PMBOK – Time management KA explains or talks about management of time in terms of planning, scheduling, monitoring, and controlling of all project activities in relation or in terms of Time. Time management is one of the six major functions of project management, according to the Project Management Institute. This knowledge area also covers tools and techniques used for managing time. Time management is essential to attaining successful projects.

There are Seven (7) processes in the time management knowledge area which are – 

Plan schedule management, Define activities, Sequence activities, Estimate resources, Estimate durations, Develop the project schedule, Control the schedule

Let us look in brief some of the highlights of these seven (7) processes –

Plan Schedule Management (Planning) – This process describes or provides guidance and direction on how project schedule will be managed throughout the project and defines procedures and standards for planning.

Define Activities (Planning) -This process breaks down work packages into activities that provide a basis for estimating, scheduling, executing, monitoring and controlling the project work.

Sequence Activities (Planning) -Process enables to arrange logically sequence of work to obtain the greatest efficiency given all project constraint.

Estimate Activity Resources (Planning) -The Key benefit of this process is that it identifies the type, quality and characteristics of resources required to complete the activity which allows more accurate cost and duration estimates.

Estimate Activity Durations (Planning) -The Key benefit of this process is that it provides the amount of time each activity will take to complete.

Develop Schedule (Planning) -The Key benefit of this process is that by entering schedule activities duration, resources, resource availability and logical relationships between activities into scheduling tool [Microsoft Project or Primavera from Oracle] generates a schedule model with planned dates to start and finish project activities.

Control Schedule (Monitoring & Controlling) -The Key benefit of this process is that it provides means to recognize deviations or variation from plan and take corrective or preventive actions [CAPA] to minimize risk.

This blog describes some of the fundamentals terms and words used while preparing project schedule and performing estimation. 

What is Effort ?

As the name suggests, “effort” is defined as the amount of work or the number of work units used required to complete an activity. Effort is expressed in terms of hours required to complete a particular task, to get a certain job done. The effort is most often expressed in staff hours, days, or weeks.

Effort is the number of people hours needed to complete a task, i.e. it’s the actual time that is spent on working on the project. Effort can be measured in people hours, days or weeks.

Typically in IT Projects, basis the effort derived, project cost is computed usually by multiplying effort into Man-Month or Person month cost. 

What is Duration ?

Duration is the total time that it will take to complete a project which is measured in work days, hours or weeks. The duration depends on the availability and capacity of resources. In order to estimate the duration of a project, the project manager will have to determine the effort first.

Duration is defined as the entire time taken to complete an activity, based on the resources allocated to the project. It stretches from when the task first began to the day it ended and does not include time off like holidays or other non-working days. It is also referred to as calendar time.

Example to explain Duration ?

Let’s say you have estimated that it would take around 36 active work hours to complete painting of your drawing room, then the effort will be 36 hours. That doesn’t mean that the painting is complete in 36 hours unless you work 36 hours non-stop. 

You decide to spend 3 hours a day or per day to paint your drawing room. It means your estimated duration to pain your drawing room will be 36/3=12 days. 

Typically in the IT Projects, prospective customer defines probable duration in which project need to be completed. In such scenario, resources required will be total efforts computed / duration estimated or given = resources required.

What is Elapsed Time ?

Elapsed time is the passage of calendar days. Elapsed Time includes holidays and weekends. Elapsed time can be traced by milestones that have been set on the schedule of the project.

Example where you are working on a construction project for nine days starting from Monday to the next Thursday with a weekend (Saturday and Sunday) in between. Your elapsed time is 11 days since the non-working days are also counted.

PMP Certification @ ZOC Learnings

For more understanding of Time Management KA, PMP certification at Zoc Learnings will help aspiring Project Managers to comprehend the subject or up-skill the subject of Project Management. 

Summary:

Time Management KA helps Project Managers to organize project most effectively in terms of detailed planning and identifying key or important dependencies thus Risks. It enables PMs to estimate resources of various nature by determining effort required and duration in terms of resource deployment. 

Briefly, this KA area of Project Management, which is PMP Time Management, encompasses processes required to manage the completion of the project on the agreed time.