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Managing to be On-Time
Project Time Management
April 1, 2007
Prepared by:
Tong Wang
Assignment 2
Computer Science 605
Project Management for Information Systems
Athabasca University
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 4
2 What is Time Management? 5
3 Why is Time Management Important? 6
4 What are some of the Challenges in Time Management? 10
5 Summary 12
6 References: 13
Table of Figures
Figure 3 1 Typical Project Performance 8
Figure 3 2 Project Performance after Milestones are Identified 9
1 Introduction
All project managers know about or should know about the *ƒ*…½*ƒ‚°triple constraints
of project management*ƒ*…½*ƒ‚± - all projects are constrained by three elements: scope,
time and cost. It is ultimately one of the most valuable resources available to us, but it has
the least amount of flexibility. We cannot control the rate at which time is spent, and time
cannot be stored to be used later. Time is a fixed commodity.
Project managers normally work under strict time deadlines. The manager must deliver the
not-fully-specified product, produced by a not-fully-specified process, but on a specified
date. There is constant pressure around schedules and the monitoring of progress towards
the due date. This often becomes the overriding concern of the project manger.
This report describes what time management is; discovers why time management is the
key to successful project management; and identifies some of the challenges project
mangers are facing in time management.
2 What is Time Management?
Project time management is one of the core planning processes involved in overall project
management.
There are five project time management processes:
1) Activity definition *ƒC This process identifies the specific activities, which are
performed to produce the deliverables of a project, and then hierarchically orders the
project into work packages. The overall project schedule is not at a sufficient level of detail
to enable the allocation of actual resources to tasks, or to control progress. It is important
to break the project down to small activities so that it is easy to measure progress.
2) Activity sequencing *ƒC This process identifies the dependencies between all the
activities in a project. It also identifies major external dependencies.
3) Activity duration estimating *ƒC This process estimates and calculates the time required
to complete a scheduled activity.
4) Schedule development *ƒC This process reviews the activity sequence and activity
durations, and then defines the project schedule. Schedule development determines the
proposed project start date and step through start and end dates. It also validates these
dates against the project constraints. During this process, scope, dependencies and
resources are adjusted until a satisfactory balance is achieved.
