(^82) 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know
Planning for Reality
Craig Letavec, PMP, PgMP, MSP
Waynesville, Ohio, U.S.
IT’S AMAzIng hoW oFTEn SoFTWARE PRojECTS tend to fall into late,
over-budget, off-quality situations. Even in highly touted software shops with
international certifications and maturity assessments lining the walls, the tri-
als of managing the very fluid environment of software development are many.
The pace of development will naturally vary throughout the life of the proj-
ect. Sometimes you are ahead of schedule, sometimes behind. Often, project
managers seek to control these fluctuations through strict, elaborate project
timelines that lay out prescribed task assignments and deadlines. However,
they find themselves making multiple revisions to the plan along the way to
deal with the dynamic nature of creating software.
While the development and execution of a detailed, keenly estimated project
plan is important in the success of any project, many software project manag-
ers may find some benefit in adding some “reality time” into their plans.
The critical chain method uses the concept of “buffers” as one means to deal
with inherent variance over the life cycle of the project. Try introducing “buf-
fer time” or “reality time” into your schedule at each phase of your software
development life cycle (design, coding, testing, etc.).
Buffer time allows for a degree of flexibility within a phase without the need
to perform major scheduling adjustments. Think of this buffer time as a time
contingency reserve for the phase. The process is fairly straightforward. Look
at each phase of your project, consider the total duration of the phase based on
your best planning, and then add a buffer task at the end of the phase that has
a duration of a percentage of the total phase duration, say 10% or so.