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PM Unit 5 - MBA - 3
PM Unit 5 - MBA - 3
When projects fall behind schedule or go over budget, it impacts the success and
growth of your business. Some factors are out of anyone’s control, but developing an
accurate project schedule is something every organization can and should prioritize.
Project scheduling keeps team members aligned on key project details like tasks to be
completed, deadlines, the scope of the project, costs, and more.
Project schedules are broken down into tasks and milestones. The schedule should
also identify all necessary resources needed to complete the project and set a timeline
for completion. Realistic constraints and dependencies must be considered during these
steps, each of which is critical for cost management purposes.
Without a project schedule, your team won’t know what they’re expected to do or when
they’re expected to do it. Scheduling keeps everyone aligned and moving towards the
project’s goal quickly by eliminating ambiguity. When employees can transition quickly
from one task to the next and pass on their work to the next team member as needed,
projects get done on time and under budget.
There’s nothing worse than getting halfway through a project and encountering an
unexpected obstacle. Beyond the additional expense and time it takes to overcome the
new challenge, there’s the risk that you may need to rework part of the project you’ve
already completed. Building a robust schedule in advance helps you identify potential
problems and plan for them before they derail your project.
You need to know with certainty what resources you’ll need to finish a project
successfully, from budgets to materials to labor and equipment. A detailed project
schedule helps ensure that you haven’t missed any necessary steps and that you know
exactly what you’ll need to complete the project when you expect.
Each of these benefits leads to further positive outcomes for your business. For
example, when your organization empowers team members with visibility into project
goals and the tools they need to succeed, they’ll be even more motivated to accomplish
their tasks. Motivated, engaged employees are one of the most valuable assets any
company can have, and they serve as examples for everyone at your organization to
follow.
Gantt charts. A Gantt chart breaks down the project schedule in bar chart
fashion, with the bars representing the timeline in which each task should begin
and be completed. Dates typically run along the x-axis and milestones/tasks run
along the y-axis.
Task lists. Task lists do not use graphics, but they’re a simple, clean format in
which to view a project schedule.
Calendars. Calendars serve as a familiar way for team members to view task
start and finish dates while also providing them with an easy way to visualize the
entire project timeline.
If you completed project planning in the form of a work breakdown structure prior to
beginning the project scheduling process, it will come in handy during this step. Take
the framework you built for the project and define the tasks and milestones necessary to
get the work done. While you don’t want to spend time laying out the steps of every
workflow involved when building your schedule, you need to be granular enough to
separate out each task to ensure your timeline is accurate.
Once you’ve determined which tasks and milestones are necessary to complete the
project, you need to get them in the right order. Certain tasks may be dependent on the
completion of previous tasks. If a dependency is not accounted for during this step,
other team members will have to wait to complete their tasks, impacting the timeline.
Even if there are no dependencies, team members need to know when they’re expected
to accomplish specific tasks.
The critical path refers to the longest sequence of tasks that must be completed on time
to avoid delaying the entire schedule. A delay to any one of these tasks will push back
project completion by the same amount of time. Accurately defining the critical path
ensures you know what tasks must be completed when to keep the project on schedule.
It’s necessary to account for the dependencies identified above when defining the
critical path. You should also consult with the team members who will be completing the
relevant tasks.
4. Allocate Necessary Resources
5. Build a Timeline
You’re now ready to build out your timeline with solid dates for each part of the project.
Your timeline should reflect the critical path and sequences you laid out above to
accommodate any constraints or dependencies identified. And don’t forget to account
for weekends, team members’ scheduled time off, holidays, and other factors that might
impact available work hours. While you can expect your schedule to evolve due to
scope changes, unexpected variation in productivity, and other potential issues, you’ll
want to make sure it’s as accurate as possible to begin with.
You’ve completed your schedule and the project is underway. Hiccups and unforeseen
issues are bound to occur, so you should track the progress of each task and milestone.
If it appears adjustments to your schedule are needed, make them quickly to keep
everything on track. Establishing good project controls is key here so you can maintain
the integrity of your schedule even in the face of significant problems.
Thankfully, EcoSys is an enterprise project performance platform that can help alleviate
the stress of project scheduling by providing tools for better efficiency, predictability, and
control. EcoSys lets you build schedules for projects of any size and provides complete
visibility into project progress and performance thanks to powerful integration with your
other scheduling systems. EcoSys also sets itself apart with native integration between
scheduling and other critical project processes. Your organization can then easily
leverage scheduling information across the entire enterprise for resource management,
estimating and budgeting, progress measurement and forecasting, cost control, risk
management, and more.