Don't Make This Critical Path Assumption
Lonnie Pacelli is an Accenture/Microsoft veteran with four decades of learnings under his belt. He frequently writes and speaks on leadership, project management, work/life balance, and disability inclusion. Reach him at [email protected] and see more at ProjectManagementAdvisor.com.
Jason was trying to convince his boss Tanisha why his project couldn’t accommodate a change request: “We can’t do it and stay on schedule.”
“Why?” she asked.
“We don’t have any room. Every additional day means a day-to-day slip on the project.”
“Can you show me your critical path through the project?” Tanisha asked.
Jason was quick with his response: “Everything’s on the critical path.”
“So, you mean that if any task on the project slips by a day, then the entire project slips?”
“That’s right,” Jason said confidently.
Tanisha, being a seasoned project manager herself, was skeptical. “So, every task has zero days of free slack and total slack?”
Jason paused, “Um, I’m not sure.”
“Do you understand what free and total slack are?”
Jason guessed at the answer: “Well, to me it’s how much contingency I have.”
“Glad you mentioned that. Can you show me how much schedule contingency is in your project?”
“We have no contingency.”
“So did you consume it all already, or did you not plan for any contingency in the first place?”
“Well, I um…”
“These are not the types of answers I expect from a seasoned PM. You need to…
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"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining." - Jeff Raskin |
