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

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome
02 - What you need to know
03 - Showcase of project schedule
04 - How to use the exercise files

1. Understanding a Project Schedule

05 - Why do you need a schedule
06 - Schedules within the project life cycle
07 - Develop a schedule management plan

2. Identifying and Organizing Activities

08 - Determine the level of detail in your schedule
09 - Identify project activities
10 - Add milestones to your schedule
11 - Organize project work

3. Sequencing Activities

12 - Estimate duration and work
13 - Methods for estimating activities
14 - Put activities in order
15 - Handle lag in dependencies
16 - Problems with start-to-start dependencies
17 - Best practices for sequencing activities

4. Assigning Resources to Tasks

18 - Plan resources at a high level
19 - Procure resources
20 - Define resources in your schedule
21 - Balance resource assignment variables
22 - Keep an assignment variable fixed
23 - Assign resources to activities
24 - Replace generic resources with people
25 - Working with part-time workers and teams
26 - Working with remote teams

5. Fine-Tuning Assignments

27 - What is the critical path
28 - Determine the critical path
29 - Put the critical path to work
30 - Too many or too few critical tasks
31 - Lengthen, delay, or split assignments
32 - Adjust the level of work over time
33 - Replace overallocated resources

6. Optimizing Schedules

34 - Include schedule contingency time
35 - Baseline the schedule

7. Managing Schedules

36 - Proactively manage a schedule
37 - Update progress in the schedule
38 - Find schedule problems
39 - Fast-track to shorten a schedule
40 - Pay more to shorten a schedule
41 - Change the schedule to reduce cost
42 - Reduce scope
43 - Improve schedules

Conclusion

44 - Next steps