6.6 Control Schedule
Track actual progress against the schedule and act when it slips.
Monitoring and Controlling / Schedule · ← PMBOK reference · See it on the map
Why it matters
A schedule nobody rechecks against reality just quietly stops being true, and the first anyone hears about it is when the deadline is already missed.
What done looks like
Actual progress is compared to the baseline regularly and any slip has a response.
First time tip
Update the schedule on a fixed cadence even when nothing seems to have changed. A schedule updated only when there is bad news stops being trusted.
What you need (Inputs)
- Project Management Plan
- Project Schedule
How Scrum/Kanban projects satisfy this — counted from: releases (driftless/models/agile.py:Release) — a release with a target date is the agile reading of a project schedule when there is no sprint or milestone to read one from - Work Performance Data
- Project Calendars
- Schedule Data
- Organizational Process Assets
How you do it (Tools & Techniques)
What you get (Outputs)
- Work Performance Information
How Scrum/Kanban projects satisfy this — counted from: sprints under way (driftless/models/delivery.py:Sprint) for an agile project, or service levels and incidents (driftless/models/operations.py) for an operations-cadence one — a sprint under way is the work performance data an agile team reads instead of a baseline-and-actuals pair; an operations-cadence project reads the same question off its service levels and the incidents raised against them - Schedule Forecasts
- Change Requests
- Schedule Baseline
How Scrum/Kanban projects satisfy this — counted from: the current sprint's committed window (driftless/models/delivery.py:Sprint) for an agile project, or the department's own recurring work (driftless/models/operations.py:RecurringWork) for an operations-cadence one — an agile team's schedule is the sprint it has committed to, not a fixed baseline; an operations-cadence project's schedule is the cadence the department already runs
Worked example
Six weeks in, the wall repair has run to the five-day end of its range and painting has not started. It surfaces at the Friday review while the shelving delivery can still be moved, rather than in May when the van arrives at a room that is not ready.
Common pitfalls
- Comparing progress to the whole schedule instead of to what was planned by now.
- Updating the schedule only when there is bad news, so nobody trusts a quiet week.
- Recording a slip without deciding what happens to the dates that depend on it.
How driftless helps
- Critical Path Method can be run here.
- Schedule Baseline can be created in the wizard.