Talk:Schedule (project management)

Same article
This article is the same as in the www.stellman-greene.com website, which is also an external link.

Vishwamithra 15:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Just one part seemed a dub.  The 2006 link was http://www.stellman-greene.com/aspm/content/view/18/38/ and the 2006 wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Schedule_(project_management)&oldid=88424396 content looks to have dubbed from it two paras about creating ('Before a project schedule can be created, the project manager must have a work breakdown structure', 'many project scheduling software products',) with a bit elsewhere ('the most popular tool for creating'), and the initial section plus other three sections seemed OK.  By now, only the 'Before a project schedule' part remains, and it looked inappropriate to be

part of 'Overview' so I've moved it to 'Methods' and given cite for the source. Markbassett (talk) 19:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Lots of spam
The Professional Resources and Project Management firms section apparently has spam. I will take a further look into it to see whether the whole section should stay or not. Pm master 19:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no longer such a section, so I guess he fixed it long ago and forgot to remove talk Markbassett (talk) 12:08, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

What is the point of this article?
What does this article have that the Project management page doesn't? DCDuring 20:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd say it's the place to put the main article which PM refers to. Then Project Management would concentrate on what management happens, and can just point to it for detailed definition and cross links about the artifact of a 'schedule' used.   Markbassett (talk) 20:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)


 * In Project Management - especially Engineering and Construction; Scheduler is a six Figure Career. Specifically Primavera based Gantt schedules typically hold all the budget, materials, staff, payment milestones, and potentially document control for a multi year multi billion dollar contract; typically with several schedulers developing and maintaining an integrated prject schedule between the client, engineering contractor, OEM, construction contractor, and primary vendors and subcontractors.


 * On a multi billion dollar EPC job; it's likely to have a dozen schedulers representing many different companies all making better than $50 an hour; many of whom will have PMI or AACE certifications maintaining the project schedule over several years.


 * This is not just a Microsoft project schedule common in internal business improvement projects, IT, or consulting. Scheduling can be a simple as a 10 man hour budget with a One week deadline; to a billions of dollars over a decade tracking the activities of several thousand workers from dozens of companies building things like Bridges, Dams, and Power Plants.  A Gantt Schedule utilizing critical path method integrated with a WBS and earned value system maintained by staff with AACE certification is the requirement for many large scale federal contracts; be it a highway, NASA Rocket, military base or Submarine.


 * Given time and interest from the scheduling community; this article should be expanded to a holistic understanding of the subject and career field of project scheduling. There are multiple books on the subject to reference, and multiple professional societies that develop, document, and maintain the state of the art.  It just a matter of getting subject matter experts to take the time to contribute and cite references.

Copy-paste registration
This edit here was copy/paste from within Wikipedia from here -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

So what ? If both pages mentioned how they might be rrelated is that good or bad or just a note? Outdated anyway as both pages have since changed. Markbassett (talk) 12:15, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Factual accuracy is disputed
Pm master essentially deleted the University of Wisconsin reference as spam but in doing so, the two references initially provided were likewise deleted.

As Vishwamithra noted earlier, much of the article's content came from the Stellman & Greene Consulting LLC website which is promoting its consulting services and does not have any in-text citations.

On the other hand, one reference that Pm master deleted came from a peer reviewed journal. It was an examination of a survey of 55 IT project managers and 19 experts with 21 references and citations where appropriate.

The following statements are hereby disputed:

1. "In some large corporations, scheduling, as well as cost, estimating, and risk management are organized under the department of project controls."

2. "Many project scheduling software products exist which can do much of the tedious work of calculating the schedule automatically, and plenty of books and tutorials dedicated to teaching people how to use them. However, before a project manager can use these tools, he or she should understand the concepts behind the WBS, dependencies, resource allocation, critical paths, Gantt charts and earned value. These are the real keys to planning a successful project."

Pmresource (talk) 21:16, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Item No. 1 appears to be a copyright violation after a simple Google search of the said sentence in quotation marks.

Item No. 2 is a copyright violation of the Stellman & Greene Consulting LLC website. The editor who wrote item #2 can discuss this issue here.

Thank you.

Pmresource (talk) 17:57, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

2-3-2012

As a professional, certified full time scheduler working in project controls full time, I can tell you that all of the disputed facts are true, even if you complain about the source. I can guarantee you that the professionals in PMI, AACE and the Project Controls Guild are too busy refining and expanding their own published bodies of knowledge to take the time to learn Wikipedia standards of content. Personally I've contributed to dozens of articles in a few minutes of my spare time, referenced multiple professional and academic publications, and you guys always erase it because I don't have the enough time to properly format it. Yet you guys never complain about any graduate level math article I've used over the years.

Simply put - If my peers and I are already working 50 hours a week at this professionally, and promote it within professional societies in our spare time, and maybe see our families after that, if we are to contribute to Wikipedia, we would appreciate your help and guidance into accomplishing something, not arrogant rules lawyers saying if we contribute in ignorance of your rules, you just erase it. Not a good way to get the contribution of subject matter experts from outside or your online community.

