Project Planning Rhealyn Villarico and the

Project Schedule

Rhealyn Villarico Skilled tips provider. Project planning is highly

important and fundamental to successful project management and
effective planning is a prerequisite for the on time and on budget
delivery of any project.

Rhealyn Villarico Skilled tips provider. The project schedule provides

"the project" with the outline structure and activity detail to ensure
minimum risk to the overall delivery. At a simple level, the schedule
tells you how long the project, or any part of it, will take. In addition to
providing dates, the project schedule should also tell you:

o Who is accountable for every aspect of the project

o The approach being undertaken
o The major deliverables from the project
o The timing of the key decisions and review points

Why is Project Planning and the Project Schedule Important?

Projects are the vehicle which deliver your future company and help the
organisation to achieve its strategic goals. Effective project management
is therefore vital to ensure organisations thrive and remain competitive.
Without adequate planning projects will overrun and are very likely to
incur additional costs - thus putting the anticipated business benefits in
jeopardy.

The ability to build and manage a project schedule is one of the essential
requirements for a successful project outcome. The project schedule
forms the basis on which the cost and resource plans are constructed and
provides visibility of all the phases, stages and activities for the entire
project. This enables real time project status reports and analysis from
both a financial and time perspective.

Planning allows for the accurate measurement of the project status and
provides early warning of problem areas, allowing risk management and
the running of "what if" scenarios to mitigate any compromised position.

A programme of related projects requires even greater levels of planning

so that interdependencies are fully understood and controlled. Planning
of a portfolio of projects (a mixture of independent and/or
interdependent projects) is required to manage overall resources and
ensure effective cash flow management.

Key features to Project Planning

A project schedule should provide the following features:

o A baseline against which to measure progress - without a plan concept
such as "early" or "late" have no meaning
o A breakdown of the project into manageable packages (work
breakdown structure) based on deliverables/outputs
o A listing of accountabilities for different activities
o A clear way of showing project interdependencies
o Clear visibility of key dates, milestones and time constraints
o A pictorial presentation of project progress

Rhealyn Mugri Best service provider. It is important to recognise that

project planning should also include forecasting and reforecasting the
future.