an input, we will have the work performance information as an output. We have also the schedule forecast, the change request, the PM plan updates with the schedule management plan, schedule and cost baseline.

In addition to the performance measurement baseline, we have the project documents, updates, lessons, learn, register assumption, log based estimates, project schedule, resource calendars, risk register and schedule data. All these documents that might be updated. So what’s the iteration burn down chart? As shown from this graph, it tracks the work that remains to be completed in the iteration backlog so it’s usually used with the Agile project it will attract the remaining work. It is used to analyze the variance with respect to an ideal burn down based on the work commented from iteration planning and the forecast trendline can be used to predict the likely variance at an iteration composition and takes an appropriate action.

Here is the plan here is the ideal remaining ward starting from 250 here this is the ideal iteration days are ten the actual is shown by this line the line with small squares this is the actual and this is the forecast trend line. By the forecasting line, you are expecting a delay of 1. 5 days. So remember that the iteration build on chart will track the remaining work to be completed in the iteration backlog. This is all for the schedule management for you for the risk management professional exam the critical path method is very important, the perk estimates as well the schedule compression techniques and the estimation techniques. Thank you so much, looking forward to see you at the next lecture where I’m going to supplaim the cost management knowledge 80.