Project Time Management

Executive Summary
A success or a failure of a project depends who is making the assessment. The primary objectives of the project owner and the project contractor must be considered. These objectives are the deliverables that the project owner expects and which the project manager is employed to achieve. The primary objectives for any project can be grouped under three headings: time, cost and quality.
The aim is to achieve success in all 3 aspects of the project. At times it is necessary to identify one of the three primary objectives as being of special importance
This paper looks at project time management in detail, the processes required to be performed in-order to ensure timely completion of a project. It also looks in depth at 3 project of different size and budget. It investigate the time management processes adopted by each project and the effectiveness of the processes used. It also looks at the lessons learnt and the ways of improving time management on future jobs.
There is a direct and very important relationship between time and cost. If the planned time scale is exceeded, the original cost estimates are almost certain to be overspent. Whereas the relationship between project quality and project cost is not as straightforward. There is a simple and acceptable trade-off. Down grading quality is not an option, as quality means fitness for purpose.
The major processes involved in developing a project time schedule are:
• activity definition – identifying the specific activities that must be performed to produce the various project deliverables;
• activity sequencing – identifying and documenting interactivity dependencies;
• activity duration estimating – estimating the number of work periods that will be needed to complete individual activities;
• schedule development – analysing activity sequences, activity duration, and resource requirements to create the project schedule; and
• schedule control – controlling changes to the project schedule.... [continues]

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