Question

Project Management Question.

Changing subjects to the ES/EF and LS/LF???

Why is it important to know the ES, LS, EF, and LF of a given project? How would you use this data while planning, or even monitoring your project?

Answer 1

1) ES - early start

It is the earliest time that an activity can begin. An activity in the schedule will start early only if all the previous activities in the path are started early than they had to. If even one activity gets slipped off then this will also get pushed.

2) EF - early finish

It is the earliest time that an activity can be finished. Its the date that an activity will be finished if all the previous activites in the path started early and none of them slipped or missed the deadline.

3) LS - late start

It is the latest time that an activity can start. If there is any activity in the path that can take much shorter time than the critical path decided, then  it can be started without giving any delay to the project. But be careful about other activities as if they slip then the delays gets added up.

4) LF - late finish

It is the latest time that an activity can finish. If an activity is on short path and all the other activities in the list start and finish early , then this activity can be finished late without causing delay to project deadline.

Importance and need of knowing ES/EF and LS/LF:

-> When you find the early start and early finish then you will know exactly how much freedom you have to move the start dates for those activities around without causing any problems. else without any estimation it might later become difficult to complete any project on time and if everything is planned then you will understand the seriousness and time to be spent on each activity.

-> Figuring out LS and LF will help you in seeing how much play you have in your schedule. An activity with large late start and late finish means you have more options.

-> these things help you when have dozens of activities in the project and the team size is large. It will become easy in monitoring each thing in the team. You have to be careful in putting the activities in correct order else it will lead to delays and mistakes. If you plan accordingly then you will know the challenges you should face on each activity before itself.