Zachary Dolch, PMP, Project Planner / Scheduler, Inteq, LLC
Session: Monitoring & Controlling Your Project Schedule with the Goddard Schedule Analysis Tool
Abstract: NASA Space Act Agreements and Planetary Launch windows cannot be met without completing the project on time. Designing, building, integrating and testing complex systems for spaceflight operations is risky and requires significant coordination over an extended period of time. More importantly, there needs to be a focus on maintaining schedule performance throughout the entire project lifecycle to ensure deliverables are achieved.
At NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) Flight Project Directorate (FDP), an initiative is underway to ensure project manager’s get the information needed for key decision making. To create strategic data needed by project managers to determine the project’s status, key schedule indicators are best when considered in relation to one another.
In this presentation, we will examine the Goddard Schedule Analysis Tool (GSAT), a macro-based utility built to combine the key schedule performance indicators: Baseline Execution Index (BEI), Hit/Miss Index (HMI), and Current Execution Index (CEI) which also includes both a schedule comparison and cumulative milestone feature for “at a glance” trending data availability.
While there are a variety of ways to forecast future schedule outcomes, the schedule performance metrics generated by GSAT can provide a basis for extrapolating past performance into the future. Additionally, while there are a variety of ways to use GSAT, one of the greatest benefits is performing your analysis by user specified elements such as a specific WBS or subsystem.
The GSAT was developed in-house at Goddard as part of the FPD’s Business Change Initiative (BCI) in hopes of providing an automated solution for Goddard Projects to augment earned value management reporting with additional schedule performance metrics. The tool has yielded positive results across the FPD’s portfolio of projects which consist of variety of scope, development time frames, model philosophy, funding profiles, workforce availability, etc. The GSAT was designed and built to be flexible and has the capability to be expand to incorporate new GSFC requirements as necessary.
Biography: Zachary Dolch is the scheduler for NASA GSFC’s Space Network Project and has been a PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) credential holder since 2010. His journey at NASA has provided a range of experience which covers the entire project life-cycle. His experience includes mission proposals, instrument development, mission management, ground systems development and maintenance, and international collaboration projects. He has also been involved with efforts associated with the Flight Project Directorate’s business change initiative, GSFC planning & scheduling (P&S) best practice instructions, product development lead training, leading P&S community round table sessions, implementing earned value management (EVM), conducting schedule risks analysis (SRA), participating in Government Accountability Office (GAO) expert meetings and co-instructing PMP training courses. Zachary has a Bachelor’s Degree from Salisbury University (SU) and a Master’s of Science Degree in Technology Management from the University of Maryland University College (UMUC).
