Scheduling by Work Packages

[Roy]

I am the scheduling manager for a fairly large organization. We have a new
engineering and installation director that is insisting on having his people
develop their activities in our schedules as exactly 10 day work packages.
He says, if you have activities that are 2 day duration, combine them with
other short activities to get to 10 days. If you have a 15 day activity,
break it down into 2 activities and add shorter activities to come up to 10
days. We have complex schedules that typically span 2 years in duration. By
normal scheduling we have approximatley 2000 lines in a schedule and
individual tasks range from 1 day to 20 days (with manufactruing being an
exception of over 20 day durations). Since this directors personnel were
formerly scheduling to the activity level, they are having trouble
understanding having exactly 10 day work packages. We have talked with this
director about the fact that best practice states 20 hours to 80 hours for a
work package, but he says anything less that 2 weeks (80 hours) is too fine a
level to schedule to. I am wondering if anyone has attempted to schedule
this way and whether or not it can be successful.

 

[Jim Aksel]

Sounds like the 10 day decision is arbitrary and is the gospel according to
the director. Sorry about that.

Although I concur that you should not be scheduling 1 minute tasks, you need
to group the work in accordance with what makes sense, not just an arbitrary
cut at 10 days.

We have limits on tasks of no greater than 2.5 times the Earned Value
Reporting Period ... we take EV weekly. 5*2.5=12.5 days (roughly). This is
essentially the Project Management Institure standard. Actually they say 2
to 3 times the EV period. We make excpetions all the time based on business
sense.. 'tis crazy to break down a task just to have it more broken down. If
there are truly constituant parts, sure. By the same rationale, don't
aggregate just becuase you have a shorter duration.

We also have a dollar limit on tasks. We do not allow tasks less than
$5000. This sometimes takes the duration out beyond 10-15 days. We also
have an upper limit as well for discrete tasks.

Don't confuse Work Package with discrete tasks. Discrete tasks make up Work
Packages. In my world, they don't want work packages less than a specific
dollar amount, and no less than 90-180 days. For example, if you are going
to be doing an active test for 60 days, it makes no sense to have 6 work
packages. Instead, we'd have one 60 day work package. It may contain 12
tasks of 5 days duration. In reality we wouldn't do it that way either. How
about Test Planning, Test Requirements Document, Test Execution, Bug
Reporting/Fixes, Final Test Report. That is, we break down the work
logically and roll that up to a "Test" work package.

Exactly 10 days is about as useful as exactly 8 or exactly 12.5 days. I
don't think he really wants 10 day tasks does he? What about things like a
peer review which might only be several hours but would involve several
people, and be an important milestone? I;ve worked with PMs who want no task
longer than 10 days... but never "exactly 10 days". Yes, maybe the director
does not want to be bothered with the detail below the work package level....
so don't show him. Roll things up in logical groupings and report on that.
Personally, I think you need more granularity than 10 days.... Gee on the TV
show Extreme Makeover - Home Edition, they put together a whole house in 7
days. So this would be just one task to your guy? We had a presentation by
those folks --- they time it to the minute. Same thing with building the
casinos in Vegas ... scheduled to the hour... they actually have people
checking in at the lobby filling rooms on the lowever floors while they are
still putting furniture and paint on the upper floors.

Well, there's my rant. Hope it helps.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Rob Schneider]

I am the scheduling manager for a fairly large organization. We have a new
engineering and installation director that is insisting on having his people
develop their activities in our schedules as exactly 10 day work packages.
He says, if you have activities that are 2 day duration, combine them with
other short activities to get to 10 days. If you have a 15 day activity,
break it down into 2 activities and add shorter activities to come up to 10
days. We have complex schedules that typically span 2 years in duration. By
normal scheduling we have approximatley 2000 lines in a schedule and
individual tasks range from 1 day to 20 days (with manufactruing being an
exception of over 20 day durations). Since this directors personnel were
formerly scheduling to the activity level, they are having trouble
understanding having exactly 10 day work packages. We have talked with this
director about the fact that best practice states 20 hours to 80 hours for a
work package, but he says anything less that 2 weeks (80 hours) is too fine a
level to schedule to. I am wondering if anyone has attempted to schedule
this way and whether or not it can be successful.

Roy,

I concur with Jim's comment. Looking at it from your new director's
perspective ... maybe he is trying to build some sort of "rhythm" to the
project execution? 10 days could imply a 2-week cycle or something.

He's apparently given you clear instructions on "how", but can you
discuss with him "what" and "why" he is trying to do?