TABLE OF CONTENTS The aim of this chapter is to give an understanding of what a plan is and some practical guidance on how your schedule may be created and statused during the life of a project.
Planning and scheduling software enables the user to:
Enter the breakdown structure of the project deliverables or products into the software. This is often called a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) or Product Breakdown Structure (PBS),
Break a project down into the work required to create the deliverables and enter these into the software as Activities under the appropriate WBS,
Assign durations, constraints, predecessors and successors of the activities and then calculate the start and finish date of all the activities,
Assign resources and/or costs, which represent people, equipment or materials, to the activities and calculate the project resource requirements and/or cash flow,
Optimize the project plan,
Set Baseline Dates and Budgets to compare progress against,
Use the plan to approve the commencement of work,
Record the actual progress of activities and compare the progress against the Baseline and amend the plan when required, allowing for scope changes, etc.,
Record the consumption of resources and/or costs and re-estimate the resources and/or costs 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 |
