// Benchmarking Project Schedules

Dr. Dan Patterson, PMP
CEO & President, Acumen

March 2011

+1 512 291 6261 // info@projectacumen.com

www.projectacumen.com

Table of Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................... 4
Benchmarking Overview .................................................................................................. 4
Uses of Schedule Benchmarking ......................................................................... 4
The Benchmark Basis .......................................................................................... 4
The Value of Schedule Benchmarking .................................................................. 5
Benchmarking Schedule Soundness................................................................................ 5
Schedule Benchmarks ......................................................................................... 5
Figure 1 – Example DCMA Benchmark Thresholds ................................... 6
Figure 2 – Additional Schedule Benchmark Thresholds ........................... 6
Establishing a Scoring System for Benchmarks .................................................. 7
Figure 3 – Benchmark Analysis Using Weighted Scores ........................... 7
Benchmarking Estimated Durations................................................................................ 7
Introducing Duration Dictionaries for Benchmarking Estimate Durations ........... 7
Figure 4 – Example WBS-Based Duration Dictionary ................................ 8
Figure 5 - Schedule and Duration Dictionary Merge ................................. 8
Using Rate Tables for Duration and Cost Estimation Benchmarking ................... 9
Figure 6 – Rate-Based Benchmark Duration Calculation ......................... 9
Running Benchmark Metrics ............................................................................... 9
Figure 7 – Duration Benchmark Analysis ............................................... 10
Figure 8 – Checklist of Activities Requiring Duration Revisions ............. 11
Benchmarking Execution Performance .......................................................................... 11
Performance Relative to a Baseline ................................................................... 12
Figure 9 – Example Schedule Performance Metrics................................ 12
Figure 10 – Benchmarking Performance Over Time ............................... 13
Figure 11 – Comparison Between Critical, Non-Critical Activities ......... 13
Earned Value ..................................................................................................... 13
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Figure 12 – Two-Way Benchmarking Using Earned Value .................................. 14
Figure 13 – Earned Value using Slice-Dice Analysis .......................................... 15
Earned Schedule .................................................................................................... 15
Figure 14 – Earned Schedule Benchmarking ..................................................... 16
Figure 15 – Earned Schedule Benchmark Metric Analysis ................................. 16
Conclusions................................................................................................................... 16

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Introduction
Benchmarking project schedules is a powerful means of managing and validating projects, programs and portfolios alike. However, the approach to conducting such benchmarking, whether it is determination of schedule quality/realism or execution performance, can be highly subjective.
This paper introduces concepts that help provide a framework and repeatable approach to developing not only structurally sound schedules (based on