Hybrid Project Management

8Analyzing and Finalizing a Predictive Schedule

Developing your initial schedule takes some work, especially for a hybrid project. But once you have that initial schedule, you still aren't done. You will need to analyze the schedule, assess your resource allocation, and identify the critical path. Then you will often need to find a way to reduce the amount of time it takes to accomplish all the work. Only then can you create a schedule baseline.

In this chapter we'll discuss different aspects of analyzing the schedule to make sure it is optimized for your project. Then we'll look at two ways to compress the overall duration of the schedule. Finally, we will look at using buffer to protect your due date, and baselining the schedule.

ANALYZING THE SCHEDULE

Once you have developed the network diagram, loaded your resources, and estimated your durations, it is time to analyze the schedule. Your goal with this step is to determine if the schedule meets the needs of the stakeholders and the project constraints. There are four areas you should analyze:

• Convergence and divergence;
• Resource allocation;
• The critical path; and
• Float.

Convergence and Divergence

Convergence is when you have multiple tasks converging into one task; some people also refer to this as a sink. The point of convergence carries some risk with it because if any one of the paths finishes late, the convergence task starts late.

Convergence: A point in the schedule where multiple paths merge.

Divergence: