Project Management Guide

One of the important activity of Project Management is the Project Scheduling. Success of the Project depends upon the Project Scheduling. Scheduling of the work can be done on monthly/weekly/daily basis – depending on the size of the project. Generally, it is done on weekly basis. If team is following agile methodology with sprints of 1 week, it might be done on daily basis.

During the starting of a Project, it is not possible to know in how much time project will be completed but it can be predicted by developing a good Project Schedule. During project planning many assumptions and uncertainties are considered.

So, some people believe that Project Scheduling is an Art rather than Science.

In a good project schedule all the tasks are organized in a specific sequence. An effective Project Schedule will be helpful to control all the Project Activities, also able to determine that how resources are efficiently used. Project Scheduling is mainly responsibility of the Project Manager. Project Schedule will define that when the required project starts and when it is expected to be completed and who will perform this work.

A successful project schedule requires proper estimation of the effort, definition of staffing needs and resource requirements, and the identification of work durations.

For making the good and effective project schedule following points must be considered:

1. Project Schedule is a part of Project Planning. So getting the good Project Schedule depends on the quality of project planning effort.
2. Make the sequence of all the schedule activities in a order in which they will be performed.
3. In Order to build to project schedule project must be decomposed into number of sub tasks known as schedule activities. So before making the project Schedule of whole project , it is necessary to get complete information about the sub tasks like how much time they take for completion, and which type of resources they required for completion. These sub tasks have a direct effect on the Project Schedule.
4. Control the Project Schedule by identifying, monitoring and influencing factors that cause the schedule change.
5. There are some method which are helpful for making the effective Project Scheduling like CPM (Critical Path Method), PERT ( Project Evaluation and Review Technique). Use these methods for getting effective Project Schedule.
6. While developing Project Schedule it is necessary that project manager will not have to put their input only. Input from functional manager, consultant and project team members must be considered throughout the schedule development process.
7. Any project can be broken down into a number of tasks that have to be performed. To prepare the project schedule, the project manager has to figure out what the tasks are, how long they will take, what resources they require, and in what order they should be done. Each of these elements has a direct bearing on the schedule.

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