Problem Recognition / Identification
A schedule is a document that defines what work must be done to accomplish project objectives on time. Certain specific information is required for the development of a schedule; they include Scope of work, defined to the activity level, activity inter-relationships, activity duration, resource requirements and assigned responsibilities.
The problem is statement is that there are numerous techniques and graphical representation to create schedule reports and a group of schedulers want to determine the best tool to use in creating and reporting schedules.
Development of Feasible Alternatives/Solutions
Amongst other options identified such as Bar Chart, Flow Process Chart and combination chart, the group identified three widely used scheduling types (Gantt chart, Line of Balance and Network Diagram) and intend to choose the best of them.
Alternative 1 – Gantt Charts
Alternative 2 – Line of Balance
Alternative 3 – Network Diagrams (Critical Path Method)
Alternative 4 – Do nothing
Possible Outcomes and Cash Flow of Alternatives / Solutions
Alternative 1: This is a very simple form of scheduling and very easy to understand. It requires a minimum time to develop and update, hence, cost of production will be very minimal.
Alternative 2: The second alternative is Line of Balance method of scheduling. It is not difficult to produce other than it is limited to some projects thereby not so cost effective.
Alternative 3: This option is the most advanced scheduling technique. However, it is the most complicated, most difficult to interpret and requires the most training of staff. Put another way, while it is most advanced, it will be most expensive to deploy based on the level of training required for the staff.
Alternative 4: This will be for group of schedulers not choose any of the three options and just mentally schedule the projects for whatever reason.
Selection Criteria / Attributes of best solution
- Ease of Understanding
- Level of Information provided
- Time required to Develop
- Display of Critical activities and Interdependencies
- Wide application over many Projects
- Level of training of staff
- Ability to analyse resources and Time / costs tradeoffs
Analysis and comparison of the Alternatives/Solutions
The analysis was carried out by wide consultation amongst the schedulers and research on the internet.
Below is a quantitative analysis of the alternatives
The analysis will be carried out using the multi-attribute additive weighting technique. The table 1 below shows a summary Information of attributes and subsequently shows the alternatives available to the company
| SUMMARY INFORMATION FOR CHOICE OF A SCHEDULING TYPE | ||||
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| ALTERNATIVES | |||
| ATTRIBUTES | ALTERNATIVE A | ALTERNATIVE B | ALTERNATIVE C | DO NOTHING |
| Ease of Understanding | Excellent | Good | Good | Poor |
| Level of Information Provided | Poor | Good | Excellent | Poor |
| Time required to develop | Excellent | Excellent | Good | Poor |
| Display of Critical activities and Interdependencies | Poor | Poor | Excellent | Poor |
| Wide application over many Projects | Good | Poor | Excellent | Good |
| Level of training of staff | Good | Good | Poor | Excellent |
| Ability to analyse resources and cost/time tradeoffs | Poor | Poor | Excellent | Good |
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| 3 LEVEL GRADING SYSTEM | GRADES | DEFINITION | ||
| Excellent | 3 | Having fulfilled or met the inherent attribute between 70% - 100% | ||
| Good | 2 | Having fulfilled or met the inherent attribute between 40% - 79% | ||
| Poor | 1 | Having fulfilled or met the inherent attributes between 0% - 39% | ||
Table 1 – Summary Information of attributes and Project alternatives
From the table above, a 3-level grading system was used to grade the attributes based on the degree of compliance. For the additive weighting technique, it is imperative to convert the grading to dimensionless values, hence the table 2 below shows the attributes converted to dimensionless values.
| DIMENSIONLESS VALUES OF THE COST ESTIMATING ALTERNATIVES | ||||
| ATTRIBUTES | ALTERNATIVE A | ALTERNATIVE B | ALTERNATIVE C | DO NOTHING |
| Ease of Understanding | 1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 |
| Level of Information Provided | 0 | 0.5 | 1 | 0 |
| Time required to develop | 1 | 1 | 0.5 | 0 |
| Display of Critical activities and Inter-dependencies | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Wide application over many Projects | 0.5 | 0 | 1 | 0.5 |
| Level of training of staff | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0 | 1 |
| Ability to analyze resources and cost/time tradeoffs | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.5 |
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| Total | 3 | 2.5 | 5 | 2 |
Table 2: Ranking of Attributes
Figure 3 below shows that the ordinal ranking of the attributes have been converted to relative ranking and the relative ranking have all been normalized.
