Schedule (project management)

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In project management, a schedule consists of a list of a project's terminal elements with intended start and finish dates.

A Gantt chart can provide a graphical representation of a project schedule.

Critical chain project management warns that terminal-element start dates and finish dates function as random variables, and suggests managing a project not by its traditional schedule but rather by using buffer management and a relay race mentality.

1 Creating a project schedule
2 Software
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Creating a project schedule

Before a project schedule can be created, a project manager should typically have a work breakdown structure (WBS), an effort estimate for each task, and a resource list with availability for each resource. If these are not yet available, it may be possible to create something that looks like a schedule, but it will essentially be a work of fiction. They can be created using a consensus-driven estimation method like Wideband Delphi. The reason for this is that a schedule itself is an estimate: each date in the schedule is estimated, and if those dates do not have the buy-in of the people who are going to do the work, the schedule will be inaccurate.

Many project scheduling software products exist which can do much of the tedious work of calculating the schedule automatically, and plenty of books and tutorials dedicated to teaching people how to use them. However, before a project manager can use these tools, he or she should understand the concepts behind the WBS, dependencies, resource allocation, critical paths, Gantt charts and earned value. These are the real keys to planning a successful project.

[edit] Software

The most popular tool for creating a small project schedule is Microsoft Project. The industry standard for logic driven dynamic scheduling is Primavera. There are also free and open source project scheduling tools available for most platforms which feature task lists, resource allocation, predecessors and Gantt charts.

Other project scheduling software packages include: