Planning how you will tackle schedule management is the first step in project schedule management. Planning the schedule management is how the schedule will be managed during the lifetime of the project and includes:
Project schedule model development includes the estimated duration of project activates and other planning information that will help the project schedule formation.
Level of accuracy and unit of measure is how accurate the estimates of project activates are what measurement of time they should be measured in.
Control thresholds monitor schedule performance.
Rules of performance measurement outline how to measure the performance towards project completion.
Reporting formats is how to format the schedule and how often schedule reports are made for the project.
Process description describes how all of the processes of schedule management will be carried out.
After you finished planning the schedule, you then have to list out the tasks and activates that will go towards the completion of the project. These are activities that both the project team members as well as the stakeholders must perform in order for the project to be able to produce an deliverable. List the activities in a activity list that includes the activity name, an identifier for the activity, and describe briefly what the activity is about.
When all of the activities that are required to complete the project are listed, the next step is to determine the sequencing of each activity and what activity is dependent on another. Determining an activity's dependency can help determine which activates need to be completed before another one can start, which ones can be done in parallel with another, whether you have the resources to start that activity, or any constants that keep you from starting the next activity. A network diagram can help sequence activities and the relationships between those activities as well as the duration of those activities.
After the activates needed to complete the project are defined and their dependency, the next step is to figure out how long it will take each project to finish. When creating the estimated time, consider the duration and effort. Effort is the amount of time required to complete the activity. Duration is the amount of time that is required to complete the activity in addition to the elapsed time. When coming up with the estimates, those who are actually doing the activities should have the most say in the duration estimates. When an activity's duration cannot be calculated, reviewing similar projects or seeking expert advice can be useful. The estimates of activities should be updated if any changes were to occur during the project's lifetime as well as if the scope of the project changes.
Developing a schedule is the result of all the previous steps in project schedule management to determine the length and duration of the projects as well as its activates. The project schedule management steps can repeat before a schedule is finalized. This is to ensure that the project schedule is realistic and can monitor the project's progress.
Tools and techniques for developing a schedule include:
Gantt charts are useful for displaying project activates and their duration from start to finish in a graph as well as task dependencies.
Critical path is the longest path determined by adding all the duration of each activity of a path in a network diagram. This estimates how long the project will take to finish.
Critical chain is a management philosophy that considers the project schedule like a chain. It determines the weakest link, or identifies the constraints in a project, and assigns buffers to them to ensure the project's completion date.
PERT can help point out schedule risks involved in project activity duration.
The final step in project schedule management is controlling the schedule. Controlling the schedule means to know about the status of the schedule, influence any of the factors that can cause a schedule to change, determine if a schedule had changed, and to manage the schedule when changes happen. There are many issues that arise when controlling changes in the project schedule. Ensure that the project schedule is realistic and ensure that the project schedules are being followed and being met by using leadership and discipline. Preforming reality checks can help manages any changes that can come up during a project's lifetime.