Tailoring Schedule and Resources

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About this lesson

Traditional projects often require tailoring during planning and adaptive projects require tailoring throughout the life of the project. The tailoring is often with respect to the timing of project events or the resources - both internal and external - assigned to complete those events.

Quick reference

Tailoring Schedule and Resources

Schedule and resource tailoring are normally done to reduce risk and improve the performance of the project.  It is closely intertwined with project planning processes.

When to use

Project schedules and resources are tailored as part of the project planning processes.  In predictive projects this occurs near the beginning of the project.  In adaptive projects, this occurs periodically throughout the project at the beginning of each iteration.

Instructions

Schedule and resource tailoring are done to reduce overall project risk.  With predictive projects that have clear and unchanging requirements, the tailoring is done to eliminate unneeded effort and time and to add additional effort and time for high risk activities.  In addition, the project can be tailored to take advantage of positive risk opportunities.  With adaptive projects that have high levels of uncertainty, tailoring is done at each iteration to incorporate lessons learned and to leverage completed effort.  With these, the project tailors the time and resources on the new prioritized backlog list of activities so as to maximize project performance.  Many of the tasks are being progressively elaborated so the time and resource estimates are also being fine-tuned as information becomes available.  This allows the project manager to tailor the time and resources in order to lower risk, based upon the current state of the project.

On one level, all schedule planning is tailoring.  The unique characteristics of the tasks and resources are used to create a unique schedule estimate for each task along with start and end points.  In essence, this is tailoring the schedule for that task.  Adaptive projects go even further.  The progressive elaboration of many activities and deliverables means that the schedule estimate for an activity can change with each iteration.  This is due to changing resource assignments and a clearer understanding of the remaining work.  Another technique often used in adaptive projects is Kanban scheduling.  In this approach, an activity is scheduled as soon as the predecessor activities are done, not based upon an arbitrary calendar date.  This will often lead to schedule acceleration allowing the entire project to adapt to the earlier planned end date.  In addition to the progressive elaboration, schedule tailoring is often impacted by resource availability – which can change at any time.  Further, the timeliness and accuracy of the project management information system will influence the timeliness and accuracy of any tailoring.

Resource tailoring is not as easy to do because the project management systems related to resources are also linked to business systems.  These systems exert constraints on the project and limit some tailoring options.  For example, the project cost management must interact with the finance system, the project resource management must interact with HR systems and the project procurement management must interact with purchasing systems.  All of these systems have compliance constraints that can impact project tailoring options.  However, there are some aspects of tailoring open to the project manager and core team.  With upfront approval, waivers can be obtained for any of the systems.  The use of high level cost estimates for tasks or deliverables that will be progressively elaborated can be used and then these estimates can be refined and allocated to detail tasks as the progressive elaboration occurs. Penalty and incentive clauses can be used with suppliers to tailor final contract value based upon performance.  Self-organizing teams can be created, which provides more freedom for tailoring of resource assignments.  And of course project reserves are often used to accommodate tailoring actions during the project.

A final comment on tailoring is the tailoring of documentation.  Documentation that is a required deliverable is often progressively elaborated so that updates and revisions can be easily incorporated. The use of project management documentation is tailored based upon the characteristics of the project.  The more complex the project, the more project management documents are needed to effectively manage it.  But short simple projects need very little documentation and the unnecessary items should be tailored out to avoid wasteful bureaucracy.  Adaptive and Agile projects normally use few documents and instead rely on visual control boards which are updated daily as tasks are progressively elaborated.

