For the successful completion of any project, proper management strategies need to be followed. Whether it is software related or any other project under development, it is impossible to succeed without efficient project management strategies. Completing a project is not an individual task, many team members work together in different stages of development to get the final output. The project management process includes various stages which include gathering information, assigning work to staff, creating milestones, work schedules, and more. This article will be a perfect guide for beginners to understand the basic steps in project scheduling.
We can begin with the topic, what is project scheduling? Project scheduling is the assigned task of project managers where they create and share a plan on how to complete a project, by including start and finish dates, milestones, resources assigned and more. For managers, a project schedule is a well-structured timetable and is required while planning and executing a project.
Is the project plan and project schedule the same? Not exactly. Normally, a project plan is to define your project goals, scope, costs, and resources needed and it does not change once created. Whereas a project schedule is agile and dynamic, it changes and adapts depending on the flow of your project. Also, project planning involves choosing the right policies, strategies, and procedures for project development, and project scheduling means creating a perfect timetable for executing these plans by mentioning the beginning and deadline dates along with milestones.
Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and Sprints are important to project scheduling types. With these project scheduling methods, it is possible to simplify the communication between team & clients, helps to identify roadblocks earlier, ensure allocation of required resources, avoid future updates or changes that arise after the project launch and help to track project performance, progress, and costs.
Next, we can discuss different steps in project scheduling.
- Define the project - gather all information related to the project to get a complete understanding of what it is, how it can be implemented, what all resources are required, estimated time, etc… after discussion with the team.
- Break your project into achievable milestones
- Assign tasks to each milestone
- Estimate the time required for each task- set start and end date
- Consider resource availability and assign resources
