SCHEDULE MANAGER – BRIEF JOB DESCRIPTION

Reports To

• Program Directors

 

Job Purpose

• Maintain the program plan and page-on-a-page in accordance with published standards and frameworks
• Support the program directors to track and manage multiple projects and work streams
• Understand detailed plans for each project and translate these into high level plans for the program
• Ensure the program plan and detailed project plans meet the published quality standards
• Provide project managers scheduling advice and support with standard scheduling packages
• Actively manage the Dependencies throughout the program of work in accordance with published standards and frameworks
• Actively highlight, communicate and manage the program Critical path to the program management team
• Develop and maintain the Program Work Breakdown Structure

 

Key Working Relationships

• Supplier project managers
• Risks and Issues Manager
• Corporate PMO Schedule Manager

 

Required Skills and Knowledge

• Excellent project scheduling skills utilizing major scheduling packages
• Ability to work with supplier project managers to interpret project plans
• Ability to analyze project plans to identify inter-project dependencies and risks
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment
• Proactive, string attention to detail and tenacity

 

Enterprise Environmental Factors

Enterprise environmental factors will influence the Schedule Managers job description with respect to Organizational culture, structure and governance, Government or Industry standards, Personal administration and Project management information systems.

 

MONITOR AND CONTROL – SCHEDULE MAINTENANCE

Schedule Maintenance Process Diagram

The below diagram indicates the typical maintenance process for the project plans and program plan.

Collect Work Performance Data

Collecting of Work performance data and Actuals is a key activity for the Schedule Manager.  Regular weekly meetings with project managers and team leaders will be required to develop insight into the progress of activities.

Where possible the collection of data should be via toolsets which are standardized across the organization or supplier organization.  Otherwise a standard approach for marking progress should be provided by the Schedule manager so that different supplier organizations will provide a consistent measure of progress to the program.

 

Consolidate Program Plan

Rolled up work performance data is entered by the Schedule Manager from the Project plans into the Program plan.  Any changes to the remaining work should be incorporated as provided by the project managers into the program plan.

 

Approved changes to Scope, Timelines or Milestones should be added to the program plan as baselined.  Non- approved changes can be added to the plan however the baseline for these activities should not be set.

 

Develop Schedule

Critical path analysis and rescheduling forward of remaining work should be performed.  Any variances to the Baseline should be reviewed with the project managers prior to the development of Variance reports.  Major deviations to the program plan must be discussed with the project manager and/or program director prior to the development of variance reports.

 

Variance reports

Variance reports should be developed directly from the program plan.  The Schedule manager must ensure the reporting data matches exactly to the data provided by the project managers in the project plans and rolled up into the program plan.

 

Any risk’s which have been identified as a result of variances and critical path analysis should be added to the Program risk log.

 

Communication and Reporting

Program status information should be incorporated into Program Communications as per the Communications management plan.  Generally the Schedule Manager will need to develop a “plan on a page’ which is a communication tool to provide stakeholders an indication of the progress of the program

 

PLANNING – SCHEDULE CHECKS FOR SCHEDULING TOOL

The purpose of the following quality control checks is to ensure the plan is of sufficient quality to be used by the program management team to manage the project.  Plans that don’t meet the quality criteria should not be used by the program management team.

 

Item	Condition	Description	Filter Description
1	Constrained	This filter selects those tasks and milestones that have a predecessor and are constrained. Ideally a critical path network should be free of constraints. The exceptions to this are specific delivery milestones.	Pred <> “” AND Constraint Type = “Start No Earlier Than” OR “Must Finish On” OR “Finish No Earlier Than” AND Not 100%
2	Future Actual	Check to see if tasks in the future have actual work allocated to them.	Actual Work > ‘0’ AND Start > ‘Schedule Date’
3	Summary with a Predecessor	Summaries with dependencies. This is permitted but not preferred as it can lead to confusing critical path networks	Summary = Yes AND  Pred <> “”
4	Summary with Successor	Summaries with dependencies. This is permitted but not preferred as it can lead to confusing critical path networks	Summary = Yes AND  Succ <> “”
5	No Predecessor	Select those tasks that are yet to start that have no predecessor. Float will not be indicated in the absence of  predecessor or successor	% Complete = 0% AND Pred = “”
6	No Successor	Select those tasks that are yet to start that have no successor. Float will not be indicated in the absence of  predecessor or successor	% Complete = 0% AND Succ = “”
7	Before Time Now	Select those task and milestones that are incomplete and were due to complete prior to the current date.	Finish < “Current Date” AND % Complete <100%
8	No Resource	Selects those tasks which do not have a resource	Resource Name = “” AND % Complete <> 100%
9	No Baseline	Selects non-Baselined tasks and milestones	Baseline Finish = NA AND % Complete < 100%
10	Resourced Non Task	Selects summaries with resources assigned to them.	Summary = Yes AND Resource Name <> “”

