TABLE OF CONTENTS The aim of this chapter is to give you an understanding of what a plan is and some practical guidance on how your schedule may be created and statused as part of a project.
The project is essentially a set of operations or activities to be completed in logical order. A schedule is an attempt to model these operations and their relationships. These operations take time to accomplish and may employ resources that have limited availability.
Planning and scheduling software allows the user to:
Enter the Breakdown Structure of the Project(WBS or PBS) into the software,
Break a project down into activities that are entered into the software under the appropriate WBS or PBS,
Assign durations, constraints, predecessors and successors of the activities and then calculate the start and finish date of all the activities,
Assign resources, which represent people, equipment or materials, to the activities and calculate the project resource requirements,
Set Target Dates and Budgets to compare progress against,
Record the actual progress of activities against the original plan and amend the plan when required,
Record the consumption of resources and re-estimate the resources required to finish the project, and
Produce management reports.
There are four modes or levels in which planning and scheduling software may be used.
| Planning | Tracking | |
|---|---|---|
| Without Resources | LEVEL 1 Planning without Resources | LEVEL 2 Tracking progress without Resources |
| With Resources | LEVEL 3 Planning with Resources | LEVEL 4 Tracking progress with Resources |
As the level increases, the...
