National Defense Industrial Association Planning and Scheduling Excellence Guide
The National Defense Industrial Association, made up of government, industry, and academia members, is a forum for the exchange of national security information between industry and government. The association published the Planning and Scheduling Excellence Guide (PASEG) in June 2012.51 The intent of the PASEG is to provide program management teams guidance on creating, maintaining, and analyzing an integrated master schedule using a disciplined schedule and planning process. It includes sections on schedule architecture, modeling techniques, resource integration, schedule maintenance, schedule analysis, and guidance on scheduling for specific contract phases and production environments.
The PASEG is described as a reference whose approaches and techniques should be implemented only if program management deems them achievable and necessary. The PASEG states that practices described in the guide apply to any industry but that its primary audience is large defense and intelligence program management teams. The PASEG is intended as supplemental guidance to, and states that it is subordinate to, IMS DID 81650, the IPMR DID 81861, and a contractor’s management procedures.
Hence, comparisons between the GAO Schedule Assessment Guide and the PASEG are similar to comparisons with other schedule guidance documents that are compliant with, supplemental to, or subordinate to DIDs 81650 and 81861. GAO’s Schedule Assessment Guide and the PASEG have a few minor differences but in general the two documents describe similar best practices and procedures for creating and maintaining reliable schedules. The primary difference between the guides—owing to subordination to DIDs 81650 and 81861—is that an IMS is not required to be resource loaded and need consist only of contracted work.
At the same time, however, and in agreement with the Schedule Guide, the PASEG describes integrating all work and assigning resources as good practices. First, the PASEG describes concepts that agree with best practices in the GAO Schedule Assessment Guide for capturing all work and integrating government and contractor activities. For example, the PASEG notes that the IMS should reflect all work, and capture all activities, required to complete the program. In addition, it states that the customer schedule can be integrated with the IMS to ensure a comprehensive view of the remaining work for the program.
Second, the PASEG describes concepts that, for the most part, agree with best practices in the GAO Schedule Assessment Guide for assigning resources to all activities. The document describes three approaches to integrating resources with schedule activities: assigning resources to activities in the schedule; aligning resources from an external cost system to activities in the schedule; and using text fields in the schedule software to note resource information. In agreement with the Schedule Guide, the PASEG states that the first method—maintaining resources in the schedule—is the recommended approach because it provides information on resource requirements and serves as the focal point for cost and schedule integration. PASEG guidance and the Schedule Guide also agree on the second method, noting that integration with external cost systems may be necessary in some cases. However, the third method—integrating resources using text fields in the schedule—is not discussed in the Schedule Guide and GAO does not consider it a best practice. Notably, the PASEG states that, regardless of the method used to integrate resources into the schedule, every activity should have assigned resources, and program management should derive resource requirements from the IMS.
The PASEG also includes eight principles for creating and maintaining a sound schedule. It states that the schedule team’s meeting these principles ensures that it has created and maintains a robust IMS using a rigorous and disciplined process. The principles are collectively called the generally accepted schedule principles, or GASP. We found that all but one GAO best practices map to at least one principle: Best Practice 8, Schedule Risk Analysis, has no corresponding generally accepted schedule principle (table 12).
Table 12: Generally Accepted Scheduling Principles and GAO Best Practices Compared
| Generally accepted scheduling principle | Description | Corresponding GAO best practice |
|---|---|---|
| Complete | The schedule captures the entire discrete, authorized project effort from start through completion. |
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| Traceable | The schedule logic is horizontally and vertically integrated with cross-references to key documents and tools. Schedules are coded to relate tasks and milestones to documents and responsible organizations. |
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| Transparent | The schedule provides visibility to ensure that it is complete, is traceable, has documented assumptions, and provides full disclosure of program status and forecast. |
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| Statused | The schedule shows accurate progress through the status date. |
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| Predictive | The schedule provides meaningful critical paths and accurate forecasts for remaining work through program completion. |
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| Usable | The schedule is an indispensable tool for timely and effective management decisions and actions. |
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| Resourced | The schedule aligns with actual and projected resource availability. |
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| Controlled | The schedule is built, baselined, and maintained using a stable, repeatable, and documented process. |
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The PASEG also describes the benefits of performing schedule assessments and provides a list of the most common measures. Similar to GAO’s best practices, measures in the PASEG do not rely on tripwires or thresholds. Rather, a schedule’s health is determined by assessing the effect of schedule anomalies on the network.
Planning and Scheduling Excellence Guide Release 2.0, June 22, 2012.↩︎