Scheduling Your Project Effectively
A good schedule begins and ends with each activity tied together with in a logical sequence from start to finish. Building a schedule with inputs from the project team can get a bit cumbersome depending on the size of the project and how new the scope is to your experience. Balancing that scope with the timeline provided for completion will help the scheduler determine how many resources are needed, what work calendar to use (i.e. 5 days a week/8 hours a day, 6 days a week/10 hours a day, etc.), and verifying material deliveries in time for installation.
All these details are organized by the schedules WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) which helps organize all the activities in the schedule in a simple, intuitive way. This improves the readability of the schedule and allows other project team members that are not as familiar with reading schedules to look at the schedule and understand what is in front of them. The WBS can be as complex as the schedule builder or project team desires. Most times, there are templates to start with that allow the scheduler to have these created in advance and simply start adding relevant activities to start building the schedule. Moving the activities around within the schedule is easy once all the activities are there; and tying them together in logical steps allows for a waterfall approach to the completion of the work. .
Each project or activity can be categorized with codes that help with the organization of the schedule and further data to be analyzed. Marking activities with certain codes based on system, geography, and equipment are just a few examples of how you can combine relative features of activities to allow for filtering and further analysis. A well-organized and well designed schedule makes for simple updates and efficient communication because the larger the schedule, the more difficult it can be to find specific activities or sections to address.
In my personal experience, I have used Oracle’s Primavera P6 product for scheduling and am the most comfortable with that software. Microsoft Project is another common scheduling program that I have used and can offer support with. There is other internet software that may meet your needs depending on the project you are managing. Wrike is one that comes to mind, but I don’t have much experience with that software. I have been looking into it as a possible solution for some clients, and I’m working on learning it.
Have a question about scheduling? Drop me a question in the comments or reach out to me directly through my contact page. I’d be happy to assist you with any issue or problem you may need help with.