ABSTRACT
Schedule Planning versus Execution Before going further, I really want to differentiate between planning a schedule and executing a schedule. These are two separate things. I mention this because I have run into my fair share of project managers who have not understood this! They have mistakenly mapped out a planned (estimated) schedule and then held people’s feet to the fire when executing that schedule! They seem to feel that a planned schedule is “set in concrete” for execution rather than an execution estimation. Sometimes an estimate is just that and does not reflect reality. You may estimate 50 units to be coded in a subsystem and at execution time, that number is 57. If you were that close for estimation, I’d be a happy camper as a project manager! I saw a project manager throw a fit over this discrepancy and force the actual number to be as estimated — even though it was wrong. The project manager had erroneously tried to map the actual execution schedule story to the estimation schedule story. This skewed view of schedules caused bad products just to placate this project manager’s tirade.
