Project Management Foundations: Schedules

Course details

Discover how to build project schedules that help you accomplish your project goals on time and within budget—while being flexible enough to accommodate change. In this course, trainer and PMP Bonnie Biafore teaches you how to proactively manage project schedules. Learn how to develop a plan for schedule management; identify activities and milestones; estimate costs; allocate and negotiate for resources; and manage the schedule over time. Bonnie introduces techniques to uncover and resolve schedule conflicts, shorten timeframes, and reduce costs. By the end of the course, you'll have learned the skills you need to meet stakeholder expectations and adapt to changes as they arise over the life of the project.

Note: This course aligns with best practices from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) - Sixth Edition, published by the Project Management Institute®.

Learning objectives
Developing a schedule management plan
Identifying project activities
Adding milestones
Organizing work
Estimating duration and work
Handling lag in dependencies
Defining resources
Assigning resources to activities
Working with part-time and remote workers
Fine-tuning assignments
Optimizing schedules
Managing and changing schedules

Concepts

Introduction

Welcome
What you need to know
Showcase of project schedule
How to use the exercise files

Understanding a Project Schedule

Why do you need a schedule
Schedules within the project life cycle
Develop a schedule management plan

Identifying and Organizing Activities

Determine the level of detail in your schedule
Identify project activities
Add milestones to your schedule
Organize project work

Sequencing Activities

Estimate duration and work
Methods for estimating activities
Put activities in order
Handle lag in dependencies
Problems with start-to-start dependencies
Best practices for sequencing activities

Assigning Resources to Tasks

Plan resources at a high level
Procure resources
Define resources in your schedule
Balance resource assignment variables
Keep an assignment variable fixed
Assign resources to activities
Replace generic resources with people
Working with part-time workers and teams
Working with remote teams

Fine-Tuning Assignments

What is the critical path
Determine the critical path
Put the critical path to work
Too many or too few critical tasks
Lengthen, delay, or split assignments
Adjust the level of work over time
Replace overallocated resources

Optimizing Schedules

Include schedule contingency time
Baseline the schedule

Managing Schedules

Proactively manage a schedule
Update progress in the schedule
Find schedule problems
Fast-track to shorten a schedule
Pay more to shorten a schedule
Change the schedule to reduce cost
Reduce scope
Improve schedules

Conclusion

Next steps