“The battle cry of the Theatre is ‘The Show Must Go On!’ In taking this to heart, we sometimes forge ahead with, as my dad used to say: ‘Nary a forethought.’ The urge to ‘get it done’ can overshadow the need to plan, and the results can be dangerous, disastrous, or maybe just plain messy. At the least, they can be inefficient and wasteful.”
How right Erich is! Planning ahead takes time, and instinctively, when we’re under pressure to complete an overwhelming production in time for opening, we can often succumb to the urge to just skip that part and jump into the pool. Erich points out how potentially catastrophic and dangerous that can be in his post; additionally, as he indicates, tackling a project without developing a plan of attack can lead to expensive overtime payroll and cost overruns.
(Overtime? What do you mean, overtime? Coming soon: how the Fair Labor Standards Act and overtime laws apply to you, too!)
Money is Easy, Time is Hard
Any effective plan for the construction of scenery has to consider both the cost of materials and the amount of time the project will take to complete. (In some cases, time isn’t just time, but rather is represented by the cost of labor, including overtime considerations, overhire staff, etc.) Few technical directors, production managers, directors, set designers, producers, or artistic directors have any trouble understanding how to compute the cost of materials for a given design. However, in my experience, understanding and quantifying the time it will take to complete a project is a lot harder to wrap our heads around.
Why is this? Probably because we develop tools in our every day lives to handle costs: just going to the grocery store teaches us to come up with a rough idea of how much we’re putting in the cart so we don’t show up at the register and find out we don’t have enough money. (No one wants to be the person saying, “can you take off the case of [insert your beverage here]!) But methods for planning and estimating time are a little more elusive. I suspect that we intuitively recognize a number of complex factors that contribute to how much time a project might take to complete:
Different people work at different speeds,
Some projects might be completed more quickly with more people doing them,
Some projects might not be completed more quickly with more people doing them,
How much space we have in which to work might make a project take longer,
Having the right materials or equipment impacts project speed,
The completion of one part of the project is dependent on the completion of another part, etc.
In most cases, we probably haven’t had to wrestle with these kinds of considerations in our daily lives, and consequently we’ve never had to develop methods for quantifying them.
Some people—experienced technical directors, with many, many, shows under their belts are a good example—are able to, over time, develop an awareness of the many complexities that impact the scheduling of a project and determining how long a project will take to complete. These calendar magicians can often look at a project and say, fairly accurately, which elements will be completed quickly, which will take more time, and when the entire project might be completed. For the rest of us, however, we need some tools to help us out.
Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
Theatre has never been shy about emulating (borrowing? stealing?) the best techniques, methods, equipment, and materials previously perfected by other industries. Theatre practitioners shouldn’t be shy about doing the same in the realm of project planning. Major historic undertakings (such as the Manhattan Project, the Polaris nuclear submarine project, and the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo space missions) have given rise to four tools technical directors and production managers can—and should—use to help quantify, visualize, and most importantly understand how time and available resources (including labor) impact the schedule of a project (and the time required to complete that project). These four tools are the work breakdown structure, the PERT chart, the critical-path method, and the Gantt chart.
Break it Down, Now
A work breakdown structure (WBS) is essentially a comprehensive list of the “things” (a deliberately vague term) required to bring a project to 100% completion. These “things” may be information, tasks, subtasks, products, or other elements that when taken together describe the entire scope of a particular project. Each “thing” might also be broken down into further discrete elements, which together describe the entire scope of the “parent” element. We continue this process of describing every element by means of increasingly specific chunks, until we have a series of elements that can no longer be subdivided.
For example, consider a bicycle. We might break a bicycle up into component parts that together make up the whole: frame; wheels; crankset; brake system; integration. (Notice that “integration” is not a physical thing, but a representation of the work required to make all of the individual elements work together.) We might break “frame” up into further elements: frame; handlebars; seat post; fork. You get the picture.
The lowest elements (or terminal elements) in a WBS—those elements that can no longer be subdivided—represent those tasks, materials, processes, etc. that can be estimated in terms of cost, resource requirements, and time required. Terminal elements, then, are those tasks, materials, or processes which can be scheduled—they require a specific set of resources, take a known (or reasonably estimated) duration, and cost a known (or reasonably estimated) amount of money to complete.
Most of us who work as technical directors do some of this already—often as part of the costing process, when we break a set design up into “units” (walls, platforms, flown flats, etc.); sometimes as we think about which carpenter can best complete a given task. However, without specifically generating a WBS and thinking in detail about the ways in which the set, and each unit, and each part of each unit, and each component of each part, etc. can be broken down into more specific and detailed elements, we miss the opportunity to fully understand how a set will work its way through the shop. (For example: I’ll give you a bright, shiny nickel for every technical director reading this right now who remembered to consider that they’d need work breakdown elements for “painting,” “applying trim,” and “installation” of particular units. I expect I won’t lose much money—and, each of those elements can be broken down still further as well!)
Generating a “true” WBS involves remembering a number of specific rules, of course. These include the 100% rule (the WBS must represent 100% of the scope of work required for the project); the mandate that all elements must be mutually exclusive (no two elements can overlap in their description of the scope of a project); and the rule that the WBS should be outcome-driven, not action-driven (elements should not be “tasks,” such as “mortise toggles,” but “outcomes,” such as “assembled frame”). Any good text on project management should include guidelines and assistance in generating a WBS, and it’s well worth the investment in time and money to pick one (or many) up and read through them. (Consider Project Management for Dummies, to start with—don’t let the title keep you away.)
The WBS, in and of itself, provides a good visual representation of the overall scope of a project, and the amount of work required to complete it (though it doesn’t quantify time at all) However, it is only marginally useful when compared to its derivates, the PERT chart, the critical path method, and the Gantt chart. Tune in next week for more on the first of these, the PERT chart.
