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The Fine Art of Scheduling - The Format of Project Schedules - A Simple Example

May 19, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Scheduling, Project Management Best Practices

The Fine Art of Scheduling - The Format of Project Schedules - A Simple Example (#30 in the Hut A Project Management Primer)
By Nick Jenkins

Why the fine “art” of scheduling?

If it were a science then every project would be delivered on time!

This sadly is not the case. Overruns are so common that most people have no faith in project deadlines. In truth, the art of scheduling is based on experience and the more experience you have, the more accurate your schedule will be. However, you can still produce a good schedule by following some simple rules.

In the following example, a simple development project is shown which lists all of its major milestones. The usual cycle of design-develop-evaluate has been concatenated into a single “production phase” which starts on the 22nd of January and is finishes on the 1st of March.

Milestone Completion
Project starts 01-Jan
Complete scope and plan 10-Jan
Specify requirements 21-Jan
Production 1-Mar
Implementation 8-Mar
Review 15-Mar

This example is extremely simple and anything more than a one-person project would be unlikely to succeed using this method. The simplicity makes it easy to understand but as a control tool it is not very useful. The extreme high-level of the schedule means that the only indication a project team will have that a project is not on track is when it misses a major milestone. This could be embarrassing, if not terminal, for the project.

Also there is no contingency scheduled between tasks which could lead to complications or failure of the project to deliver on time. By assuming that everything will run to plan the project are leaving themselves very little room to manoeuvre should anything go wrong.

Next in the Hut A Project Management Primer:

The Fine Art of Scheduling - The Format of Project Schedules - A More Complicated Example

Previously in the Hut A Project Management Primer:

The Fine Art of Scheduling - The Format of Project Schedules - Milestones

Nick Jenkins is an IT manager with 10 years experience in software development, project management and software testing. He’s worked in various fields of IT development in Australia, Britain and the USA and occasionally he learned something along the way. Now he lives on the banks of the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia, and he publishes the odd guide to help aspiring IT professionals. Nick’s website can be found at www.nickjenkins.net.

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