Project Scheduling Tips – Part II
Project Scheduling Tips – Part II (#4 in the series Project Management Mistake – We Didn’t Have The Right Schedule)
By Lonnie Pacelli
- Make sure all your lowest level activities have a sole owner and are no longer than 40 hours in duration
- Break your project into phases that don’t exceed three schedule months
- Know the critical path of tasks through the project and keep clean finish-to-start dependencies between activities
- Make sure that your activities have associated deliverables that are relevant
- Ensure the team buys into the plan along the way; don’t do a grand reveal when the plan is complete.
- Remind and highlight team members of tasks needing to be completed within 1-2 weeks
Lonnie Pacelli is an internationally recognized project management and leadership author and consultant with over 20 years experience at Microsoft, Accenture and his own company, Leading on the Edge International. Read more about Lonnie, subscribe to his newsletter, see his books and articles, and get lots of free self-study seminars, webcasts and resources.
Lonnie’s ideas may work for small IT projects that don’t really need a plan. The recommendation for all projects is for the activity duration to be between 1 and 2 times the update cycle. On relatively stable major projects this could be as long as a couple of months. For more see Chapter 3 of the PMI Practice Standard for Scheduling. You can also download a stack of free scheduling resources (papers – not software) from http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/Planning.html