“The idea is making decisions and acting on them — to decide what is most important, to decide how something can be done best, to find the time to do it, and to get it done.
— Karen Kakascik
The first thing you should focus on as a project manager is driving the project to success. To ensure that this happens, the most important thing to do is to make sure that the project is delivered on time.
Analyzing the failures of past projects will reveal that the most common reason for failure is “Project not delivered in time”. Define Activities2. Define activities2. Identify dependencies and sequence activities Get proper & correct Effort Estimates4. Based on estimates, create an effective schedule Schedule Monitoring and Control
1. Define Activities: Once we have defined the scope of work, we must break it down into smaller units (WBS) and further into activities that include details. This WBS is the basis for all work tracking and allocation. For the same, Activity List and Activity Attributes must be maintained.
2. Sequence Activities: Identify dependencies and prepone (Lead),/postpone(Lag) certain activities as necessary. Activities need to be sequenced. Estimate the effort: Each activity must be evaluated and the effort or duration required to complete it must be estimated. There are many estimation methods that can be used to estimate the effort for each activity.
4. Create a Schedule: From the output of the previous 3, create an effective schedule using the network diagram. Once the draft has been created, we must make it more realistic and precise by using resource optimization and schedule compression techniques as necessary.
5. Control Schedule: Once the final schedule has been created, it is important to make sure that everything is on track. To bring the project back on track, we can use schedule compression techniques (fast tracking, Crashing, etc.) if we are running behind schedule at any time.