Create Achievable Schedules

  ProjectsAtWork  

Here are nine essential steps to create a realistic and attainable project schedule.

Producing your project’s results on schedule is an essential requirement for its success. To have the greatest chance of completing your project on time, you need to develop a project schedule that’s achievable, responsive to your client’s needs, and understood and supported by all project team members. In the newly updated Project Management for Dummies, 3rd Edition (Wiley Publishing, Inc., May 2010), author Stanley Portny, PMP, recommends taking the following nine steps to create a realistic and attainable project schedule:

1.       Identify all required activities.

2.       Break down activities into sufficient detail. For example, instead of including a single activity named “determine requirements for new product” in your schedule, break it down further into “review correspondence,” “interview salespeople,” “conduct focus groups,” and “prepare a report of the requirements for the new product.”

3.       Always consider both duration (the number of work periods required to perform an activity) and interdependencies (the order in which activities are performed) as you develop your project schedule.

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