5 Inputs Of Develop Project Schedule
In my previous articles, I have talked about some of the input that you need when you are planning a project schedule and proposed duration for your project. In this article, I want to look at some of the inputs to develop a project schedule for projects. Follow me as we look at this together in this article.
#1 Project Management plan
One of the tools that you need to develop your project schedule is your project management plan. You will need to gather some of your plan documents that relate to project duration in order to determine how long it will take to finish your project.
The first major document that you will need is your schedule management plan. This document talks about how you intend to plan your schedule, the scheduling method that you are planning to use, as well as the tools that you will use to calculate the overall schedule for your project.
Schedule baseline is another project management plan document that is needed in order to develop a project schedule. It talks about the minimum schedule parameters that are needed for a project. As part of the scope baseline, we have documents such as scope statement, WBS, WBS Dictionary among others. The WBS dictionary have details about the project deliverables that are considered when building the schedule model.
#2 Project documents
Project documents that can be considered as inputs to a project schedule include:
Activity attributes: The activity attributes provide the details that are used to build the schedule model for the project.
Activity list: The activity list as part of the document identifies the activities that will be included in the schedule model for the project.
Assumption log: Assumptions and constraints recorded in the assumption log may give rise to individual project risk that may impact the project schedule for the project.
Basis of estimates: This is the amount and type of additional details supporting the duration estimate which varies by application area. Regardless of the level of detail, the supporting documentation should provide a clear and complete understanding of how the duration estimate was derived.
Duration estimates: The duration estimates contain the quantitative assessments of the likely number of work periods that will be required to complete an activity. This will be used to calculate the schedule.
Lesson learned: Lesson learned earlier in the project with regard to developing the schedule model can be applied to later phases in the project to improve the validity of the schedule model.
Milestone list: The milestone list has scheduled dates for a specific milestone. This will guide team members to achieve the deadlines that they have set for the project at the end of the project.
Project Schedule Network Diagrams: The Project Schedule Network Diagrams contains the logical relationships of predecessors and successors that will be used to calculate the schedule.
Project team assignments: The project team assignments specify which resources are assigned to each activity. it will show whether the resources will be enough in order to achieve the overall goals and duration of the project.
Resource calendars: The resource calendars contain information on the availability of resources during the project. It also shows some of the important dates that some of your resources will not be available. This will allow you to planned these dates as part of the overall duration of your project.
Resource requirements: The activity resource requirements identify the types and quantities of resources required for each activity used to create the schedule model.
Risk Register: The risk register provides the details of all identified risks, and their characteristics, that affect the schedule model. Risk information relevant to the schedule is reflected in schedule reserves using the expected or mean risk impact.
#3 Agreements
Vendors may have an input to the project schedule as they develop the details of how they will perform the project work to meet contractual commitments. The project manager has to consider all documents and agreements that were made when the various stakeholders decided to start the project in the first place.
#4 Enterprise Environmental Factors
I have talked about Enterprise Environmental Factors in many of my articles. I am not going to repeat that here. For developing a schedule, you will need to look at government or industry standards as well as the communication channels that you have set for your stakeholders.
#5 Organisational Process Assets
Just like EEF, I have talked about what Organisational Process Asset is in my previous articles. Part of the OPAs that you need to look at include scheduling methodology containing the policies governing schedule model development and maintenance as well as the project calendars that have been set for the project.
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