Progress is measured by the completion of Significant Accomplishments, with the evidence of this completion assessed by their Accomplishment Criteria Task completion is 0% or 100% no partial credit – either you did it or you didn’t The “architecture” of the project is described in the arrangement of the Significant Accomplishments to assure increasing value and increasing maturity is made explicitly visible in the plan Define what “done” looks like and schedule backwards from there – then decide when you should have started the project

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Event Based Scheduling
OK kids, We’re gonna paint the garage floor.
Everyone off the couch and in the garage
with smiles on your little faces
Dad’s gonna “program manage” your efforts
to successful outcome using Event Based
Planning

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Themes of Event Based Scheduling
Progress is measured by the completion of Significant
Accomplishments, with the evidence of this completion
assessed by their Accomplishment Criteria
Task completion is 0% or 100% no partial credit – either you
did it or you didn’t
The “architecture” of the project is described in the
arrangement of the Significant Accomplishments to assure
increasing value and increasing maturity is made explicitly
visible in the plan
Define what “done” looks like and schedule backwards from
there – then decide when you should have started the project

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Events of This Little Family Project
Our first impulse is to make a plan for all the work to be
performed. Here’s a list of work …
1. All our sports “stuff” is cleaned up
2. Get the garage floor washed and dried
3. Put down epoxy sealer and let it dry
4. Paint the car stalls
5. Put everything back
6. Park the cars and close the doors
Events are celebratory occasions, where a collection of Significant Accomplishments
has been completed with measurable beneficial outcomes, judged by the
Accomplishment Criteria for the work performed.

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Some definitions
Event - A major transition point in the program
Significant Accomplishment - Interim, critical or
discrete activity required to complete prior to an
event
Accomplishment Criteria - Measurable indicators of
evidence that demonstrates the achievement of
maturity or progress in an activity
Tasks - Work performed in support of
accomplishments and their criteria
There are some new terms we’ll need to learn when we’re speaking in “event based
planning” vocabulary

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Get “stuff” clean up event
Finite duration
Clear and concise definition “cleaned up”
Measures of success need to be defined
When we reach the logical stopping point when
“all” the stuff is cleaned up – Mom says its time
for lunch
There is a clear and concise benefit to getting to
this point
It may not be necessary to move to the next stage
Let’s look at the details of our first “event”
– “all the sports stuff cleaned up

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Event: “All the stuff cleaned up” – Let’s Eat
Significant Accomplishment
Interim, critical or discrete activity required to
complete prior to an event
All Hockey Equipment Located and collected for
storage
Accomplishment Criteria
Measurable indicators of evidence that
demonstrates the achievement of maturity or
progress in an activity
Skates, pads, and uniforms placed in their labeled
bags and hung on hooks
A Significant Accomplishment is getting all the baseball gear into bags and hung on
the wall, bats in a bag, and helmets and in the rack

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Significant Accomplishment (SA)
SA: Baseball Equipment Stored in Assigned
Location
The Accomplishment Criteria for completing this
Significant Accomplishment includes:
Locations defined for each item identified
All pads, balls, hats gloves located, sorted, and placed
in a pile of like stuff
All bats located and loaded into a
single bat bag
All equipment bags located, emptied
of food, drinks, and mice droppings
The Significant Accomplishment of getting all the Baseball gear into bags is
measured by the completion of the Accomplishment Criteria

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Accomplishment Criteria (AC)
AC: Locations defined for each item identified
Tasks to complete the AC includes:
Labeling all bags with their contents
Cleaning the bags
Determining if the bag can hold the equipment
Find new bags, if there is not enough room in the
current ones
Accomplishment Criteria (AC) is the Exit Criteria for the work performed by the
Tasks. When all the work is done, the AC is 100% complete

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Project Management According to Yogi†
Planning
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going,
because you might not get there
Communicating
I didn’t really say everything I said
Decision Making
If you come to a fork in the road, take it
Measuring progress
You’d better cut the pizza in four pieces, because I’m not hungry
enough to eat six
Executing
Think? How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?
Managing
You can observe a lot just by watching
Meeting deadlines
I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early
Closeout
This is like déjà vu all over again
† “Yogi Berra, PMP,” Ralph Sacco, Computer World, October 23, 2006, pp. 44
All of these activities can be
supported by the Event Based
Planning processes

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Enough Baseball
Let’s talk about a
business example
Sean Ratliff Niwot High School

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Provisioning a New Employee
Human ResourcesNew Employee Ready to Work
Insurance
Orientation
Laptop Account Setup
Charge account setup
Information Technology
Finance
Buying authority
Supply Chain Management
Significant Accomplishments
Project EventProject Event

