Concurrent Schedules: Risky Business or a Path to Greatness?
Have you ever seen a project schedule that made you want to say, “I’m throwing the BS flag?” These types of schedules are risky, highly optimistic and lack grounding in reality.
The government accountability office (GAO) defines a concurrency as the overlap between product development, testing, and production. Why is concurrency risky?
Concurrency is risky because you need everything to go right in order to have a technically acceptable product, on time and on budget.
Quick simplified example: Let’s say you are developing a missile. You start producing the missile before qualification testing is done. During qualification testing, you discover a design flaw in the nose cone that causes the missile to be less accurate. But you’ve already manufactured all the nose cones. Now you have to re-design the nose cone, re-test the missile with the new nose cone, scrap the flawed nose cones you already built and then manufacture the new nose cone. The impacts from the risk of the concurrent schedule are schedule and cost increases on the missile program and a diversion of resources to that program that were originally allocated to other programs.
Got it. Concurrency bad. Well not always.
While there is risk in concurrent schedules, a program is never zero risk and nor should it be. Concurrent schedules provide the opportunity to achieve product delivery rapidly. If you always perform work in a stepwise manner, you may deliver too late.
Returning to the example above, let’s say you need that missile to be fielded by a certain date to meet operational needs. If you are risk averse in your approach to schedule and have no concurrency, you will miss the need date.
With that in mind, here are some considerations when it comes to risks and opportunities related to concurrent schedules.
1. Ask yourself, what is the end state?
Is integrating the latest technology more important or is having a minimum viable product on time what you need? What is the minimum that needs to be accomplished with the time and budget given? What is the tolerance for failure? Once you’ve determined the end state, you can build an informed schedule.
2. Get creative
If you end up with an aggressive deadline- take a hard look at what you can realistically do to meet schedule. Some ideas include ordering long lead parts before the design is finalized, funding multiple solutions to mitigate subsystem risk, increasing funding, working overtime, expanding your qualified supplier base, increasing your modeling capabilities, and dedicating more people and more qualified people to work the project.
3. Document the risk in your schedule early and monitor it closely
Communicating early and often with key decision makers about the risks in the program schedule and their potential impacts.
Additional Reading
https://www.dau.edu/sites/default/files/Migrate/ARJFiles/arj59/Birchler_ARJ59.pdf?Web=1
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-490t.pdf
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105341.pdf
