While the majority of project and program managers recognise the importance of good quality schedule, project stakeholders have their own view of what a “good quality” actually means.
Well, based on my observations, project managers often forget to do one critical planning step: Schedule Maturity Planning.
Usually, maturity planning performed from “TO BE” perspective. However, if a project already has a schedule, “AS IS” perspective allows to identify gaps, prioritise them and develop schedule development plan.
Depending on the specific of the portfolio, a Schedule Maturity Planning covers 15-20 criteria grouped in 5 categories:
· Management and Behaviours
· Methodology & Toolset
· Structure and Approach
· Monitoring and Control
· Resourcing
These categories are not scheduling specific. Maturity planning for other project areas, like cost management, risk management, benefits management, etc also could have the same categories but criteria will be different.
Each criterion has 5 levels:
· Awareness
· Repeatable
· Defined
· Managed
· Optimised
Do you plan maturity for your schedules or rely on someone expertise (PMO, Schedulers, Planning Consultants)?
Alex Lyaschenko
PMO | Portfolio Planning & Delivery | PMP | P3O Practitioner | AgilePM Practitioner | Six Sigma
