What is Project Schedule?
Project timeline is an essential step of project scheduling.
Along with budget and resources, meeting deadlines is one of the criteria for the success of a project. However, creating a project schedule cannot be improvised: the stakes are high.
Therefore, the use of a project planning tool is a great help.
In this article, find out what project schedule is, why it's important, and how to make good use of it with a project management tool.
Project Timeline: What is It ?
Definition
💡 Synonym: project timeline
Project schedule is a visual tool representing a project. It provides visibility into tasks, deliverables, and dependencies.
This detailed plan specifies when the project will be delivered and how, striking the right balance between costs and resources.
Why Project Schedule Matters?
Project schedule provides a view of all the tasks and milestones needed to complete the project, arranged chronologically.
Thus, it offers a complete overview to understand the project as a whole.
Often represented as a Kanban board or Gantt chart, it also allows you to visualize the progress of the project.
Benefits of an Efficient Project Schedule
The project schedule is a moving document. Created at the beginning of the project, it evolves throughout its life cycle.
It notably makes it possible to estimate and anticipate the workload, thus facilitating the management of deadlines.
Keep Control over Project Management
All effective project management requires a project timeline because it helps estimate the time and complexity required to produce a project's deliverables.
In addition, the project schedule meets several objectives:
- articulate tasks within the project,
- facilitate resource management by providing a detailed real-time view,
- analyze the gaps and illustrate the different scenarios,
- anticipate costs and facilitate the management of invoicing schedules,
- meet the deadlines and expectations of the sponsor.
Enhanced Productivity
Project schedule improves visibility and smoothes task management. Each member has a precise vision of current and future tasks and is responsible to alert in case of bottlenecks.
Project schedule defines responsibilities, priorities, and dependencies to avoid bottlenecks or unrealistic demands. In addition, it improves teamwork by defining each member's role.
Project Schedule as Referrence
Project schedule serves as a reference at several levels: during the project and when it is completed.
A Reference During the Project
During the project execution, it is a reference tool for teams because it precisely defines the total duration of the project and each task.
As a result, it helps to maintain realistic expectations for both the operational team and project sponsors.
Past Project History
Once the project completed, its schedule serves as a history for future projects by establishing a realistic view of durations, dependencies and risks.
Thus, it is important to make a rigorous project schedule that can serve as a basis for the future. While adjustments are still needed, a project schedule template will save a lot of time.
Facilitated Communications
Promoting Transparency
Project timeline facilitates communication and collaboration.
By providing a clear visual representation of the project, it enables transparency that builds trust among teams.
Consolidated Data
Bringing all project data together on a single project planner makes operations more fluid. Thus, using comprehensive project planning software comes in handy.
Then, all you have to do is send your invoices in bulk, and schedule automatic reminders in case of unpaid invoices.
How to Present a Project Schedule?
Define Project's Context and Goals
Just like the writing process of an impactful activity report, defining your project schedule involves defining the mission's context. To do this, you can answer the questions: what, who, how, when?
In addition, the project must meet specific objectives. You can use the SMART method : specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound, to ensure that your goals are relevant.
Your job is then to organize all these steps in a logical way to define the timeline of the project.
Use a Target Fitted Visual Representation
Choosing a visual format that suits your message and your audience is essential.
Thanks to a tool like Stafiz, you will be able to centralize all the data and represent it in the most efficient way.
Two views are offered: the Kanban board or the Gantt chart. While each has different objectives, the two are complementary.
Using a Kanban
The Kanban view allows you to focus on tasks.
This intuitive and visual table allows you to quickly identify tasks and subtasks according to their priority, urgency, or deadline.
It is ideal for project team members who can easily identify their assignments and organize their work.
Gantt Project Schedule
The Gantt chart provides a more holistic view, quickly displaying the start and end date of each task.
This view also provides good visibility into dependencies.
This level of detail can be more difficult to grasp on an individual level, and to use as a schedule.
However, this diagram is highly effective in situating a project's progress. Thus, project managers can present it in meetings, and use it to continuously adapt the capacity planning.
Stafiz also offers financial and progress monitoring features, including the ability to accurately track time spent. The impact is twofold, both from a financial point of view and on meeting deadlines in order to maintain the roadmap established by your project schedule.
Share the Schedule with the Team
The impact of a project schedule will also depend on how it is shared.
Reportings based on precise analysis will help improve communication and therefore productivity.
At Stafiz, we are aware of these challenges and offer dedicated features, such as the ability to create progress reports. Shared with the whole team, they motivate and empower employees.
Updating the Project Timeline
A project schedule is subjected to change. Stafiz offers landing adjustment features to meet this type of need. In addition, automations that allow schedule changes to be passed on to resources are a great help.
Forget Excel to make your project schedule! You need advanced features to account for and replicate variations or unforeseen events in each of the components of a project, such as:
- time granularity (in hours, day, week, month, phase),
- grouping tasks by employee and teams,
- synchronization between resource planning and project financial management,
- Flexible schedule adaptation (from projects or employee load).
Using a project planning tool like Stafiz will not only allow you to gather all the information in one place, but also to anticipate through scenarios and react as quickly as possible with real-time visibility.
Stafiz helps you to remain flexible in the event of changes in priorities to lead to project success
Questions:
In project management, the term project schedule tends to be used synonymously with project planning. It then encompasses the deadlines, tasks, responsibilities, dependencies, and resources needed for the project.
In contrast, in the strict sense, the project schedule refers only to what relates to deadlines and schedules.
The purpose of the project schedule is to allow the project to run smoothly. It helps improve productivity, serves as a reference for the project team, and helps improve communication and collaboration.