 

PLANNING – QUALITY CONTROL CHECKLIST

All plans in the Program should be reviewed by the Schedule Manager and verified against the quality control checklist and quality control filter checklist.

 

A written report should be provided by the Schedule Manager to the project managers including a summary of the defects to be rectified in the plans.  Quality control reports should be developed for each Baseline of the program plan and project plans.  The Quality control reports can be filed in the project repository in line with the project configuration policy.

 

 

Item	Quality Criteria Description
1	Milestones
1.1	Is there a milestone section at the top of the plan?
1.2	Have all key milestones been included?
1.3	Do Milestone names provide unambiguous and descriptive definition?
1.4	Do dates of milestones match baseline planned dates in PMP?
1.5	Is Milestone name concise enough to appear uncluttered in Rolled up view? Abbreviations should make sense to staff in the organization not working on the project
1.6	Is there an even spread of milestones across the time periods of the project?
2	WBS
2.1	Does the WBS structure align to the project approach, methodology or standard project lifecycle?
2.2	Does the WBS evenly distribute work effort across the phases and through the WBS levels?
2.3	Is there activities or tasks which would be better placed in other WBS elements?
2.4	Do project plans roll up in an effective manner and are broken down into key work products at level 3?
2.5	Do the key Work Products match the PMP deliverables?
3	Scope
3.1	Is the project scope completely represented in the program plan?
3.2	Do individual project plans completely represent the scope in the program plan?
4	Dependencies and Constraints
4.1	Is there a dependencies section at the top of the plan?
4.2	Have all External project dependencies been included?
4.3	Do all External dependencies have a successor project task?
4.4	Constraints should be set only where absolutely necessary. The MPP should be as dynamic as possible through the use of predecessors and successor logic.
5	Progress Reporting
5.1	Actual Start date is correct if the task has started
5.2	Actual Finish date is correct if the task has finished
5.3	Forecast Start date if the task has not started (date to be populated and in the future)
5.4	Forecast Finish date if the task has not finished (date to be populated and in the future)
5.5	% Work Complete is present and maintained?
5.6	Project One page view appears reasonable (e.g. Reads well etc)?
6	Resourcing
6.1	Tasks have resourcing assigned and resourcing appears reasonably leveled?
6.2	Are there any resource conflicts across phases which could create resource issues for execution?
7	Tasks, Hours, Predecessors, Successors, Approval Points, Naming
7.1	Work hours are spread at task level and total planned hours at the product level are consistent with the earned value reporting system.
7.2	Predecessors and successors do not appear at summary level.
7.3	Tasks and milestones are linked to predecessors and successors.
7.7	Baseline has been saved in the scheduling tool
7.8	Project File Naming convention aligns to Configuration management standard?
8	Critical Path
8.1	Does the schedule tool calculate the critical path through the expected activities/tasks and align to the critical activities noted in the project brief or approach?  If the tool isn’t calculating the expected activities adjustments will be required to the network logic.

 

PLANNING – DEVELOP SCHEDULE QUALITY GUIDELINES

When developing plans the following guidelines should be followed by the program management team to provide a quality deliverable.

 

Work Breakdown Structure Guidance

• The Program Plan and project plans must have aligned Work Breakdown Structures which are in alignment to the Program management plan and scope statement.
• The Program Plan contains the WBS to Level 3 – Activity level.  The project plans contain the WBS to Level 6 – Deliverable level
• The WBS must be aligned between the plans so that the Schedule Manager can take Work performance data from project plans directly into the Program plan.
• Activities and Deliverables should be consistent with the Program management plan and Scope statements
• Include a Key Milestones and External Dependencies section in all plans.  All external project dependencies should be identified in the dependency section of the plan.
• Summary tasks in the plan should relate to the name of the work product
• Tasks and predecessors should show the work flow required to achieve delivery of this work product

