Project Schedule Management

Course details

To manage a schedule, the project manager must know how the work is progressing compared to the master schedule and, if necessary, make changes to keep the project on time. The project schedule is the tool that communicates what work needs to be performed, which resources of the organization will perform the work and the timeframes in which that work needs to be performed. Tracking the schedule performance involves measuring the work performed against the work expected to be performed with a given expenditure of resources. Periodic reporting on the progress of the project provides the project management team with information on how the project is performing against expectations and to make decisions and corrections. The project schedule should reflect all of the work associated with delivering the project on time. Without a full and complete schedule, the project manager will be unable to communicate the complete effort, in terms of cost and resources, necessary to deliver the project. Online project management software allows project managers to track project schedules, resources, budgets and project related assets in real time. The project schedule can be viewed and updated by team members associated with the project, keeping everyone well informed on the overall project status. Accurate measurement of schedule performance requires planning during the early stages of the project to determine the unit of measure and process for tracking progress. All major projects in today's market require a project schedule that is actively monitored.

We will be covering the following modules in this course:

-Background / Need for Project Schedule Management

-Effort / Schedule/ Cost Management

-Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) where we will study Create WBS, Decomposition, Examples of WBS

-Network diagrams - Arrow Diagramming method (ADM) and Precedence Diagramming method (PDM)

-Dependencies and Relationships

-Activity attributes, activity durations, resource requirements

-Critical Path Method

-Critical Chain Method

-Resource leveling

-What-if Scenario Analysis

-Schedule Compression Fast tracking and Crashing

-Determine Project Schedule

-Gantt Charts, Milestone charts, Project Schedule network diagrams

-Schedule Baseline, Cost Budget baseline

-Schedule Management using Microsoft Project

-Examples of various aspects of Schedule Management using Microsoft Project

-Microsoft Project Plan Examples from actual projects

-Some good Practices for Schedule Management