Measuring Quality in a Schedule

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Estimating   Quality   Schedule Management   Scheduling   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)  

A schedule turns a bright idea into a plan and gives organization and structure to the project scope. It takes the WBS and gives it a time limit, which turns the thoughts and ideas of the project team into reality. Given how important the schedule is to the project, the project manager should put some time and effort into assuring that the schedule will be of the top quality--an unwavering and unquestioned account of the project plan with structured time limits and deadlines and milestones.

Measuring and ensuring quality in the schedule should be part of the original schedule management plan, and steps must be taken throughout the project lifecycle to maintain that quality for every step of creating, updating and monitoring the schedule.

From WBS to Schedule
The first step of the schedule is the work breakdown structure. The WBS turns the scope of the project into a detailed plan to execute the work needed to accomplish the project. This work breakdown is then assigned dates, resources and constraints in order to create the first schedule. In order to maintain the quality of the schedule at this point, it is vital to create valid constraints between tasks. Very few tasks should be left with no predecessor or successor at all. In order to accomplish the goal of the project, tasks must be executed in a certain sequence and the schedule should reflect the proper …

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