Project Management View from Rail Transit Programs and Projects

This blog will cover sections of Excellence In Engineering by W.H. Roadstrum, 1967, and relate them to Project Management Institute’s Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK).

In Chapter 4 of Excellence In Engineering, Roadstrum identifies Project Controls as three elements – Scheduling, Monitoring and Controlling.   As discussed in Part 5, the first of three elements of Project Controls was presented – Scheduling.   In this Part, the Monitoring practices will be highlighted.   

As I have learned through a career in project management, keeping the team focused on the project vision, mission, objective, and benefits, which are identified and committed to through the Project Charter, is an essential function of the project leader.   But an equally important part of the business of project management is to advise the team on performance to project metrics. 

 Roadstrum builds on the work flow and scheduling practices to define the practices for monitoring the baseline schedule within established milestones, dates and goals.

Good Engineering Practices for Monitoring

1. Follow and monitor performance (time, cost, technical progress) on a regular basis.

2. Include all contributors in the monitoring process so they are also “self-monitoring”.

3. Plan at least general alternatives for each principal contingency.

4. Keep the goal and its broad alternatives clearly in mind.

Poor Engineering Practices for Monitoring

1. Because of preoccupation with novel and challenging areas of the project, allow unmonitored tasks to run far off schedule.

2. Because of failure to identify critical items, do not follow these or provide alternatives.

3. Wait for other people or the turn of events.Raise no questions on schedule progress until critical deadlines have been missed.

4. Mistake proper rate of expenditures for adherence to technical schedule.

5. Allow an old schedule to become so outdated as to be useless.

PMBOK – Fifth Edition Chapter 6, regarding Project Time Management, covers scheduling and schedule control tools and techniques common for monitoring of the project schedule, and the respective performance indicator (s), which are shared across schedules and estimates under the project controls function.

Section 6.6.2 identifies tools and techniques for monitoring and updating project schedules using subject matter expertise and software.    The project team can make improvements in achieving scheduled dates, planned progress goals, and in creating recovery plans for projects with poor performance indicators.    The actions may be created by several means:

• Network Analysis – This involves showing where various activities converge or diverge with dependent activities.

• Critical Path Method - This involves using the predecessor and successor connections with activities where the estimated duration has fixed start and end dates and contingency in scheduled duration with other activities.  

• Critical Chain Method - This involves using buffers in activity durations to account for limited resources.

• Resource Optimization – This involves using resource leveling and resource smoothing to adjust the duration of activities and align with available resources.

• Modeling  - This involves  conducting trial and error changes to the baseline to detect potential schedule risks and to improve schedule efficiency and production effectiveness.

• Leads and Lags - This involves adjusting the activity relations, such as start-to-start, finish-to- start, and finish-to-finish, to establish modified connections in the predecessor/successor relationship, such as start Task B 60 days prior to finish of Task A.

• Schedule Compression - This involves  Crashing - shortening activity duration with corresponding increases in resources, and Fast Tracking - re-sequencing work activities to increase overall progress rate and to shorten the project duration.

This is Part 5 of a blog about a book that most impacted my career - Excellence In Engineering by W.H. Roadstrum, 1967, and relates it to Project Management Institute’s Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK).

My work experience includes varying roles in managing projects and integrating the deliverables from Project Controls such as estimates, schedules, progress reports, financial reports, and project performance reports.   In all cases, the project team was responsible for the quality and implementation of the deliverables from Project Controls.   These deliverables were essential tools for the team to manage project performance to scope, schedule, budget, project objective, safety and quality goals, and customer expectations.  

The effectiveness of the tools is a function of the organizational assets that are inputs to Project Controls, and from which the project management office establishes requirements, processes and procedures to create, generate, measure and assess realistic project metrics.

In Excellence In Engineering-Chapter 4, Roadstrum emphasizes several points on Project Controls:

1. Good technical engineering work will be obscured (and can even be completely nullified) by poor administrative control.

2. Good technical work will not by itself control a project.A project can not control itself.It must be deliberately controlled by the project team, especially the project engineer.

3. Plan and schedule for almost every engineering project will change significantly during the work.

4. It is a surprisingly common belief among some groups of engineers that technical work can not be effectively controlled.This attitude prevails at times even in high places.Such a conviction sometimes reflects the influences of a manger who feels the same way, or of previous ones who did.

5. The idea that projects can not be effectively controlled is a self-fulfilling prophecy for the engineer who thinks this way.

6. From a business standpoint, company management naturally expects that technical work will be administered effectively.

Work flow for initial schedule development consists of:

1. Establish initial overall concept.

2. Determine critical factors in each area.

3. Specify all interface conditions and alternatives.

4. Establish estimates {for each of the activities.

5. Establish final configuration and make recommendations.

6. Complete proposal document and costing.

Good Engineering Practices for Scheduling

1. Schedule the whole project vat the outset.Recognize interdependence of parts.

2. Identify the critical items early.Keep a current list of them.

3. Seek out the best time and cost estimates available on critical items.

4. Modify and update schedule as needed.

5. Bring all contributors or contributing groups into the scheduling process.

Poor Engineering Practices for Scheduling

1. Make no schedule or only a trivial one.Never go into the critical detail which will determine the success of the project.

2. Fail to recognize the interdependencies in schedule.Schedule unrealistically.

3. Make schedules in too much detail.Include non-critical detail.

4. Select schedule milestones which are difficult to follow and assess.

Chapter 6, PMBOK-Fifth Edition provides some guidance on inputs and outputs for the schedule development and maintenance cycle.

In PMBOK Section  6.6.1, the inputs for an effective schedule include: 

• Activity list

• Activity attributes

• Logic ties between activities

• Interdependencies between work packages and other projects

• Enterprise factors, such as manpower and equipment

• Organizational assets and processes used by participants, including the contractor and client.

PMBOK Section 6.6.3.2 defines the product for Project Schedule, which is created using the input and expert knowledge of project staff and applying scheduling standards and tools defined in the Project Management and Scheduling Plans.    The section describes the project schedule as an output of a schedule model that presents linked activities with planned dates, durations, milestones, and resources.  At a minimum, the project schedule includes planned start date and finish date for each activity.