Chapter 7 Ideas: BUS-528-PRJM-Module04-Ch07-09,

BUS-528-PRJM-Module04-Ch07-09:
Study Ideas generated from The Fast Forward MBA 3rd Edition by Eric Verzuh:
[CALMAT: BUS-528-PRJM-Chapter 07~ 09]
Module-4 Chapter - 7: Realistic Scheduling
(July 24) Chapter - 8: The Art and Science of Accurate Estimating
Chapter - 9: Balancing The Trade-Off among Cost, Schedule, and
Quality (optional)
Ideas Leaned:
1. Realistic vs. Estimation with Risk
Realistic is to take all objectives of concrete existence consideration into the Project, while Estimation more toward judging tentatively or approximately to determine roughly condition to archive a desired objective for the Project.
Regardless, both Realistic and Estimation do encounter the uncertainty factors of internal/external and controllable/uncontrollable Risk.

Realistic Risk may raised by over sighting small yet significant within the critical path including budgeting, scheduling and level of resource and dependency, subsequently, a costly re-scheduling or re-designing may take place to re-secure the Project or the worst case is lost the Project.

The essential Estimation Risk is lucked information, skill knowledge and experience by putting out too broad range of cost and scheduling; too narrow range of cost or scheduling certainly is on customer’s favor yet is not an obtainable Project, on the other hand, an costly estimation always not a favor to the customer and may cause to lose or withdraw the Project contract.

Projects are unique, the more unique they are, more difficult they are to be Realistic and Estimated. Therefore, Risk must be considered as part of essential factors for the Budgeting and Scheduling plans for the Project.

2. Planning Technique Can not Do Everything
Since be Realistic and be accurate Estimate are complicated in many ways and affected by many factors, there are tools as indicated within the Text Book that can be used efficiently to proposal the desirable plans for the Project including Work Package, Work Breakdown Structure(WBS), Realistic Scheduling, Accurate Estimating …

However, even well defined and designed Project plan, there still contains unrealistic, uneconomic resource or unknown/unpredictable risk, Project Manager has to take further step to create a Realistic Cost-Schedule-Equity equilibrium by the factors that balance the Schedule against Cost and Equity and takes time and efforts to produce and choose among a variety of estimating methods to get the accuracy they need to support good Project decision.

In fact, all the stakeholders are responsible for accurate estimate as well as the Project Manager; this would have more control over the stability of the specifications, the availability of personnel and the deadline pressures.


3. Balancing the Trade-Off among Cost, Schedule and Quality
The problem of limited resources of time, money, people, equipment and materials to complete a job goes beyond issues of efficiency or productivity.

Therefore, Project Manager needs to rein in any unreasonable demands by customer as well as unreasonable hope of the Project team. To avoid painful disappointment later in the Project, Project Manager must establish realistic expectations through rational analysis of the facts and employ the definition and planning techniques to balance the Project scope against the common Project constraints of Time, Money and Resources.

Balancing involves reconsidering a realistic balance between the Cost, Schedule and Equity of the produce; it should be a part of every project definition and planning activity and certainly shouldn’t wait until the end of the planning phase.

So, Plan Ahead from Start to End!