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Structure of the Event Based Plan
Business StrategyBusiness Strategy
Process StepProcess Step
WBS Element or
Subsystem
EventsEvents
TasksTasks
Accomplishments
CriteriaCriteria
Significant
Accomplishments
(SA)
Accomplishment
Criteria (AC)
SubsystemSubsystem
State of the
Project
State of the
Project
State of the
Capability
State of the
Process
Demonstrates
Maturity
Identifies
End Item
How
Defines
Customer/Program
Direction
Program/Team
Direction
Team Direction
Performance
Team Status
Team Status
Something
Completed
Effort
Expended
DeliverablesDeliverables

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A Description of “Done”
Perform
Work
MaturityMaturity
Adjective
ActionAction
Verb
ProvisioningFinal
CapabilityCapability
Noun
Desktop
Demonstrates
Maturity End Item
“A01B02a: Preliminary Month End Close of the General Ledger Successful”“A01B02a: Final Desktop Provisioning of New Employee Successful”
Step in the Process
StateState
Verb
Successful
Closure
State

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One More Review of the New Terminology
Events – define the state of the project
Significant Accomplishments –demonstrates
the state of the capability
This is the maturity of the deliverable at a point in
time
Accomplishment Criteria – demonstrates the
state of the process
Task – describes the effort required complete
the Accomplishment Criteria

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Just A Check on Terminology
A Significant Accomplishment describes …
A desired result…
A discrete step in a process
A description of an interrelationship…
An Accomplishment Criteria describes …
Completed work effort
Activities that confirm the value…
Completion of critical activities…

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Accomplishment Criteria are Critical
Define the measure by which an Accomplishment (SA) is
considered “done”
Terms like complete, delivered, closed have no “units of
measure” in the context of a Significant Accomplishment (SA)
and are open to interpretation
Terms like …
Measures of completion – 80% of drawings approved for release
Counts of available items – 75% of pin-outs assigned voltage
Fidelity of a design – outer mold line defined within 90% of target
Error bounds – mass of spacecraft known to ±20% at PDR
Performance parameters – disconnect force within allowed limits
Maturity parameters – flight article successful in last 3 tests
… are used as better definitions the “exit criteria”
Defining the Accomplishment Criteria is the hard part and where the benefit of
Event Based Planning

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Primary Motivation – Avoid This Meeting!
Knowing the
maturity of the
project at all times
is the start
Knowing what
measurable
progress looks like
is a better start
Having confidence
that you “can”
know these
things in real units
of measures
(dollars) is
priceless

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Nine Principles of Project Management
1. Systematic and integrative
planning – maximum influence
comes early in the project
2. Timely decisions adjusted to
uncertainty – objectives first, the
means to fulfill next
3. Isolation and Absorption of Risk –
organize project elements to
maintain stability and isolate
undesired results
4. Leadership is Both Inward and
Outward – leadership copes with
uncertainty, management copes
with complexity
5. Teamwork – emphasize
cooperation rather than risk
allocation
6. Overlapping Phases – pay great
attention to pre–existing
activities
7. Simple Procedures – prevent re–
invention, contribute to
cooperation, and establish
internal stability
8. Intensive Communication – fit
the intensity and mode of
communication to the situation
9. Systematic Monitoring –
identifying and correcting small
problems is easy, identifying large
problems is easy, correcting them
is hard
Event Based Planning provides the basis for these Nine Principles (or any other
favorite principles of project management)

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A Working Example
Event
Significant
Accomplishment
Accomplishment
Criteria
Tasks
Here’s an example of a Project Server rollout project

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Working Example Discussion
Event – Phase A/B of the
enterprise project server
deployment is complete
All the deliverables, activities to
deliver those deliverable, the
criteria by which those deliverables
were measured have been
completed
Significant Accomplishment – the
Governance and Review Groups
have been established
There are 2 “exit criteria” shown
that represent the “evidence” that
these review groups have been
established
The completion of these “exit
criteria” is a clear and concise
measure of progress
Accomplishment Criteria – Design
Proof of Concept Complete
Each AC is the “exit criteria” for the
collection of tasks (work)
performed in the schedule and is
the criteria for judging the
completion and the resulting
maturity of the work effort
Tasks
Each task results in the completion
of the Accomplishment Criteria
No partial completion of the task is
allowed for the completion of the
AC
A strict parent child relationship is
used for all relationships

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We Did It On Time, On Budget, On Spec
If we know ahead of time what done
looks like
If we measure progress toward done in
“units of measure” that describe
increasing maturity and increasing value
rather than consumption of time and
resources
Then we can tell our customers and stakeholders – with a
straight face – how much value has been created, how
much work there is remaining, an estimate of when we’ll
be finished and an estimate of how much it will cost when
we’re done
Using Event Based Planning and Earned Value this is
actually possible