Network Logic Guidance

• Avoid using the Constraint logic in the scheduling tool (except for external project dependencies).  Use Network logic (task predecessors and successors) to drive the start / finish dates in the scheduling tool.
• All external project dependencies must have a successor task in the plan
• All tasks in the scheduling tool should contain a predecessor and successor
• All Milestones must have a task predecessor

 

Resource profile Guidance

• The resource profile should be developed and leveled in the Program plan to Level 3. 
• The leveled resource profile must align to the Program Budget and resource plan.  The overall Program plan effort in hours should be consistent with the Program Budget.
• Generic resources can be used if required however if the resource names are known for specific activities in the program plan then these should be used.

 

Deliverables Guidance

• Appropriate review and approval tasks should be included for all deliverables
• Resource names should be included for all tasks.  Resource names shouldn’t be used on summary tasks
• Task names should be descriptive of what work needs to occur.  Action verbs should be included.
• Consistent names should be used across project plans. 
• There should be no ambiguity for task names and each task should have an individual descriptive name.  Task names should be readable by organization staff not working on the project.

 

Milestones Guidance

• Milestones are used to mark the completion (or start) of a key deliverable or activity phase. 
• Milestones should not be too low level of detail; they should provide a view of project progress. 
• An even distribution (over time) of milestones is important as this will provide stakeholders a measure of successful progress. 
• The Program Manager may be required to develop interim phase milestones if a project phase is running over several months.  Interim phase milestones will require project managers to order their deliverables in such a way to achieve interim phase deliverables and therefore interim phase deliverables will require the project managers’ support.  Interim phase milestones are important risk mitigation as they can provide an early indication to the Program Manager of any technical or stakeholder risks to the completion of the phase.
• Milestones should be zero task duration and not have resources assigned to them.  Milestones should have a % complete of either ‘0’or ‘100%’.

 

Naming Conventions Guidance

• Baseline program and project plans should be saved and clearly named and dated in line with the organizational or project configuration management policy. 
• The Schedule Manager should ensure each plan version made during the Monitoring and Control process should be saved as an individual version.

Develop Schedule – Timeline

The below process indicates a generic method for the development of a set of program and project plans.  The timeline to complete this process would be approximately 6-8 weeks.

 

#	Title	Planning level	Description
1	Project Brief	Level 1 – Program Plan	The Sponsor briefs the Program Manager on the Business Case, Scope and Program Timelines
2	Draft Program Plan	Level 1 – Program Plan	Program Manager develops a draft plan for discussion with Sponsor and other key Stakeholders.  Critical path activity timelines should be indicated and sub-work stream project managers may be required to provide input (Expert Advice) for critical activities.
3	Program Planning Workshop #1	Level 1 – Program Plan	Program management team workshop the draft project plan stepping through plan activities. Items which should be reviewed during the meeting are; Activity Duration, Start/Finish times, Dependencies, Resource constraints, Risks or Issues
4	Project (Work stream) Planning	Level 2 – Project plans	Workstream leads develop team plans in alignment with Program plan Work Breakdown Structure and Activity Start/Finish
5	Plan Quality Control	Level 2 – Project plans	Schedule Manager provides Quality Control reports on Program plans and Project (Work stream) plans
6	Revised Program Plan	Level 1 – Program Plan	Program Manager updates Program plan with Workshop feedback, Quality Control feedback and additional feedback from Project leads.
7	Program Planning Workshop #2	Level 1 – Program Plan	Program Management team workshop project plan confirming alignment of  Project lead plans, Dependencies and updating Risk log
8	Baseline	Level 1 – Program Plan	Steering Committee approves the Baseline Program plan.

PLANNING – DEVELOP SCHEDULE

The Develop Schedule process is a key function for the Program Scheduler with the key output of the Baseline program plan.  Development of a program plan with a set of underlying project plans is a complex and iterative process that will require inputs from all stakeholders of the program.

The Level 1 Program plan can be developed by the Program management team using the standard PMBOK process for Develop Schedule.

The development of Level 2 project plans will require the Schedule Manager to workshop extensively with Suppliers who will be initiated into the program via the Conduct Procurements process.  It is advisable for the Schedule Manager to use this guidance material to induct Suppliers in the Develop Schedule process.