| RANKING AND NORMALIZED WEIGHT OF ATTRIBUTES | |||
| ATTRIBUTES | Ordinal Ranking | Relative Ranking | Normalized Weight |
| Ease of Understanding | 4 | 5 | 0.14 |
| Level of Information Provided | 7 | 8 | 0.23 |
| Time required to develop | 3 | 4 | 0.11 |
| Display of Critical activities and Inter-dependencies | 6 | 7 | 0.20 |
| Wide application over many Projects | 5 | 6 | 0.17 |
| Level of training of staff | 2 | 3 | 0.09 |
| Ability to analyze resources and cost/time tradeoffs | 1 | 2 | 0.06 |
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| Total |
| 35 | 1.00 |
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| NOTES |
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| Ordinal Ranking is ordering of attributes from most preferred to the least preferred |
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| Relative Ranking = Ordinal Ranking + 1 |
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| For relative ranking, A rank of 8 is Highest while 1 is Lowest |
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| Normalized Weight = Relative Ranking / Total Relative Ranking |
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Table 3: Ranking and Normalized weight of Attributes
Kindly note that the ranking of the attributes was done such that relative weights were assigned with higher numbers signifying greater importance. Normalization of these relative ranking was achieved by dividing individual weights by the sum of all the relative weights..
The next table 4 shows the calculation of the best option using the additive weighting compensatory model.
| MULTI-ATTRIBUTE DECISION MODEL USING COMPENSATORY ADDITIVE WEIGHTING TECHNIQUE | ||||||||||
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| Calculation of Scores for each alternative | |||||||
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| PROJECT A | PROJECT B | PROJECT C | DO NOTHING | ||||
| ATTRIBUTES | Relative Rank | Normalized Weight | Performance | Weight Value | Performance | Weight Value | Performance | Weight Value | Performance | Weight Value |
| Ease of Understanding | 5 | 0.14 | 1 | 0.14 | 0.5 | 0.07 | 0.5 | 0.07 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Level of Information Provided | 8 | 0.23 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.5 | 0.11 | 1 | 0.23 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Time required to develop | 4 | 0.11 | 1 | 0.11 | 1 | 0.11 | 0.5 | 0.06 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Display of Critical activities and Inter-dependencies | 7 | 0.20 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 0.20 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Wide application over many Projects | 6 | 0.17 | 0.5 | 0.09 | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 0.17 | 0.5 | 0.09 |
| Level of training of staff | 3 | 0.09 | 0.5 | 0.04 | 0.5 | 0.04 | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 0.09 |
| Ability to analyze resources and cost/time tradeoffs | 2 | 0.06 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 1 | 0.06 | 0.5 | 0.03 |
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| Total Score |
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| 0.39 |
| 0.34 |
| 0.79 |
| 0.20 |
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| BEST CHOICE |
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| Based on Ranking Sheet, Relative Ranking = Ordinal Ranking +1 | ||||||||||
| For relative ranking, A rank of 9 is Highest while 1 is Lowest | ||||||||||
Based on the analysis above, the group of schedulers have come up with the best alternative for the scheduling type that can be endorsed.
Best Alternative to be Selected
Amongst all the options analyzed, the schedulers would recommend option 3 or Alternative C as the best choice to be adopted for scheduling. Put another way, a scheduling type that is very advanced by providing the most detailed status information, provides a method for identifying critical activities, displays relationships and inter-dependencies, facilitates easy trend analysis and provides early warning of likely impacts to the project completion dates is obviously the best option for the schedulers to choose.
Performance Monitoring / Post evaluation
For performance monitoring and post evaluation, the group should periodically review their objectives, set a criteria that meets the objectives and analyse if the current tool meets the set objectives / criteria. This will assist the group on continual improvement. Secondly, customer evaluation forms should be sent to the clients to know if expectations have been met and if their reporting structure is very satisfactory.
References:
- Humphreys G.C. (2002). Project Management using earned value. Chapter 6, pp 150-165. Humphrey and Associates. Orange CA, USA.
- AACE International. Skills & Knowledge of Cost Engineering, 5th Edition Revised.Chapter-13, pp.13.1-13.7 Edited by Dr. Scott J. Amos, PE. 2010. AACE International. Morgantown, WV, USA.
- Sulliven, W. G., Wicks, E.M., Koelling, C. P., et al. (2009). Engineering Economy (14th ed.), Chp 14 pp551 -570. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
- Brassard M, Ritter D. The memory Jogger 2. Tools for Continuous Improvement and Effective Planning.2010.
