Page 71 - The Six Sigma Project Planner

Schedule Improvement

It is vital that the initial schedule not be accepted as a given. The information obtained
in preparing the schedule can be used to improve the project schedule. Activities that
the analysis indicates to be critical (i.e., those that lie on the critical path) are candidates
for improvement. Pareto analysis can be used to identify those critical elements that are
most likely to lead to significant improvement in overall project completion time. Cost
data can be used to supplement the time data and the combined time/cost information
can be analyzed using Pareto analysis. Be aware that the critical path may change when
improvements are made. When this occurs, activities on the new critical path must be
analyzed to see if new improvement opportunities appear.

TEAMFLY
The Importance of the Critical Path
The figure below is a reproduction of a figure presented earlier (see Figure 13—
Example of a Computer-Generated Network Diagram, p. 49), except the figure below
shows only those activities that lie on the critical path. These activities are examined
first, because any improvement in these activities will make the project more likely to
meet its target completion date. This happens because:
1. If the activity remains on the critical path after its cycle time has been reduced, it
will result in reduced cycle time for the project.
2. If the activity comes off the critical path, it represents one less zero-slack activity
subject to Murphy’s Law.
15

15 Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong will.

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Team-Fly
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