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

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

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.

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 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%’.

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.