If there's one part of project management that's bigger than all the rest, it's project scheduling. Since a project is defined as a temporary endeavor with a distinct beginning and end, defining when that end takes place and making sure it finishes on time are extremely important to any project, large or small. Professional project... [Read More]| ProjectEngineer
Once the tasks within the project have been defined, the resources required by each task must be determined. To do this, we consult the PMBOK's Estimate Activity Resources process. PMBOK, 5th Edition, Section 6.4, "Estimate Activity Resources" Estimate Activity Resources is the process of estimating the type and quantities of material, human resources, equipment, or... [Read More]| ProjectEngineer
After the project has been divided into tasks and resources assigned to those tasks, it's time to determine the task durations. This importance of this step should not be taken lightly, because these durations will be used to construct the project schedule. Just like the tiny o-rings that brought down the space shuttle Challenger, one... [Read More]| ProjectEngineer
Dividing the project into tasks (aka activities) is the first practical step in project scheduling. Small projects might have an obvious task breakdown. But we recommend learning this subject anyway because even a small problem with the task list, especially an omission, can be devastating after the project has been estimated and a full schedule... [Read More]| ProjectEngineer
In this step we will develop the most efficient schedule for the project. In its most basic form a project schedule is a list of tasks with assigned start and finish dates, therefore that is what we will accomplish on this tutorial page. It can also be a graphical bar chart produced with project management... [Read More]| ProjectEngineer
On the previous page we used a network diagram to determine the Early Start, Late Start, Early Finish and Late Finish of each task. On this page we will draw the schedule in graphical bar chart form, which is called a Gantt chart. Gantt Chart A horizontal bar chart which depicts a project schedule is... [Read More]| ProjectEngineer