Hints & tips

  • Use reserve tasks that have time and money assigned, but no specific deliverable.  As the project unfolds and activities are progressively elaborated, the identification of the work can then be defined.
  • Tailor when planning, then create a baseline that you track against for a phase or iteration.  Use the results of the phase of iteration to update schedule and resource estimates then update the baseline before starting the next phase or iteration.
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  • 00:04 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen.
  • 00:05 Well, let's continue our discussion about tailoring.
  • 00:08 At this time, let's look at schedule and resource tailoring.
  • 00:12 One of the primary reasons for
  • 00:15 tailoring is to reduce risk, both cost and schedule risk.
  • 00:19 This is true with all types of project management methodologies.
  • 00:23 If a predictive methodology is being used, the requirements and
  • 00:26 boundaries are clear, then tailor the methodology to eliminate or
  • 00:30 reduce aspects that are not critical to the project.
  • 00:34 Eliminating them also eliminates any risk associated with them.
  • 00:38 You can also tailor the approach to take advantage of positive risk elements
  • 00:41 in this project.
  • 00:43 When project requirements and boundaries are not clear and
  • 00:46 the adaptive approach is used, well, then once again tailoring will reduce risk.
  • 00:51 Use progressive elaboration to refine the project and
  • 00:54 tailor your activities after each phase or iteration.
  • 00:57 Also use tailoring to create extra tasks or
  • 01:00 resources in the area that is least clear.
  • 01:03 Focusing on high risk will help you to proactively manage that risk.
  • 01:09 The project manager owns risk management activities on a project.
  • 01:12 As I've just discussed, a project managers should tailor the project, whether it is
  • 01:17 predictive or adaptive, in order to lower the overall risk on that project.
  • 01:22 Let's focus in more on tailoring the project schedule.
  • 01:26 You can make a strong case that project scheduling is tailoring.
  • 01:31 You're taking the unique tasks of the project and based upon resources, risk,
  • 01:35 and business conditions, deciding when to start and end that task.
  • 01:39 You adjust the duration and
  • 01:41 dates to create a plan that you believe is likely to succeed.
  • 01:45 On the one hand this is normal project management, but
  • 01:47 on the other hand, if you deviated from the standard template for
  • 01:51 a generic project, you have been tailoring your project plan.
  • 01:55 Adaptive projects in particular, do a lot of schedule tailoring.
  • 01:59 While an adaptive project may have a time box for the total project and major
  • 02:03 milestones, the scheduled individual tasks is highly flexible and often tailored.
  • 02:08 A typical aspect of adaptive projects is to create the projects in phases,
  • 02:13 iterations, or sprints.
  • 02:14 At the end of each of these, the upcoming tasks are reprioritized and
  • 02:18 reestimated based upon what was just accomplished in the preceeding phase,
  • 02:22 iteration, or sprint.
  • 02:24 Tasks with problems or issues are identified, and the duration and
  • 02:28 timing for them is then tailored based upon that information.
  • 02:32 A scheduling technique often use with adaptive projects is the Kanban
  • 02:35 scheduling approach, which leads to schedule acceleration and
  • 02:40 tailoring is often used to complete the project early.
  • 02:43 Two factors that can impact schedule tailoring options
  • 02:46 are resource availability and the project management information systems or PMIS.
  • 02:51 Resource availability, especially shared resources
  • 02:54 may significantly impact start or end dates of tasks.
  • 02:57 In fact, due to resource shortages, you may need to use a non-optimal resource for
  • 03:02 particular tasks.
  • 03:03 That will lead to an extended duration for that resource to complete that task.
  • 03:08 A weak PMIS constraints the ability to tailor because of the lack of real time
  • 03:12 data, or the ability to rapidly and accurately communicate across the team.
  • 03:17 This means that at a time risk opportunities are missed and
  • 03:20 risk threats are allowed to grow due to a lack of data and information.
  • 03:25 Now let's look at tailoring project resources.
  • 03:28 There are some challenges here.
  • 03:29 The project management methodology for
  • 03:31 managing team resources must often interact with the HR system.
  • 03:35 The project management methodology for
  • 03:37 managing cost resources must interact with the finance system.
  • 03:41 And the project management methodology for
  • 03:42 managing suppliers must interact with the procurement system.
  • 03:46 So tailoring of these areas will often have constraints that are due to
  • 03:49 the systems that are outside the control of the project management team.
  • 03:54 In fact, these systems will sometimes force tailoring onto the project plan
  • 03:58 as they are updated with new policies or new technology.
  • 04:02 Generally, when this happens, you just have to accommodate those changes.
  • 04:06 Your project cannot override their system.
  • 04:09 This area can get a little murky on adaptive projects where requirements and
  • 04:13 boundaries are uncertain.
  • 04:15 These systems normally want precision.
  • 04:18 The finance system wants precise estimates,
  • 04:20 the procurement system wants clear supplier deliverables.
  • 04:23 The HR system wants jobs and task descriptions, but adaptive projects
  • 04:28 want to be able to tailor those and progressively elaborate the detailed plan.
  • 04:33 So here are a few suggestions to allow for tailoring that work with the systems.
  • 04:38 In the finance system,
  • 04:39 provide high-level estimates of task groups at the beginning of the project.
  • 04:43 Don't break the estimates down to the detailed task estimates
  • 04:46 until it's time to progressively elaborate that task group.
  • 04:50 In the procurement system, use incentives and penalty clauses for
  • 04:54 overall project performance that can minimize the need for
  • 04:58 minuscule change orders with the suppliers.
  • 05:01 And within the HR system have team members assigned to self organizing and
  • 05:05 self directing teams.
  • 05:07 That way everyone knows that the day-to-day work will be changing.
  • 05:10 And of course, the classic way to accommodate tailoring is with budget and
  • 05:15 schedule reserves providing your system allows them to exist.
  • 05:19 Finally, let's discuss tailoring of documents.
  • 05:23 Many project management methodologies rely heavily on the creation and
  • 05:26 control of project documents.
  • 05:28 Now, don't get hung up on the term document.
  • 05:31 It could be an interactive online file instead of paper, but for simplicity,
  • 05:36 I'm calling them documents.
  • 05:37 And it includes both documents prepared as a project deliverable,
  • 05:41 and internal documents that are used by the project management methodology.
  • 05:45 These include things like work breakdown structures, schedules, RACI matrices,
  • 05:50 risk logs, change logs, project charters, status reports, and
  • 05:54 lessons learned findings just to name a few.
  • 05:56 In fact, every project knowledge area has documents of some type.
  • 06:01 And generally speaking, the higher and more complex the project the more
  • 06:05 documents are needed to integrate and manage project activities.
  • 06:09 And many projects you can complete all the project management documents listed in
  • 06:12 your project management methodology and
  • 06:14 complete them in accordance with your project management guidance.
  • 06:18 And that will soon feel like wasted bureaucratic nonsense,
  • 06:21 primarily because it is wasted bureaucratic nonsense.
  • 06:25 Instead, consider the risks on your project.
  • 06:28 Those documents that help identify or manage risk should be used, and
  • 06:32 the rest of them are just busywork.
  • 06:34 So tailor the project to eliminate or modify and
  • 06:37 reduce the effort on those low-risk documents.
  • 06:41 And one comment about adaptive projects.
  • 06:43 These will normally progressively elaborate the documents,
  • 06:47 the document that started one iteration is a prototype.
  • 06:49 And we get feedback and add detail and content and
  • 06:52 later iterations until it is completed.
  • 06:56 Tailoring schedules and resources will simplify some aspects of the project
  • 07:00 management while allowing for focused attention on the critical risks.

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