Do you have projects that consistently fail to complete on time or projects where the team cannot accurately report the amount of time required to complete? Do you have the following symptoms?

• Is the project schedule ill-defined or weak?

• Is there a project schedule in place?

• If there is the project schedule is only defined by only a single target completion date?

• Does the project schedule lack stage gates or phase milestones?

• Is the project timeline outdated or not used as the basis for project planning and decision-making?

Adopting good project schedule management which defines policies, procedures and documentation for managing and controlling the project schedule will help. Following this process allows you to avoid the behaviour producing the symptoms listed earlier. It details the scheduling methodology, tools, level of accuracy, control thresholds needed and the rules of performance measurement to achieve consistent scheduling.