Establish the Budget and Schedule

The project’s budget and schedule are based on the developed estimates and ensure that budget allocation, task complexity, and task dependencies are appropriately addressed.

Event-driven, resource-limited schedules have proven to be effective in dealing with project risk. Identifying accomplishments to be demonstrated before initiation of the event provides some flexibility in the timing of the event, a common understanding of what is expected, a better vision of the state of the project, and a more accurate status of the project’s tasks.

• Identify major milestones. Milestones are often imposed to ensure completion of certain deliverables by a date or completion of a single or group of tasks.
• Identify schedule assumptions. When schedules are initially developed, it is common to make assumptions about the duration of certain activities. These assumptions are frequently made on items for which little if any estimation data is available. Identifying these assumptions provides insight into the level of confidence (uncertainties) in the overall schedule.
• Identify constraints. Factors that limit the flexibility of management options need to be identified as early as possible. The examination of the attributes of the work products and tasks will often surface these issues. Such attributes can include task duration, resources, inputs, and outputs.
• Identify task dependencies. Typically, the tasks for a project can be accomplished in some ordered sequence that will minimize the duration of the project. This involves the identification of predecessor and successor tasks to determine the optimal ordering.
• Define the budget and schedule. Establishing and maintaining the project's budget and schedule typically includes:
  • Defining the committed or expected availability of resources and facilities
  • Determining time phasing of activities
  • Determining a breakout of subordinate schedules
  • Defining the dependencies between the activities (predecessor or successor relationships)
  • Defining the schedule activities and milestones to support accuracy in progress measurement
  • Identifying milestones for delivery of products to the customer
  • Defining activities of appropriate duration
  • Defining milestones of appropriate time separation
  • Defining a management reserve based on the confidence level in meeting the schedule and budget
  • Using appropriate historical data to verify the schedule
  • Defining incremental funding requirements
  • Documenting project assumptions and rationale
• Establish corrective action criteria. Criteria are established for determining what constitutes a significant deviation from the project plan. A basis for gauging issues and problems is necessary to determine when a corrective action should be taken. The corrective actions may require re-planning, which may include revising the original plan, establishing new agreements, or including mitigation activities within the current plan.