Activity Durations...

In most scheduling procedures, each work activity has an associated time duration. These durations are used extensively in preparing a schedule.

All formal scheduling procedures rely upon estimates of the durations of the various project activities as well as the definitions of the predecessor relationships among tasks. The variability of an activity's duration may also be considered. Formally, the probability distribution of an activity's duration as well as the expected or most likely duration may be used in scheduling. A probability distribution indicates the chance that a particular activity duration will occur. In advance of actually doing a particular task, we cannot be certain exactly how long the task will require.

A straightforward approach to the estimation of activity durations is to keep historical records of particular activities and rely on the average durations from this experience in making new duration estimates. Since the scope of activities are unlikely to be identical between different projects, unit productivity rates are typically employed for this purpose.

Random factors will also influence productivity rates and make estimation of activity durations uncertain. For example, a scheduler will typically not know at the time of making the initial schedule how skillful the crew and manager will be that are assigned to a particular project. The productivity of a skilled designer may be many times that of an unskilled engineer. In the absence of specific knowledge, the estimator can only use average values of productivity.

Weather effects are often very important and thus deserve particular attention in estimating durations. Weather has both systematic and random influences on activity durations. Whether or not a rainstorm will come on a particular day is certainly a random effect that will influence the productivity of many activities. However, the likelihood of a rainstorm is likely to vary systematically from one month or one site to the next. Adjustment factors for inclement weather as well as meteorological records can be used to incorporate the effects of weather on durations. As a simple example, an activity might require ten days in perfect weather, but the activity could not proceed in the rain. Furthermore, suppose that rain is expected ten percent of the days in a particular month. In this case, the expected activity duration is eleven days including one expected rain day.

Please refer to Production Rates section of the PP Wiki.