Preparing Our Schedule

Preparing Our Schedule

Once we've estimated the time needed for each task, we can prepare our project schedule. We can then create a Gantt Chart to schedule activities and assign resources to our project; and to finalize milestones and deadlines.
We need to estimate time accurately if we're going to deliver our project on time and on budget. Without this skill, we won't know how long our project will take, and we won't be able to get commitment from the people required to help we achieve our objective.
More than this, we risk agreeing to impossibly short deadlines, with all of the stress, pain, and loss of credibility associated with this.
To estimate time effectively, follow this four-step process:

1. Understand what's required.
2. Prioritize activities and tasks.
3. Decide who we need to involve.
4. Do our estimates.

Resource Leveling:
Projects will often be confronted by time and organizational constraints that limit their ability to obtain human resources. Sometimes staff can be supplemented through temporary help from technical service agencies. When staffing requirements are identified and constraints are understood, work plans can sometimes be adjusted to fit requirements to available resources.
Resource scheduling is one of the greatest challenges for projects without access to large organizational or job-market resource pools. Project planning should address such issues as redundancy of critical resources, resource capacity, bench strength in vital areas, and contingency plans to handle departures of key personnel.
"Crashing" the Schedule:
Efforts to accelerate a project schedule are commonly grouped under the term "crashing" the schedule. Maybe this term was coined to suggest that there is always some price for driving a project to completion sooner than normal. There are a number of ways to improve the schedule when our boss says, I need it sooner!
1. Add people to the schedule. Additional staff must be added early in a project or they will slow it down while learning the ropes. If we add people, we may also need to add staff for supervision and coordination, so staffs are fully applied.
2. Improve productivity and work longer hours. A good team atmosphere with management support can help make this happen. Without positive nourishment of this process, we could lose our team to attrition.
3. Review schedule dependencies and look for opportunities to overlap tasks or make serial tasks concurrent or parallel activities. This requires greater coordination and sometimes involves increased risks which need to be managed carefully.
4. Review the project scope and remove or delay features or functionality from the project critical path.
5. Consider innovative approaches such as a different development methodology, alternative technologies, or out-sourcing options.