Scheduling Techniques & Project Management

One of the big problems faced by students is to get the timing of the AS project right. A few students each year fail to work hard in the early stages, and end up underpressure trying to catch up. Similiar problems occur in industry and ICT professionals have to find means of dilivering thier wortk on time. This process is part of PRoject Management. Project management is the process by which a proposed project is developed within a rigorous framework. 'Project scheduling', that is the process by which the various activities that need to be undertaken during a projects lifetime should be scheduled. There are a range of activity management tools that are commercially available. but your concern is to plan what is proably your first project.

Project Scheduling

Project scheduling is concerned with the techniques that can be employed to manage the activities that need to be undertaken during the development of a project.

Scheduling is carried out in advance of the project commencing and involves:

• identifying the tasks that need to be carried out;
• estimating how long they will take;
• allocating resources (mainly personnel);
• scheduling when the tasks will occur.

Once the project is underway control needs to be exerted to ensure that the plan continues to represent the best prediction of what will occur in the future:

• based on what occurs during the development;
• often necessitates revision of the plan.

Effective project planning will help to ensure that the systems are delivered:

• within cost;
• within the time constraint;
• to a specific standard of quality.

One project scheduling techniques will be presented, in these notes, the Milestone Chart (or Gantt Chart).

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