Develop Schedule Process guide

Baseline Project plan

The management of Schedule Baselines is a requirement for the Schedule Manager.  Approved Baselines must be carefully documented and registered in the relevant project repository.  Remember that almost all projects will have a client / supplier relationship and agreed Baselines are contract documents that may be reviewed in the event that liquated damages or other commercial penalties are applied.

STRUCTURE OF PLANS

Plans will be developed at different activity levels to satisfy the project control needs for different stakeholders in the program management team and different phases of the project.

All plans developed across the program must meet Quality Control guidelines.

Level 1 – Program Plan

The program plan is the key document deliverable for the Schedule Manager who maintains the plan for the Steering Committee and Program Manager.  The program plan must incorporate the complete program scope of works and the key program milestones and dependencies.  The program plan will include Work Breakdown Activities to level 3 and include resource profile at this level.  The program plan defines the structure of the project plans which sit beneath it.  An important quality control element for the Schedule manager is to ensure the alignment of the WBS between the Program plan and the individual project plans.

Level 2 – Project Plan

A project (or workstream) plan is utilized by a Project manager to deliver the scope of work they are responsible for.  The work breakdown structure of a project plan is defined by the Program plan which in the plan hierarchy sits above it.  The schedule progress of activities in the individual project plans must roll up to the higher level WBS activities in the Program plan.  The quality standards for a project plan are the same as the quality standards for the program plan.

Level 3 – Team Plans

For some larger activities in the program, individual team plans will be required to track in detail the progress of those activities.  For example the development of 150 design documents will be better suited to track as an individual team plan which can be rolled into one activity in the program plan.  For team plans the tool used will generally not be standard Schedule Management tools but tools that are suited to the needs of the team producing the deliverables.  Report outputs from team tracking tools will be used by the Schedule Manager to update the status of the program plan.

PLANNING – KEY INPUTS FOR DEVELOP SCHEDULE

The development of the program plan requires some key inputs;

• Project Charter (4.1)
• Project Scope (5.3)
• Work Breakdown Structure (5.4)

Project Charter (PMBOK 4.1)

The project charter documents the business need and high level requirements for the expected product, service or result.  The Charter contains key inputs for the program plan such as the summary milestone schedule and key constraints.

Project Scope (PMBOK 5.3)

The project scope defines the work which needs to be completed to deliver the product, service or result with the specified features or functions.   The scope of the project is defined at a high level in the Initiation phase and is further elaborated as the project progresses through feasibility phase in the Scope statement.  Changes to scope are managed via the change control process (5.6 Control Scope).

The project scope baseline is a key input to the development of the program plan. 

Any changes to the scope baseline must be reflected with an update to the program plan and potentially the Work Breakdown Structure.

Work Breakdown Structure (PMBOK 5.4)

The Work Breakdown Structure is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of the program which defines and organizes the scope of the program.  The WBS provides a program framework for project control, schedule management and effort estimation.

The Program Work Breakdown Structure is used by the Schedule Manager to define the Levels of activity in the program and project plans.  Since all scope of the project is included in the Work Breakdown Structure then clear accountability for scope delivery will be defined by the WBS.

One objective of the Schedule Manager is to ensure all scope elements are included in the program plan and any lack of clarity regarding scope accountability or delivery is clearly highlighted to the program management team.

INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAM SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT

The purpose of this guidance material is to provide the Schedule Manager with work instructions for the management of schedules in a large Program of works.  The Schedule Manager on a large program will assist the Program Director with the development of the Program plan and then work extensively with Suppliers to develop component project plans.

The techniques provided in this document are generally applicable to Programs with total effort of 20,000 – 60,000 person days over 12 to 18 months.  At peak program activity the effort could be between 2000 – 8000 hours per week with a project team size of between 50 – 200 people.

In most organisations programs of this size would be considered once-in-a-decade, implementing core business changes which provide significant opportunity but also significant risks.

In the context of a large Program, the Schedule Manager has a key role in providing the Program Management Team a suite of governance deliverables to assist the project team and the organization meet their objectives.

Where applicable the guidance material has been aligned to PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition.  This guidance material can be used by a Schedule Manager as input for PMBOK 6.1 Plan Schedule Management.

This document also aligns to the PMBOK organisational project framework that states “Program Managers develop the overall plan and create high-level plans to guide detailed planning at the component level”.