The Scenario: You have a plan and it looks good that the Project will finish successfully. The executive in charge of the budget kills plans at the first sign of anything negative. You need time in the plan to resolve issues before they impact the delivery criteria. The ethics of this is better than the last one.
Perform a risk analysis up front and pad the tasks in the schedule with a Management Reserve equal to the most likely risk
Run 2 levels of review meetings, 1 actual and one upper management. Handle the course corrections in the actual review and summarize progress in the Management Review
The use of a Management Reserve to handle risk is a common practice -- it is actually too common -- you cannot use it to overcome bad planning
There is justification for the Management Reserve, so much so that some PM’s will use Management Reserve in lieu of planning. This DOES NOT WORK!
Plan with Mgmt Reserve
Real Plan