Chapter 7. Scheduling
7.0 Learning Objectives & Overview
Learning Objectives
- Describe the process to create a project schedule.
- Define activities based on Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
- Describe how activities can be sequenced.
- Elaborate on the techniques to estimate activity duration.
- Create a network diagram by identifying the early start and early finish times, late start and late finish times, floats (slacks), and the critical path.
- Practice on Microsoft Project to create a Gantt Chart and an Activity Network Diagram.
Overview
The project schedule is one of the triple project constraints besides scope and cost (budget). A project manager is responsible for planning, developing, managing, monitoring, and controlling the project schedule to ensure that project objectives can be achieved, and project outcomes can be delivered to the client and customers on time. Effective schedule management is integral to overall project success. The objective is to create a schedule that effectively and efficiently uses allocated resources to complete the project in the shortest amount of time possible. In order to develop a schedule, we first need to create a plan that will guide us during the project. Afterward, we should define the activities based on the WBS, sequence them in the right order, estimate the time it will take to complete these activities, and develop a schedule by creating a network diagram and Gantt chart.
