Savvy scheduling

Are you getting out of your depth with your dependencies?

Are you having trouble deducing your delivery date?

Then let us help you to create a dynamic summary schedule of projects, activities, key dates and dependencies, with filters.

We will:

  • Meet the delivery team to understand projects, key activities, inputs and outputs; and create an outline schedule.
  • Facilitate workshops to identify dependencies.
  • Model activities and dependencies; overlay resource and financial information if appropriate; mark key activities of senior stakeholder interest.
  • Sequence activities. Does project B need project A’s output, or is it “nice to have”? Are projects scheduled in the best order?
  • Review resource utilisation – is there a critical “bottleneck” resource? is there a “crunch” period in which where they are over-committed, to several different projects at once? Can we re-sequence to relieve the pressure?
  • Review with stakeholders (e.g. steering committee, or end users) to ensure they are happy with it.
  • Set a schedule baseline as the start condition for change control.
  • Update the schedule with approved project changes, and actual start and finish dates; monitor key dates in the future; flag up if any of them are compromised by delays or project changes we are proposing to make now.

This will give your project or programme a schedule that dynamically modelling project activities and dependencies, enabling you to:

  • Know when you will deliver, and detect whether delays right now will impact delivery dates six months from now.
  • Identify over-reliance on a single subject matter expert, and re-sequence activities to level out resource demand.
  • Apply filters to highlight significant activities (e.g. late or due in the next 4 weeks, key delivery milestones, etc.)

Thus this service improves a programme’s predictability and capability to deliver “right first time”, improving your credibility and confidence with stakeholders from across the business.

Timelines depend on priorities, and any other services being delivered concurrently for the same client.

“When Pragmatic PMO was engaged, we had no project management function or framework.

Pragmatic PMO created a schedule that identified and modelled dependencies between the programme’s projects to give visibility of how any delays in one project would lead to delays in other projects and hence the programme overall. From this they created a “look ahead” view of tasks that are overdue, under way, and coming up over the horizon, and focused the team on delivery with a Key Dates and Countdown tracker.

Essentially Pragmatic PMO implemented just enough project management fundamentals and discipline to enable the programme to robustly deliver some fantastic outcomes for the client. If you are looking for strategic programme delivery support services that you can actually lean on, Pragmatic PMO should be at the top of your list.”

Mark Ferguson, Programme Director

If you want the benefits of savvy scheduling…

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