How Long Will it Take? or, Project Planning for Theatre
by Rich Dionne
Feb 25, 2011
One good turn deserves another: yesterday, Erich Friend quoted last week’s “Fail Safe Design” post in his post, “Process Planning—The Hard Way, The Safe Way, The Cost Effective Way.” As some of the things he had to say got me thinking, I figured I would return the favor. Erich wrote:
How right Erich is! Planning ahead takes time, and instinctively, when we’re under pressure to complete an overwhelming production in time for opening, we can often succumb to the urge to just skip that part and jump into the pool. Erich points out how potentially catastrophic and dangerous that can be in his post; additionally, as he indicates, tackling a project without developing a plan of attack can lead to expensive overtime payroll and cost overruns.
(Overtime? What do you mean, overtime? Coming soon: how the Fair Labor Standards Act and overtime laws apply to you, too!)
Money is Easy, Time is Hard
Any effective plan for the construction of scenery has to consider both the cost of materials and the amount of time the project will take to complete. (In some cases, time isn’t just time, but rather is represented by the cost of labor, including overtime considerations, overhire staff, etc.) Few technical directors, production managers, directors, set designers, producers, or artistic directors have any trouble understanding how to compute the cost of materials for a given design. However, in my experience, understanding and quantifying the time it will take to complete a project is a lot harder to wrap our heads around.
Why is this? Probably because we develop tools in our every day lives to handle costs: just going to the grocery store teaches us to come up with a rough idea of how much we’re putting in the cart so we don’t show up at the register and find out we don’t have enough money. (No one wants to be the person saying, “can you take off the case of [insert your beverage here]!) But methods for planning and estimating time are a little more elusive. I suspect that we intuitively recognize a number of complex factors that contribute to how much time a project might take to complete:
In most cases, we probably haven’t had to wrestle with these kinds of considerations in our daily lives, and consequently we’ve never had to develop methods for quantifying them.
Some people—experienced technical directors, with many, many, shows under their belts are a good example—are able to, over time, develop an awareness of the many complexities that impact the scheduling of a project and determining how long a project will take to complete. These calendar magicians can often look at a project and say, fairly accurately, which elements will be completed quickly, which will take more time, and when the entire project might be completed. For the rest of us, however, we need some tools to help us out.
Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
Theatre has never been shy about emulating (borrowing? stealing?) the best techniques, methods, equipment, and materials previously perfected by other industries. Theatre practitioners shouldn’t be shy about doing the same in the realm of project planning. Major historic undertakings (such as the Manhattan Project, the Polaris nuclear submarine project, and the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo space missions) have given rise to four tools technical directors and production managers can—and should—use to help quantify, visualize, and most importantly understand how time and available resources (including labor) impact the schedule of a project (and the time required to complete that project). These four tools are the work breakdown structure, the PERT chart, the critical-path method, and the Gantt chart.
Break it Down, Now
A work breakdown structure (WBS) is essentially a comprehensive list of the “things” (a deliberately vague term) required to bring a project to 100% completion. These “things” may be information, tasks, subtasks, products, or other elements that when taken together describe the entire scope of a particular project. Each “thing” might also be broken down into further discrete elements, which together describe the entire scope of the “parent” element. We continue this process of describing every element by means of increasingly specific chunks, until we have a series of elements that can no longer be subdivided.
For example, consider a bicycle. We might break a bicycle up into component parts that together make up the whole: frame; wheels; crankset; brake system; integration. (Notice that “integration” is not a physical thing, but a representation of the work required to make all of the individual elements work together.) We might break “frame” up into further elements: frame; handlebars; seat post; fork. You get the picture.
The lowest elements (or terminal elements) in a WBS—those elements that can no longer be subdivided—represent those tasks, materials, processes, etc. that can be estimated in terms of cost, resource requirements, and time required. Terminal elements, then, are those tasks, materials, or processes which can be scheduled—they require a specific set of resources, take a known (or reasonably estimated) duration, and cost a known (or reasonably estimated) amount of money to complete.
Most of us who work as technical directors do some of this already—often as part of the costing process, when we break a set design up into “units” (walls, platforms, flown flats, etc.); sometimes as we think about which carpenter can best complete a given task. However, without specifically generating a WBS and thinking in detail about the ways in which the set, and each unit, and each part of each unit, and each component of each part, etc. can be broken down into more specific and detailed elements, we miss the opportunity to fully understand how a set will work its way through the shop. (For example: I’ll give you a bright, shiny nickel for every technical director reading this right now who remembered to consider that they’d need work breakdown elements for “painting,” “applying trim,” and “installation” of particular units. I expect I won’t lose much money—and, each of those elements can be broken down still further as well!)
Generating a “true” WBS involves remembering a number of specific rules, of course. These include the 100% rule (the WBS must represent 100% of the scope of work required for the project); the mandate that all elements must be mutually exclusive (no two elements can overlap in their description of the scope of a project); and the rule that the WBS should be outcome-driven, not action-driven (elements should not be “tasks,” such as “mortise toggles,” but “outcomes,” such as “assembled frame”). Any good text on project management should include guidelines and assistance in generating a WBS, and it’s well worth the investment in time and money to pick one (or many) up and read through them. (Consider Project Management for Dummies, to start with—don’t let the title keep you away.)
The WBS, in and of itself, provides a good visual representation of the overall scope of a project, and the amount of work required to complete it (though it doesn’t quantify time at all) However, it is only marginally useful when compared to its derivates, the PERT chart, the critical path method, and the Gantt chart. Tune in next week for more on the first of these, the PERT chart.