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Summary Project schedules are created by listing all of the activities that need to be performed. This information should be derived from the work packages at the lowest level of the work breakdown structure. Each work package may require one or more activities to be completed to create the required deliverable. Each activity needs to be defined in enough detail that it can be assigned to one person who can accurately determine how it will be accomplished and by whom, estimate how long it will take and how much it will cost, and then be held accountable to ensure it is accomplished. Once all of the activities have been defined, they need to be sequencedthat is, the team must determine which activities must go first (predecessors) and which activities depend on others to be accomplished before they can start (successors). Many people find that determining these relationships is easiest with Post-it Notes and a large work space. A person on the planning team needs to estimate how long each activity will take. This is greatly dependent on who will do the work, which is discussed in the next chapter. Care should be taken when creating the estimates since some people tend to be optimistic and many things can interfere with the ability to work on a specific activity. Other people tend to pessimistically pad their estimates to make sure they can finish early and look good. The three time-management processes described above-activity definition, activity sequencing, and activity duration estimating-need to be accomplished even if scheduling software will be used, since the scheduling software is only as good as the logic behind it! The next step is schedule development. Some teams use Post-it Notes to develop this schedule manually by making two logical passes through the network to determine both the earliest and latest any activity can be started and ended. However, this requires tedious calculations and is greatly simplified by using software such as MS Project. Please go through the Chapter review exercise that is detailed in Chapter 8 and answer the following problem. Phoebe B. Beebee is constructing a canal for the annual canoe races and has identified seven activities that are required to complete this important project. She calculated early and late start times and early and late finish times but many of those figures have been washed away by lachrymal fluid. Use the remaining information to reconstruct the table for Phoebe B. Beebee and her new canoe canal project Activity Predecessor Length Early Start Early Finish Late Start Late Finish A 0 B 11 11 16 C 18 D 23 A A B D B 7 9 E F 32 37 37 19 24

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