Predictive Scheduling (Video)

Learn how you can forecast when work will be done with our predictive scheduling engine that dynamically adapts to change in real-time.

Projects move fast. You’re working hard to keep up and hoping you’ll still meet your deadlines.

Predictive Scheduling will help. It forecasts your start and finish dates in real time. Continuously adapts to change and provides advance warning when you’re in danger of missing your targets.

It begins with your planning process. Prioritize the work, assign it to your team and estimate using a range that takes your uncertainty into account.

On screen:

Prioritize

Assign the team

Estimate with a best case – worst case range

From there, the scheduling engine runs sophisticated Monte Carlo simulations on the whole portfolio all the while respecting the constraints you’re up against like priorities, dependencies, target dates and team member availability.

Expected Start is when you’re most likely to begin

Expected Finish is the date you’re working toward, this is the likely finish date

Latest Finish is how long it could take if worst case estimates come into play

The schedule updates automatically as priorities, assignments and estimates change.

Predictive scheduling calculates in real time. Expected Start and Finish dates update automatically as priorities, assignments and estimates change.

You’ll get the most out of predictive scheduling when you add Target Dates to your plan. Targets are dates that you add manually to guide predictive scheduling and see what can be accomplished within a given time frame.

Target Dates are on the Edit Panel. Right-click on the project to access the Edit Panel and go to the Scheduling tab.

Target Start is helpful in long range planning because it ensures that work won’t start earlier than the date you selected. It could start later, based on the status of higher priority work.

Target Finish is the deadline date in LiquidPlanner. There are two options for setting a target finish.

The work can keep scheduling in which case the Expected Finish and Latest Finish dates will show how you’re tracking against the target.

Or, you can choose to stop scheduling, and Insights will tell you the number of hours that won’t be completed on time.

Target Dates and Predictive Scheduling are a powerful combination. When you apply them to a project like the way we have here, everything inside the project inherits those dates. You can see the work that’s at risk and get the schedule under control.

Predictive scheduling provides the information you need to make decisions and deliver projects on time.