Project management

In project management, a schedule consists of a list of a project's terminal elements with intended start and finish dates. Terminal elements are the lowest element in a schedule, which is not further subdivided. Those items are often estimated in terms of resource requirements, budget and duration, linked by dependencies and scheduled. 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. In many industries, such as engineering and construction, the development and maintenance of the project schedule is the responsibility of a full time scheduler or team of schedulers, depending on the size of the project.

In order for a project schedule to be healthy, the following criteria must be met:-

• The schedule must be constantly (weekly works best) updated.
• The remaining effort must be appropriately distributed among team members

                        Project scheduling aims to predict the future, and it has to consider many uncertainties and assumptions. While it is not possible to know with certainty how long a project will take, there are techniques that can increase our likelihood of being close. If we are close in our planning and estimating, we can manage the project to achieve the schedule by accelerating some efforts or modifying approaches to meet required deadlines. It identifies and organizes project tasks into a sequence of events that create the project management plan. It continues to develop as the project moves forward, changes arise, risks come and go, and new risks are identified. The schedule essentially transforms the project from a vision to a time-based plan. Failure to meet schedule goals is most often due to unrealistic deadlines, passive project execution, unforeseen problems, or things overlooked in the plan.
Schedules also help us do the following:

• They provide a basis for us to monitor and control project activities.
• They help us determine how best to allocate resources so we can achieve the project goal.
• They help us assess how time delays will impact the project.
• We can figure out where excess resources are available to allocate to other projects.
• They provide a basis to help us track project progress.