Simple Project Concepts- Cruise control and Art of Project Scheduling

Driving on a straight highway while having your vehicle cruise control on is a pleasant experience. You just set the speed and the vehicle do the rest, no hassle but just keep the car in the lane. it sounds easy

Flying an airplane on Autopilot mode should be pleasant (Although I have not tried myself). of course it is much more complicated than your vehicle cruise control. The pilot set the destination and other features and the navigation system along with other aircraft systems do the rests.

it looks easy to set the destination once and navigation system does the rest, but it is not as easy as you see. The navigation system check and re-align itself every single second to ensure the aircraft is on the right path towards the destination. In fact you shall differentiate between your expectation and the reality.

Your expectation is: When you set the airplane on autopilot mode, everything will go as was planned!

The reality is: The system re-adjust itself thousands of times every minutes to ensure on track.

Well the same applies to any project. We all know most of the projects do not go as they were scheduled originally as project is a dynamic environment that many parameters are changing continuously.

It may not be unfair to say that your project schedule likely changes the moment you are done with project baseline and probably printing it!

This may sounds pessimistic but the is the fact. Continuous re-adjustment of project schedule baseline is likely more practical rather than pushing to stick with original scheduled dates.

It is important to prepare a project baseline schedule that is well thought and prepared for which I always admire it but the KEY to achieving the project targets is how well your schedule responds and how flexible it is against the changes during project life cycle.

The project schedules that are revised more frequently assumed to be more realistic in comparison to its opposite. Revising the project schedule is part of the project evolution during its life cycle and are more valuable as they have absorbed the changes and are contemporary road map of the project.

The Art of Project Scheduling is not about preparing a solid project baseline but it is about preparing a schedule that has been tested by potential what-if scenarios and also how well they are revised and updated during the project life cycle, just same as autopilot systems!