Human behaviors in scheduling

Revision as of 23:08, 4 March 2019

Abstract

The idea behind this article is to provide the reader with knowledge about the effects of human behaviors in scheduling. The term "behaviors in scheduling" is a broad term that can be seen as how humans act and react to different situations within a project. Scheduling comprises plans and milestones in regard to projects and is often seen in context with distributing resources. There are several ways of behaving in scheduling, and these ways are all affected by how the respective industry and project is assembled. When creating a schedule in a project, there is certain aspects that is similar regardless of the industry and type of project. The majority of schedules are created with the ambition of improving the management of time during a project, optimizing the use of resources, and reducing unnecessary risks. In order to implement this concept on a day-to-day basis for any company, it is vital to have proper knowledge regarding the effects of a functioning scheduling system. In Project Management the behavior could be different than expected, as a result of misinterpretation of a certain situation. It is important for a company to have a safety net that identifies these situations and make sure that a wrong response do not go unnoticed for the rest of the company. This responsibility is often placed on the project manager and his inner circle. As it is difficult to understand what the best behaviors in scheduling are, it is important to have an understanding about how different scheduling methods works. This leads to an increased knowledge about human behaviors when scheduling, which has great value for the project manager, the customer and different stakeholders, as well as the company itself ^[1].

Scheduling methods

In many cases the human behavior is neglected when looking at the effects of scheduling. A company may have great effects from the way they organize and schedules without focusing on the human role in scheduling. This could lead to a point of stagnation regarding the efficiency within the daily activities of a company. The human influence within scheduling consists mainly of relations to other humans and communicating, but it also consists of reacting and acting according to the determined methods of scheduling. What is common for several scheduling methodologies is that they do not emphasize the effect of the human factor within a project. This paragraph presents various methods of scheduling with focus on time management and distribution of human resources in regard to activities related to projects.

GANNT CHART

A Gannt chart is a common way of visualizing a project schedule and is named from the inventor of the chart, Henry Gannt. The main feature of a Gannt chart is to visualize the project schedule of a project and highlight the tasks related to the project. To make the chart easy to understand, it is common to put as many tasks related to the project as possible in the chart and align these tasks to different deadlines or milestones. It is also common to align the people responsible for each task. As the project progresses, the chart will adjust according to how far the tasks have come, as well as how far the workers related to the tasks have come. These features make the Gannt chart useful for the people involved in the project, as well as the customers and stakeholders. In case of unforeseen events, the Gannt chart is easy to modify. This method is dependent of an understanding of human relationships in a project, as well as certain demands to the type of project. If the project is too large or widespread, then it would not be advantageous to use a Gannt chart for scheduling as it is more likely that this makes it more confusing and therefore against its purpose.

CRITICAL PATH METHOD

Critical Path Method, CPM, is a method used to estimate the minimum duration of a project, as well as the flexibility of the schedule. This method is considering the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without affecting the start date of a following activity. The critical path is the sequence of activities that represents the longest path through a project. This determines the shortest possible duration of a project ^[2].

PROGRAM EVALUATION AND PREVIEW TECHNIQUE

Program Evaluation and Preview Technique, PERT, is a method to visualize and monitor activities related to a project’s schedule. Similar to the CPM, the PERT also uses information such as start dates and finish dates as well as potential delays related to activities. In order for this method to be as efficient as possible, it is necessary to know every task and the potential dependencies between these tasks. CPM and PERT are bot mathematical methods and similar in many ways. A significant difference is that PERT is accounting for time variance, while CPM is working with time estimates^[3].

CRITICAL CHAIN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Critical Chain Project Management, CCPM, is a scheduling method that highlights the importance of human resources and other resources required to finish a task. The method is resource dependent, which means that a task cannot be started unless the previous is finished. CCPM is a simple method that establishes the critical chain after considering resource limitations. What is unique with the CCPM method is that it uses a probability activity of 50% when estimating the duration of a project and a project buffer when delivering the project. [REF artikkel]. The method is based on Parkinson’s law, where workers find small irrelevant tasks to fill the time in the task schedule. This is because the importance of finishing a project within the deadline is emphasized in a company, but early delivery is not rewarded. As the CCPM method is simple and does not require any new software, can the plans be created quickly after the resource estimates and activity schedules are available. The CCPM creates a critical chain, while the PERT and CPM create a critical path. The critical chain is the centre of interest for the Project Manager and is unchanged during the span of a project.

Unforeseen events in scheduling

As a project’s duration often is very long, it is realistic to assume that the project environment will be subjected to unforeseen events. Such events could be changes that affect other activities, a wrong assumption done in the earlier stages of the scheduling or internal conflicts. What is common for these events is that the scheduling methods is not primarily created to handle such unforeseen events. The human approach to these events, and changes in general, is critical in order for a company to circumvent the worst result possible from these unforeseen events.

In Alcoa, an American aluminum company, the new chief executive in year 1987 chose to focus on reporting every minor injury as a result of many injuries to the workers every year. As a result of this, the communication within the company increased dramatically and the injuries decreased at a similar rate^[4]. The effect of the organizational structure and culture is often neglected when looking at the scheduling methods but is one of the most important environmental factors that influences the Plan Schedule Management processes ^[5]. As unforeseen events could occur without any signs, communication within an organization could dramatically reduce the risks of the most critical scenarios.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, communication is determined as “The imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium”. Based on this, it is clear that there are several ways of communicating, also within a company or a project. As with Alcoa, the company environment is relying on a habit of communication between co-workers and different departments. By sharing their own personal secrets internally with people and departments, they also could benefit from learning from each other.

As habits have been implemented in the lives of humans during many years, the reaction from each human is unique when facing changes. To cope with these unique reactions from each human, change management has been introduced to organizations subjected to changes. Change management is a way of preparing and teaching individuals to adopt with the changes that could occur during the lifetime of a project.

According to Everett M. Rogers, adoption of new ideas and behaviors is a process that does not happen simultaneously for people in a similar environment. In “Diffusion of innovations” the human is divided into five adopter categories when facing changes. Which category the individual is placed in is dependent on the personal characteristic of each individual, as well as the awareness in regard to the changes that occurs.

The five adopter categories are Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards [REF].

References

1. ↑ Project Management: A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide). (2013), Project Management Institute.
2. ↑ Project Management: A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide). (2013), Project Management Institute.
3. ↑ Smartsheet. The Ultimate Guide to the Critical Path Method. Retrieved February 23, 2019
4. ↑ Duhigg, Charles, author. The Power of Habit : Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York :Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014.
5. ↑ Project Management: A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide). (2013), Project Management Institute.