Quality Checklist for Project Schedules

By admin | September 22, 2008

The following checklist should be used to verify the quality of your project schedule.

Item To Verify

1 Most tasks should have predecessors (except the very first task.)

If there are several Summary tasks which can start at the project start date, they do not need predecessor tasks.
2 All tasks should have successors (except the very last task, which should be a project completed milestone).
3 Summary tasks do not have predecessors, successors or resources
4 As a general rule, task Duration should not exceed 10 working days, the recommendation is 1-5 working days.
5 All non-summary, non-milestone tasks should have work hours assigned.
6 All non-summary, non-milestone tasks should have resources assigned.
7 Milestones:

There should be one completion milestone for each major deliverable.

Milestones should have predecessors and successors.

Milestones should have zero duration and zero work.
8 Ensure that no tasks have fixed (constrained) dates except:

a.      Scheduled events, e.g., meetings, training sessions, etc.

b.      Resource constrained tasks: The resource is not available until a time AFTER the schedule indicates the task could start.  Use a “Start no earlier than” constraint and explain the constraint in the notes.

c.      Events driven by a third party. Examples:  “Microsoft said they would provide results of the testing by March 15.”  Use a constraint and explain the constraint in the notes.

If there is a date by which something must occur then it is recommended that MS Project’s Deadline field be used, rather than putting a fixed date constraint on the task.  Apply a deadline to a task when you want to track a promised or desired completion date (required deadline) for a specific task, but don’t want to lock your schedule by setting an inflexible constraint such as “Must Finish On” or “Finish No Later Than”.
9 Ensure resources are appropriately allocated.  Possible solutions to resource over allocation are to:

  • Put tasks in series that were in parallel
  • Reduce the scope of the project to reduce the work

Add resources to the tasks to divide the work among more resources
10 Ensure proper resource naming conventions are followed.
11 Ensure that Summary tasks are nouns
12 Ensure that Detail tasks are verbs
13 Ensure that Milestone tasks are past tense
14 Look for unusual numbers in duration or work.

A task with an unusual, fractional duration or work (1.32 days, 9.53 hours) suggests a resource change was made on a task that was not a fixed duration task.  The duration may be intentional, but often the schedule creator simply did not notice MS Project changing the duration after a resource or work amount change.

A task with a very large or very small amount of work suggests resources were added to or deleted from, respectively, a fixed duration task.
15 Use project calendars that are aligned with the vacation days in the project location.
16 Any task that is currently 0% complete should have a Start Date in the future.
17

Any task that is currently < 100% complete should have a Finish date in the future.

18 Tasks should not have an Actual Start date in the future.
19 Tasks should not have an Actual Finish date in the future.
20 Once the project plan is complete, all tasks should be baselined. When you create new tasks, highlight those tasks and baseline only those selected tasks (not the whole project). In MS Project, select the checkbox to Roll up baselines ‘to all Summary tasks’.

Categories: Global Program Management, IT Project Management, Project Management, Time Management | No Comments »

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