Making a Party out of Project Management: Chapter 3 - Figuring Out the Details - Part 3 of 4

               With the requirements and scope in mind, Abby was ready to start developing a project schedule for her team to use. Would they be able to fit all the scope they had planned into the time left before the party? If not, Abby would have to identify what would be the easiest thing to cut out of the party, but even that would be a hard task and she really didn’t want to do that. De-scoping a project is never easy, but especially when it would take away from the fun of something like a birthday party.

Abby had another thought as they reviewed all of their requirements to decide what to start working on, “We’ve got a lot of great ideas for what to do for the party, but how should we decide what to do first, second and so on to get everything done in the right order, and in time for Nathan’s birthday?”

This is where Abby realized she would need something called the schedule management plan. She would have a method to decide when to do what, which would ultimately lead to her getting the project schedule figured out. She and her friends would have to identify the activities they decided to do, what the right order of those activities would be and how long it would take to do the tasks in that order. With a schedule determined after all of that, Abby would then need to assign tasks to people to perform at their scheduled times.

To start the work of identifying all the detailed tasks to be done, Abby pulled up her work breakdown structure. Within the main categories of items for the party, there were some specific items to be included, but in order to make these items, there would be specific tasks that someone would have to perform. Abby and her friends examined each work package in the WBS to determine what would need to be done, who would need to do it and what resources they would need. What materials would they use? Would they need training on how to use the materials and tools to create the item? Whenever she could, Abby would close her eyes and visualize the task being done to help her best envision and identify everything that would be needed. For work that Abby could envision in detail, she made specific plans for how to get that work done. There were some things that were hard to know about exactly right now, and for those things, Abby typed up some general points to figure out in greater detail later; as Abby and her team got closer to when that work would be needed, they would have more knowledge about the specific work to do and would write more detailed plans closer to that time. This is called progressive elaboration, planning something in more and more detail as you get closer to doing it and learn more about how to do it.

After some hours of diligent, focused work, Abby and her friends finally finished detailing as much of the WBS into specific tasks as they could. They had a very long activity list, giving best guesses of the task durations as they went. Just like with the WBS, the detailed activities for each WBS work package were kept in organized groups, allowing Abby and her team to see how completing large sets of small tasks led to reaching the major milestones of the project, which are points when a major portion of the project work would be complete. For instance, the completion of all planning activities is a significant project milestone.

On regular work projects, milestones usually coincide with events called gate reviews or phase gates. This is where the project manager meets with the sponsor to report on how the project is going, so the sponsors know what’s going well or what may need to improve, and if they need to give the project manager help with those trouble areas. An example of a gate review would be Abby sitting down with her parents to show them the project plans before starting party setup or making purchases, such as supplies and party packages she might want to purchase from a party shop. If Abby’s parents evaluate her plans to be thorough and well developed, they will encourage her to make purchases and begin leading her team in performing setup activities. If not, they might ask her to consider making some updates to her plans and then having another discussion with them to get approval to move forward.

               With an activity list full of specific tasks, Abby needed to sequence the activities in a way that made sense. Different tasks for completing each requirement would have to happen at various times, and not everything could be done right away. Some tasks depended on other tasks getting done before they could start; this relationship is called a dependency. Luckily, Abby set up her requirements list to have a place for noting these dependencies, so she could use that to figure out the right sequence for getting the tasks done. Tasks required to get done first are called predecessors and tasks that come after those are called successors.

               Abby reviewed all the activities listed in the best order she and her friends could come up with. Now that they knew when all the activities would need to happen, Abby would assign an activity to one or more people, based on any special abilities they had and if they were available to do the activity at the time needed. With her resource calendar entered into the calendar app on her tablet, Abby was able to quickly see that most of the tasks could be easily assigned to people who would be skilled at doing them. There were a few, though, which she hoped to assign to a specific person because they had an ability to do the task especially well.

               “How long will each task take?”, Abby asked around. Going down the list, everyone who had done the individual task before offered a guess of the time it took. For a few tasks that none of her friends had done, some advice from her sponsors came in handy.

               “It’s really hard to tell how long it could take to decorate the tables,” Abby’s mom remarked. “Really, it depends on how fancy you want to make them. I recommend identifying what’s really important and what’s just pretty and nice to have. You may have to break the requirement for decorating the tables into two requirements in order to document that difference and just meet the simpler requirement if you run out of time.”

               “Thanks, Mom!” Abby cheerily replied. “That’ll be a nice way to give us some wiggle room in case we need it, but if everything goes smoothly, we still have something planned to make the party even better!”

That conversation with her mom got Abby thinking, “If we start with a more basic table arrangement and decide later that we want something fancier, what would be the full extent of making that change? We would have to buy extra materials, maybe the people making the fancier tables would need to be trained on a special skill like curling the ribbons or arranging flowers, and I would have to add extra time to the planned duration of setting each table.”

For now, Abby would just have her friends put a tablecloth over each table with a balloon anchored to the center of the table, but this was a good example of all the things she and her friends would have to consider for any changes they wanted to make on the project.

               Getting all the scheduling details figured out was a lot of work, and Abby was tired from working so hard on her plans all day. So, she took a break for the rest of the evening to eat some dinner and go watch a movie with her friends. Both of her parents were happy to see that as much as Abby cared about planning a great party for her little brother, she hadn’t forgotten the importance of some time away from work to have fun with friends and relax.

Next post in the series: Making a Party out of Project Management: Chapter 3 - Figuring Out the Details - Part 4 of 4