1. Improving the
Quality of your
Microsoft Project
2010 Schedule

2. Why Have Scheduling Software?

3. The Key to a High Quality Schedule

4. The Key to a High Quality Schedule

5. In the World of the Biggest Projects . . .

6. The Need for A Good Critical Path
“In most cases, 99.9% of the time, we
can't produce a valid critical path.”
- Mike Beattie, Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), May 2007

7. Schedule Quality Is . . .
• Trust – Is it the truth? Are the
Tasks, Resources, Assignments, Costs, Actuals, etc. accurate?
• Fidelity – Is the critical path really the critical path?
• Detail – Does it contain the right level of detail?
Trust
Fidelity Detail

8. Schedule Quality Is Not . . .
• Performance Problems
• Defects in the Deliverables
• Scheduler Quality
Trust
Fidelity Detail

9. Ten Common and Serious Problems

10. 1. Missing Predecessors
Task A

11. 2. Missing Successors
Task B

12. 3. Use of Constraints
Hard Constraints Soft Constraints
Must Start On As Late As Possible
Must Finish On Start No Earlier Than
Start No Later Than Finish No Earlier Than
Finish No Later Than
A slip here . . . . . . won‘t cause a slip here.

13. 3. Use of Constraints
Will your
schedule
pass the
push test?

14. 4. Lags
Lag

15. 5. Leads
Lead

16. 6. Planned Start in the Past
Task A
Hasn’t Started Yet
Task A has a planned Start
Date in the past but hasn’t
started. The existing
Planned Start Date cannot
be trusted!
Status Date
(or today if no
Status Date)

17. 7. Actual Date in the Future
Task C
Status Date (or
today if no
status date)

18. 8. Summaries With Resources
Summary Task B
Task A Task B1 Task B2

19. 9. Summary Tasks With Links
Summary Task B
No!
Task A Task B1 Task B2
Yes!

20. 10. Manual Scheduling
Task A

21. The Impact of Poor Schedule Quality
• Don’t Know True Project Finish Date
• Rework
• Schedule Slippage
• Budget Overruns
• Lack of trust

22. A “Spell Checker” for Microsoft Project

23. 5 Second Commercial

24. Improving the
Quality of your
Microsoft Project
2010 Schedule