Project Planning and Scheduling

It plays a key role in directing the project to success. The structure can provide clear timelines, priorities, and milestones for you to track progress and measure success. In addition, it will be easier to make decisions, eliminate risks, and build healthy habits to manage time and energy better. 

Project planning and scheduling support a project to be transparent, meaning all the stakeholders will understand project goals, timelines, and responsibilities. It will lower the chance of any confusion and promote better teamwork. Most importantly, you can avoid conflict from happening in the middle of the process, which can disrupt the project’s timeline.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

What makes project planning and scheduling a success is the WBS. It breaks down the hierarchy of the project. This way, it divides the job into smaller and manageable tasks, making it easier to handle and define the total scope of the project. Moreover, here are the key points you need to know about WBS.

1. Structure and hierarchy – The overall work starts from the top level. Then, it becomes a major outcome for the lower management in the form of work packages. 
2. Scope management – Clarify the aim of the tasks and prevent scope creep.
3. Improves project planning and scheduling – You will have a better estimation of time, cost, and resources while keeping a realistic project schedule.
4. Accountability and responsibility – The hierarchy creates lower management or divisions to work on the tasks they are assigned. It is useful to keep track of progress and responsibilities.
5. Cost control – Creates cost estimation and manages budgets at different levels of the task.

Scheduling techniques 

Project planning and scheduling are actually different things. Planning is less accurate since it focuses on procedures and appropriate policies to achieve the objective. Meanwhile, scheduling is when you convert the plans into action, where you explain the time, budget, and other constraints in detail. There are several methods you can use for this, like:

• Bar Chart (Gantt Chart): A simple and easy-to-understand visual chart of tasks plotted against time.
• Critical Path Method: If you want to do complex project planning and scheduling, this method can help. It looks for the longest sequence of dependent tasks that shapes the duration of the task.
• Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT): In this method, you use probabilistic scheduling, applying three-time estimates (optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely). They can help to predict task duration.
• Line of balance: A graphical method that is ideal for repetitive work to handle resources across multiple repetitive tasks.
• Q Scheduling: It combines the quantity of work with scheduling and links specific locations to task progress.
• Last Planner System (LPS): This method of project planning and scheduling focuses on collaboration and short-term jobs.

The 5 stages of project planning

Since building needs a structural process, the process is divided into different phases called Project Lifecycle Phases. This is why using stages or phases is crucial in project planning and scheduling. The reason is that each phase stands for a specific stage where it needs a specific method of management and execution. The process involves five stages:

1. Initiation – Define the project at a high level and assess its feasibility.
2. Planning – Developing the timeline on how to do the project accordingly.
3. Execution – This step is where you apply all the project planning and scheduling you have made.
4. Monitoring and controlling – Tracking the performance and making adjustments to ensure the work stays on track and within scope.
5. Closing – This is where you finalise all the work and formally close the task with closure and evaluation.

Resource allocation and dependencies

In project planning and scheduling, it is important to pay attention to the resources. It is helpful to make sure the work is within the budget and timeline. Allocation is the process of assigning and managing the available supply to specific tasks or activities. This includes people, tools, materials, and budget. The purpose behind this is to give optimal use of resources and prevent bottlenecks in the process.

On the other hand, dependencies mean there is a relationship between tasks. What it means is that one activity relies on the start or completion of another one before it can begin and finish. There are four types of them: finish-to-start, start-to-start, finish-to-finish, and start-to-finish. This becomes the key to project planning and scheduling because it helps to sequence tasks, improve schedule accuracy, and manage risk.