Project

In reviewing the PMI Practice Standard for Scheduling I came across their proposal for which components would be required for a schedule to be considered "minimally acceptable". The good news is that most of these fall out of any modern scheduling tool such as Microsoft Project or Primavera Project Planner.

The bad news is that at least if you use Microsoft Project you need to use "Physical Percent Complete" methods to update your schedule. The recommendation is that the concepts of earned value be used to fill in this field. Project in the past has had some difficulties with the use of Physical Percent Complete instead of just using Percent Complete or updating through Project Web Access. It has been a while since I've looked into those issues, but it looks like the time has come to do some testing.

In case you are interested, here are the required components. I've marked the ones which the schedule tool should calculate for you automatically:

• Activity ID - Calculated
• Activity Label - Manual
• Baseline Data Date - Manual
• Project Calendar - Manual
• Project Start Constraint - Manual
• Critical Path - Calculated
• Data Date - Manual
• Activity Actual Duration - Calculated
• Activity Baseline Duration - Calculated
• Activity Original Duration - Manual
• Activity Remaining Duration - Manual
• Project Actual Duration - Calculated
• Project Baseline Duration - Calculated
• Project Original Duration - Calculated
• Project Remaining Duration - Manual
• Activity Actual Finish Date - Manual
• Activity Baseline Finish Date - Calculated
• Activity Early Finish Date - Calculated
• Activity Late Finish Date - Calculated
• Project Actual Finish Date - Calculated
• Project Baseline Finish Date - Manual
• Project Early Finish Date - Calculated
• Project Late Finish Date - Calculated
• Free Float - Calculated
• Total Float - Calculated
• Milestone - Calculated
• Activity Physical Percent Complete - Manual
• Project Physical Percent Complete - Calculated
• Project Name - Manual
• Project Schedule ID - Manual
• Project Version - Calculated
• Finish to Start - Manual
• Activity Actual Start Date - Manual
• Activity Baseline Start Date - Calculated
• Activity Early Start Date - Calculated
• Activity Late Start Date - Calculated
• Project Actual Start Date - Calculated
• Project Baseline Start Date - Manual
• Project Early Start Date - Calculated
• Project Late Start Date - Calculated
• Unit of Measure - Manual
• WBS ID - Manual