Case Study: What’s the Latest We Can Deliver – Proactive Schedule Management

In January 2024, Jason’s client agreed to the new project schedule, despite its high risk. More than just an IT modernization, the training company’s new corporate data center would include groundbreaking data analytics capabilities which the client hoped would revolutionize their programs’ effectiveness. Jason’s company had much to do. There was a very real chance that his Software Development team wouldn’t deliver even the bare minimum functionality on time. Eighteen months from now, he might be touring his customer through the multimillion-dollar facility, with countless computer systems incapable of doing anything. As he was bracing to deal with these perils the customer called with a new question.

“Remember how we were supposed to finish construction and hardware procurement back in October?” Jason remembered. “What’s the latest possible date we can have the building ready for you to do your thing?”

Jason and his team were thunderstruck. Their biggest problem just went from being the Software Development team’s overbearing workload to not having a system to install on.

It took Jason and all is project team leads two weeks of replanning to fit their scope and schedule logic into the customer’s new constraints. The customer’s drop-dead date was next March. But the network paths had been completely upended. Now the customer, not the Software Development team, was the longest pole in the tent. Something told Jason that the project had become even risker.

Figure 1: Key project milestones. Stars (★) indicate events on the project’s critical path.

Questions to Consider

Parkinson’s Law states in essence that work fills the time available. What are the real deadlines each team is aiming for? How do the concepts of forwards and backwards planning apply to this new request?

Jason’s intuition is correct. Which two types of schedule risk has the customer’s replanning request quantifiably increased? How trustworthy are the client’s new delivery dates?

In terms of scope and effort, the Software Development Team still has the lion’s share of the work. How will the critical path changes impact their planning and their schedule?