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Each time you update your schedule you should review it to identify problems or potential problems with task schedules. Identifying problems will allow you to take corrective actions to bring expected future schedule performance in line with the baseline schedule and take care of any issues that may affect the project’s finish date.
Since schedule is changing constantly you have to analyze it each time you correct and refine it. In order to identify schedule problems it is suggested that you take following steps:
| 1. | Check if the project’s finish date has changed by viewing differences between the baseline and currently scheduled end date of your project. |
| 2. | Find out why the project’s finish date is delayed by examining the following: |
| a. | Critical Path: Delays of critical tasks extend the finish date of the project, so make sure that adjustments you make to the project schedule don't adversely affect the critical path. |
| b. | Task Dependencies: Unnecessary or inaccurate task dependencies can cause your project to finish later, so review the dependencies of critical tasks to ensure that they are both accurate and necessary. |
| c. | Task Constraints: Unnecessary constraints can limit the flexibility of your schedule by forcing tasks to start on certain dates or use all available slack. Thus, try to eliminate unnecessary constraints and schedule tasks based on their durations and dependencies. |
| 3. | Find out which tasks are delayed or incomplete by comparing baseline start and finish dates with the actual ones. |
After you have identified problems in your schedule you should take some actions to resolve them. Before you try to put tasks back on schedule, it is recommended that you save a backup copy of the initial schedule, so that you can refer to it as you are making changes that may affect other tasks or resources.
In order to solve problems and keep schedule on track you can either change specific settings on tasks that affect their duration and their relationships to other tasks or change the way that resources are assigned to tasks. More specifically, you can take the following actions:
| ● | Shorten a task duration, when this is possible, is the simplest way to get your schedule back on track, especially if this task is critical. |
| ● | Change task dependencies to make sure that all tasks are logically related to each other. For example, changing a task that starts after another task to start at the same time can help bring in the finish date of the project. |
| ● | Set overlap or delay for tasks. Overlapping tasks that are on the critical path or delaying a noncritical task so that a resource can work on another, more critical task will help you saving time and keep schedule on track. |
| ● | Change the constraint to a task that doesn’t need to start or finish on a specific date to start or finish as soon as possible, especially if this task is on the critical path. |
| ● | Modify the project or resource calendar to change the timing and the duration of tasks on which the resources are assigned and potentially shorten the overall duration of the project. |
| ● | Assign additional resources to tasks to decrease the durations of tasks and shorten the length of the project (if these tasks are on the critical path). |
| ● | Replace a resource with another if this will help tasks to finish earlier. The replacement of a resource may be deemed as necessary if you want to resolve overallocations, reduce costs, increase efficiency or improve quality. |
| ● | Increase the time that a resource spends on a critical task to decrease the duration of that task if the duration is not fixed but effort-driven13 [ Effort-driven is a task the duration of which shortens or lengthens as resources are added or removed from it, while the amount of effort necessary to complete the task remains unchanged.]. |
| ● | Improve the performance of labour resources by training them, providing them with better tools to do their job and applying effective HR management. This is especially important in case that there not other resources available to help. |
After making changes to resolve your schedule problems, do not forget to:
| ● | Evaluate the impact of these changes on other projects with dependencies in your project. |
| ● | Communicate these changes to the stakeholders and rest team members. |
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