6.7 Control Schedule
Process Definition
Controlling the schedule involves managing the project activities timeline and progress. It ensures changes to the schedule baseline will still allow for the project plan to be achieved. Deviations from the baseline should be recognized and corrective actions taken.
Figure 44. Project Management Body of Knowledge Figure 6-22. Reprinted from "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), 5th Edition" by Project Management Institute, 2013, p. 232. Copyright 2013 by Project Management Institute, Inc. Reprinted without permission.
Process Assessment
Controlling the schedule is not only important to ensuring the project work is being completed on time, as projected, but also is a risk mitigation tool. Keeping the schedule within the baseline will help to minimize risk associated with schedule deviations. While a lot of times schedule changes are inevitable, the best defense is to have a good forecasting plan in order to make changes early enough to minimize the damage it may cause.
(Inputs) Project Schedule
The project schedule is a visual depiction of the start and finish timeline of the project. This example is from a group project in PMGT 614 Planning, Directing, and Controlling Projects, written by Jeremy Curbey, Reese Darlington, Braylon Gurnell, Bret Kuhne, and Benjamin Lundy.
(Tools & Techniques) Schedule Compression
Schedule compression is a tool used to bring a project that is behind back up to speed using fast tracking or crashing methods. This is an example of crashing a schedule from PMGT 613 Assessing and Managing Project Risk.
(Outputs) Schedule Forecasts
Schedule forecasts is an estimate or prediction of what the schedule might look like based on historical data. These estimates include earned value analysis. This example is an excerpt from a paper discussing earned value analysis as it relates to the project schedule and costs and an example forecast from a Case Study I completed. This example was from PMGT 502 Effective Communications for Managing Projects and MGMT 524 Management
Science.