Role

Start the Project Lifecycle (Execution) (Large Project)

1

Project Manager, Project team

Hold Project kickoff meeting

Start the execution of the project life cycle with a project kickoff meeting. See 4.1.1.3.1P Project Kickoff for more information.

2

Project Manager

Update the schedule with current information

This is probably still a weekly process. For larger projects the frequency might be every two weeks. Do not update the schedule any less frequently than every two weeks. A frequency of monthly is too long. There is too much work taking place, and if there are problems, too much time may pass before they are surfaced. During the schedule review, the project manager gathers status information from each team member and updates the schedule to reflect activities that were completed during the previous time period.

3

Project Manager, Team Members

Capture and update actual hours (optional)

If the project manager is capturing actual effort hours and costs, update the schedule with this information. The actual effort hours and status can come from team members through Status Reports and / or status meetings. You can also automate the process by using a scheduling tool so that team members can update the schedule directly with their effort hours and completion status.

4

Project Manager

Reschedule the project

After the schedule has been updated to show the current reality, reschedule the work to see if the project will be completed within the original effort, cost and duration. You may find that even though some activities may be completing later than planned, other activities may be completing early. There may also be activities running late that are not on the critical path, in which case the project may still be projected to complete on time.

5

Project Manager, Team Member

Review your schedule situation

Determine if there are any other activities that should be completed, but are not. This information can be gathered by running the appropriate report from your scheduling tool. If there are activities that are late, work with the individual(s) that are assigned to see what is going on. There could be problems that need to be resolved or you may find that the length of time needed to complete the activity was underestimated. The project manager and team members need to determine how much additional effort and duration will be needed to complete the work and the project manager should update the schedule accordingly.

6

Project Manager

Run additional schedule management reports

Run additional reports from the scheduling tool to help determine how the project is progressing. For instance, look at resource allocation to make sure that the team is not over-allocated or under-allocated. The project may show that it is still completing on schedule, for instance, because some of the team members are being scheduled for 80 hours per week. If you saved a baseline version of the schedule, you can also run reports to compare the current schedule against the baseline to see the variances. Although there are hundreds of scheduling reports available, project managers typically get comfortable running a handful of reports to help them manage the schedule successfully.

7

Project Manager

Look for other signs that the project may be in trouble

After you reschedule your project you will determine if you are trending over your deadline date. In addition to the deadline date, there may be other trouble signs that your project is in trouble.  You need to monitor and control the entire project to ensure that you understand your current state, any changes from the prior current state and any trends that may impact your project later. You want to look at the general health of the project and determine whether there are any areas that need additional attention.

Trouble signs could include:

• Activities starting to trend over budget or behind schedule early in the project. There is a tendency to think you can make it up, but usually this situation is a warning that you will get further and further in trouble.

• A small variance starts to get bigger, especially early in the project.

• You discover that activities you think have already been completed are still being worked on.

• You need to rely on unscheduled overtime to hit your interim deadlines, especially early in the project.

• Team morale starts to decline.

• Deliverable quality or service quality starts to deteriorate.

• Quality control steps, testing activities and project management time start to be cut back from the original schedule.

If these situations start to occur, the project manager should raise visibility through risk management. You should put together a Risk Management Plan to proactively ensure that the project stays on track. If you cannot successfully manage through the problems, raise an issue. (See the 4.1.1.1T Manage the Schedule / Techniques section for ideas to get a behind schedule project back on track.)

The current health of the project, current problems and future risks are all used as input into your status reporting process.

8

Project Manager

Adjust the schedule and add more details to future work

Update the schedule so that it reflects how the remaining work will be completed. On a monthly basis, adjust the future activities on the schedule to reflect any additional information you know now. When the schedule was created, many of the activities further into the future may have been vague and placed into the schedule at a high level. On a monthly basis, this work needs to be defined in greater detail. You should make sure that the work for the next three-month window is scheduled out in activities of not more than 80 hours (not more than 40 hours if possible).  If you have work that enters this three-month window at a higher level than 80 effort hours, break it down to a lower level of detail. Note that this step refers to originally identified work that requires more detailed information. This is not the place to add new work. That is done through 4.2P Manage Scope.

9

Project Manager

Evaluate the critical path of the project

The critical path is the sequence of activities that must be completed on time for the entire project to be completed on time. (For more information on critical path, read 2.2.1.7P Critical Path.) If the end-date has slipped, it will be because at least one activity on the critical path did not complete on time. It is important to understand the critical path to know which activities to focus on if the project is trending over its deadline date. Placing additional resources on non-critical path activities will not result in the project completing earlier. Even if you think you know the critical path, it is possible for the critical path to change on the project. You may be trying to accelerate activities that were on the critical path to get a project back on schedule, but if the critical path changed, this will not have the intended result.

10

Project Manager

Assign work to team members

After you have updated the schedule and budget, validated your status, validated the critical path, and performed all of the prior schedule management activities, you should check the schedule to see what work needs to be done over the next one to three weeks. This work should be assigned to the appropriate team members for execution. Updating the work assignments could be performed at team status meetings. However, it is important that all team members know the work that is assigned to them and when it is due. Gain a commitment from each team member to complete the work within the allocated time, duration and budget. This may require each team member to spend some time on the assignment before they can validate whether the estimates are correct. (See 4.1.1.3.4P Validate Work Estimates with Team.)

11

Project Manager

Communicate any schedule risk

As soon as you feel you are at risk of missing your deadline, you should communicate this risk to the sponsor and management stakeholders. You do not have to state that you will miss your estimates for sure. However, you should start to communicate the risk so that you can implement actions to try to keep the project back on track. If you are sure that the current commitments cannot be met, new estimates need to be prepared and communicated to your management and to the sponsor. This is important information to communicate because there may be areas where they can provide input. For instance, the sponsor may agree to reduce the remaining requirements to allow the project to complete within the original estimates.

12

Project Manager

Validate overall project status at each major milestone

At the completion of a major project milestone or phase, the team should take a short pause to ensure that the prior work was completed successfully and that the project team and the client are ready to proceed to the next major phase. Sometimes these criteria are called exit and entry criteria, or “gates.” These events provide an opportunity to validate where the project is at and ensure everyone is ready to proceed. See 4.1.1.3.2P Milestone / Phase Gate Reviews for more information.

13

Project Manager

Close the work

When the work is done, make sure that you include activities in your schedule for the formal closure of the project. The project manager should not consider the entire project completed until these project closure activities are completed. You should use the same discipline to close the project as you did to manage the project. See 5.1P Close Project for more details on closing the project.