Lesson 5: Project Scheduling

What is a schedule?

A schedule is the conversion of the project's action plan into an operating timetable. This is a major tool for managing, monitoring, and controlling the entire project. There are 2 types of networking techniques:

-PERT: Program Evaluation and Review Techniquesction plan into an operating timetable. Having a schedule is an essential tool for any project as it can help in managing, monitoring, or controlling the entire project. There are 2 types of networking techniques:

-PERT: Program Evaluation and Rebiew Techniques

-CPM: Critical Path method

Both are interchangeable and usually cobined with each other.

Terms used in scheduling

1. Activity: These are all the tasks that use time and resources. This is the most common type of task.

2. Event: They only identify an end of state so therefore they don't use up resources or time.

3. Network: The combination of all activities and events and their relationship with each other.

4. Path: Series of activities between any 2 events in a network.

5. Critical: used to describe activities, events, or paths that if delayed will have an effect on the project's completion date.

Representing Networks

There are 2 types of diagrams that can be used to represent networks. The choice between these two methods comes from personal preferences.

1. Activity on Arrow (AOA) Networks use arrows to represent activities while nodes stand for events.

2. Activity on Node (AON) Activities are represented by boxes and arrows the relationship between them. This diagram has the advantage that it can show different types of dependencies (This is the method used in most project management software so we focused more on this one)

Network Analysis

How to predict project duration?

There is a technique that can predict the total project duration and it is called the critical path method which shows the longest path in a network diagram.

Develop a project network diagram and add all activities on each path through the diagram. The longest path or the one that has more days is the critical path.

Forward Pass

This is a method that allows us to find out the EST and EFT for each activity. This can be done by moving from left to right through the network between nodes and calculating their duration using the information we have available. This will allow finding the critical path in the diagram. Those activities in that path should receive most of the focus, as any delay on them can have a big impact on the duration of the project.

Backward path

This method allows us to calculate the LST and LFT of the project by moving from right to left between the nodes.