How to allocate buffers in schedule and set logical relations

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Scope: Project Time Management - Schedule Planning

+. Know About Project activity/task planning ( tasks listing and sequencing )
+. Know About Lags and Leads
+. Know About Project Buffers

Project is "Guruttam Contract Prospect"
Gather Requirement  -  2 days
Define Scope - 1 day
Identify Resources - 4 days

We assume tasks(activity) names and duration estimates. Let us further examine its attribute information.

1. Here is an interesting part.
You, the project manager, planned for a fine Monday meeting with the customer to Gather Requirement. Unfortunately, assume the customer would be busy with other priorities on the day of your appointment. What could we do? Well, we have to wait !

So where is this reflected in our schedule and how long does our schedule planning allow us to wait ? To answer this we try to understand next task Define Scope.

We have said Define Scope is a 1 day activity after Gather Requirement. But luckily, we had planned as +2 days as lag forecasting that this situation might well occur. So we are allowed with a 'buffer' of 2 days wait time. 'Buffer' as usually allocated as contingencies or time reserves.

Remember, this wait time(lag) is 'created' by the manager and is not a characteristic of project activity.

Assume Define Scope task - is a management activity (manager sets the scope). Usually management activity are not part of billing (activity level at the least) , so we cannot allocate a resource if it is going to add to the project cost. Hence, this 1 day is a 'buffer' this manager has wisely added as an activity. Call it as 'buffered task'. Having this task type as 'non-working time' will not add to cost, which may be a handy tool for buffer monitoring (used or did not use cases).

Either of the above two techniques may be used as 'Buffers'. Planners are advised not to use both technique (within a scenario) as it would be deemed as non professional conduct or would not be successful in practical sense under a 'constraint'ed schedule.

In case Define Scope task  is a non-management activity i.e. resource is assigned to set the scope, then it cannot be a 'buffered task' eventually in this case, lag as buffer can only be used.

Next Identify Resources -  starts upon successful completion of Define Scope (either when delay risks are resolved or when truly the Define Scope task (not as buffer task). We can also notice that it takes 4 days of hectic resource search by  HR colleague. However we give them as soon as we had Gathered Requirements from the customer/client.

We shall see few more interesting things with this tiny schedule on activity/task relation in next blog.

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