You want references? Google the Project Managment Inistitue, the Association for Cost Engineering International, The project controls guild, and the Construction management institue. Referemce ANY text book on project management or construction management published in the past 70 years. This article should be cross referenced with the articles on Gantt schedules, PERT, and critical path methode, not to mention earned value. Last I checked both DOE and DOD have public available manuals on the subject as well.

This has been industry standard practice for decades, no reason not to include it just because the practitioners are not wiki savvy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.233.139.131 (talk) 21:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Time to remove Accuracy dispute -- It is now 2 years after dispute raised, the two paras cited are long gone, and I'll also note they were described as copyright issues and seem mislabelled factual accuracy issues becaue the statement is both reputably sourced and appears a valid view. So I believe it is time to remove the Factual Accuracy tab. Markbassett (talk) 12:30, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Relationship to other items
Could use more details about what relationship of schedule is to usage, or with other items such as the WBS. This article had defined schedule as listing terminal elements from a WBS. However, I note that (a) WBS refs say activities are the level below the WBS terminal elements, (b) many PMs schedule major milestones or events that affect the program, such as governance reviews or expectations of an interfacing project that the program has dependency links to nut are not part of the WBS, (c) there is fundamental divergence over whether WBS is to be breakdown of deliverable or it is breakdown of Work, and (d) practices are not as good as theory and tools allow .... many schedules just hardcode dates without dependencies, even fewer go into identifying resources or risks. Markbassett (talk) 18:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * adding to own note -- Still think it's not well phrasing that schedule is different from just a timetable. Scheduling as an activity or career goes into developing an integrated master schedule, use of an automated scheduling tool, and develop solutions to common scheduling problems (e.g. resource balancing, and how to 'crash' the schedule).   Scheduling is the process and career, and schedule the item that examines all program activities and their relationships and needs, and what is realistic constraints for the time and money and people.  Markbassett (talk) 17:16, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Inappropriate external links
I moved the following ELs from the article External links section. Some might make good sources to support article content but they are not appropriate as ELs.

Joja lozzo  23:27, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * How to Defend an Unpopular Schedule (IEEE Software, Vol. 13, No. 3, May 1996)
 * Creating Project Schedules With the Timeline View example with non-Microsoft tools
 * How to Create a Project Management Plan (CompTIA context)
 * A Project Managers Guide to Passing the Project Management Exam by Brent W. Knapp (PMI context)
 * Microsoft Project Training (MS Certification context)
 * Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme by Robert K. Wysocki
 * The Project Management Question and Answer Book by Newell and Grashina, PMI context


 * Perhaps belongs under this heading ... I just deleted two of the "See Also" links. The articles they were originally set to go to have been deleted and the redirect or alternative links were not similar material.  Markbassett (talk) 19:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Removing tag about insufficient inline cites
Documenting here -- I'm removing the tags about insufficient inline cites. There was one at top of lead and an earlier one at the bottom of References section, and nothing in TALK that seemed a way out, so I'll start with the closure. The article didn't seem in error but there was a mechanistic call to have some cites that has been here for years. There hardly seems a point to having a tag that is never addressed or discussed. So... I saw that a few of Further Reading would be suitable support for bits of the Overview section and moved them up. The tags were
 * * This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2011)
 * * This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2008)

Feels a bit bogus to put them as cites because the article text did not come from them or the article topic/content inherently need a cite, but the content is supported by them even if it doesn't really need the extra support, and cite is the only way I see to remove a tag. Markbassett (talk) 14:48, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Schedule structure parts ?
Is there enough notability for schedule structure concepts ? There is some, such as Hammock activity, but there are more structure concepts of how to build a schedule out there and not many are in the Category Schedule (Project management)

e.g. Types of schedule primarily categories Gantt chart, Milestone chart, Network schedule, or Production schedules

e.g. Work Breakdown Structure as a data key across the effort, a table of contents for the Statement of work, and schedule subsections. This provides for a desire to multiple levels of data and making it clear 'what cost center does this task bill to' and enabling financial analysis.

e.g. I've seen a high level approach to schedules into four areas
 * Vertical "links" at top (headline items for quick overview, e.g. milestones 'Beneficial Occupancy Date', resource or approval gate, functional baseline)
 * Horizontal "links" section below that (connect to dependencies in other projects)
 * Main Activity details - the main body of step-by-step tasks with durations and and resource assignments
 * Enabling activities - section(s) of enabling items, e.g. Staffing, Plans&Procedures, Management Oversight...

e.g. "Master" schedules and sub-schedules, "Consolidated" schedules, ...

e.g. Further clarification of Critical path and warning of it vs Microsoft variance

e.g. List of 'Required milestones' - certain Milestone (project management) that must be shown/done, either parts of mandated approach or linked to the kind of project

e.g. Naming conventions to use - configuration items lists and definition (official terms); standard reports...

e.g. Best Practices or GAAP - 'good' milestone is 0 day, measurable, and important; a 'good' schedule guidelines ...

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2021 (UTC)