A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned project takes only twice as long.One of the primary features that distinguish project management from general management is the special attention to scheduling.A project scheduling is done with the help of information, individual work items called tasks required to complete the project and resources such as people, equipment and material to complete those tasks. The project’s schedule shows the list of project’s elements with intended start and finish dates. The project manager estimates efforts for each task and prepares a list of resources available for the tasks. He is required to understand the dependencies, resource allocation, critical paths and Gantt charts for a project to be successful.
Resources could be computer resources such as shared computer room, mainframe or server time, locations such as training rooms, temporary office space, services such as time from contractors, trainers or a support team and special equipment temporarily acquired for the completion of the project. One or more resources are allocated each task and in turn each task is assigned to people who will perform it. Once a task is assigned to a team, that team’s members are not available for other tasks until the earlier task is completed. Certain tasks can be performed only by the specified team. In case the team is not available, the task has to be postponed. |
