Project Scheduling in Project Management

What is Project Scheduling?

Project Scheduling is a planning activity that helps to decide which tasks would be taken up when according to its need and priority in the project.

Importance of Project Scheduling

• It helps to Identify all the tasks needed to complete the project.
• Break down large tasks into smaller activities.
• Determine the dependency among different activities.
• Establish most likely estimates for time durations.
• Allocate resources to activities.
• Plan the starting and ending dates of various activities.
• Determine the critical path which refers to the chain of activities determining the duration of the project.

Project Scheduling Techniques

We commonly use the following types of project scheduling techniques:

Gantt Chart

What is Gantt Chart?

• A Gantt chart is a special type of bar chart where each bar represents an activity.
• It is a form of bar chart in which bars are drawn along a timeline.
• Each bar of the chart consists of the unshaded and shaded parts.
• The length of each bar is proportional to the duration of time planned for the corresponding activity.
• It is named after its developer Henry Gantt.
• These charts are useful for resource allocation.

Project Evaluation and Review Technique(PERT) Chart

• Pert charts are a more sophisticated form of activity chart.
• It can be used to determine the probabilistic time for reaching various project milestones.
• These charts are like activity networks consisting of a network of boxes and arrows.
• The boxes represent activities and the arrows represent task dependencies.
• It is useful for monitoring the timely progress of activities.

Critical Path Method(CPM)

It is a network analysis technique used to predict the project duration by finding out which sequence of activities have scheduling flexibility. Here the project manager identifies critical activities of the project which constitute the critical path.

Steps in the CPM Techniques:

• Specify individual activities.
• Determine dependencies in those activities.
• Draw the network diagram.
• Estimate the completion time for each activity.
• Identify the critical path(which is the longest duration path through the network).

Advantages of CPM:

• It provides a realistic base for determining how to attend the objective.
• The activities and their outcomes can be conveniently shown as a network.
• It provides a dear and concise way of documenting the project plans to schedule.
• It facilitates the identification of a critical element of the project.
• Project duration can be determined which can be further used for cost optimization.

Disadvantages of CPM:

• CPM networks can be complex to identify and work with.
• It does not handle the scheduling of personal and other resources.
• Estimating the completion time of all the activities is not simple always.