2Schedule & cost management

• 2.1Activity definition & sequencing

  Covers activity definition, which decomposes a WBS work package into executable units of work, the four types of precedence relationship (FS/SS/FF/SF) that describe how activities connect, lead and lag, which pull work earlier or push it later, and three-point estimating, which derives a duration range from multiple estimates.

• 2.2Schedule development & the critical path

  Covers how to compute earliest and latest dates via the arrow diagramming method (CPM) to identify the critical path (the longest path, where float is zero), the difference between total float and free float, and how to diagnose the way a delay on one activity ripples through to the overall project deadline.

• 2.3Deciding how to compress the schedule

  Covers the difference and applicability of the two schedule-compression techniques, crashing (adding cost to shorten activity durations) and fast tracking (running normally sequential activities in parallel), the decision axis of whether added cost or added risk is more acceptable, and the principle of applying compression only to activities on the critical path.

• 2.4Cost estimating & budgeting

  Covers the accuracy-versus-effort trade-off among three estimating techniques—analogous estimating based on past experience, parametric estimating such as function-point analysis, and bottom-up estimating that sums individual work units—the finalized cost baseline, and the difference between contingency reserve for known risks and management reserve for unknown risks.

• 2.5Earned value management

  Covers computing SV/SPI (schedule variance/performance) and CV/CPI (cost variance/performance) from the three metrics PV (planned value), EV (earned value), and AC (actual cost), interpreting the results to forecast EAC (estimate at completion), and deciding on corrective action.