Project Scheduling
Managing a project is no easy task. A project is a series of tasks or jobs that are related to each other and directed toward a common goal or output. Projects usually require a significant time commitment, and tend to be handled by groups of workers. The employees at Craft Construction, a small business that deals with complete remodeling and some small commercial buildings, generally divide into groups of two or three workers per project. The number of employees assigned to a job usually depends on the size of the project. For each project, a project manager and a lead carpenter are assigned to handle most of the work. Project scheduling is different for every job. Smaller jobs require less planning because there is not as much that goes into them. Larger projects that may take months or years tend to be more involved, and therefore require more planning. These jobs tend to have more unseen problems which lead to rescheduling and incurring more costs. Mr. Kevin Hollmann, an employee of Craft, believes that the smaller projects are the ones where more money can be made. He said this because the time necessary for planning is much less and, overall, the time on the project is less, which keeps labor costs low. This allows for a bigger profit for the company.
Businesses that allow poorly planned projects to proceed are only wasting resources and placing their employees in danger. Projects can fail for a number of reasons, but the main one is insufficient planning. Planning is essential for project scheduling. It is believed that the process of planning is more important than the resulting plan. Projects involve coordinating resources such as labor, materials, equipment, and many other things, so that everything can be done at the proper time, allowing the task to be completed on time. Before any work can occur, and before any scheduling can occur, planning must be done. One tool that assists management in planning and budgeting is the work breakdown structure. This can be described as a hierarchy of tasks or jobs to be done. The work breakdown structure defines the scope of work, identifies what specific tasks need to be done, and assigns responsibility to individuals or subunits. The work breakdown structure facilitates the planning process, especially when dealing with larger jobs.
The project manager at Craft Construction is us...
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... better and more quickly adjust and possibly even prevent the problem from ever happening.
Project scheduling has many uses. It is not only a means to identify what needs to occur, but to provide input, feedback, direction and control. The success or failure of a company might often depend on project scheduling. Project management can only be successful with the full support of top management and all those who use the system. Without the proper support, not even the best system can succeed.
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In every project there are always some universal characteristics that will be shared. They all have a comprehensible and established purpose and very distinct life durations. Overall, all projects are doing something that may possibly be new or yet a one time endeavor but have explicit requirements which include; time, price, and performan...
The project management is a skill to apply the functions correctly which measures the outcome of the project, the more the skill the nice the outcome will be. This comes through experience and having a proper knowledge of some of the functions like
Time-phased project work is the basis for project cost control. Work package duration is used to develop the project network. Further, the time-phased budgets for work packages are timetabled to establish fiscal measures for each phase throughout the project. The time-phased budgets are to emulate the real cash needs of the budget, which will be used for project cost control. This information is useful to estimate cash outflows. The project manager's attention is on when the costs are to occur, when the budgeted cost is earned, and when the actual cost materializes. This information is made up to measure project schedule and cost variances (Gray & Larson, 2005). The following are typical types of costs found in a project:
Projects developed by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) go through a planning process that includes the determination of the project’s schedule. To determine the schedule, highway construction projects are divided into several activities and the time management of these activities will define the project’s duration. In order to improve the productivity and facilitate the execution of the project, an effective planning is needed. An organized Work Breakdown Structure can enhance the project duration. However, there are certain unexpected and unavoidable factors, which can delay the project’s termination: (1) Conflicting Weather Conditions (2) Temperature, (3) Project’s location, and (4) Workers’ shifts.
A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. They are goal oriented, have a definite start and finish time, must be done within cost, schedule and quality parameters. Projects involve the coordinated undertaking of interrelated activities (Project Management: Achieving Competitive Advantage). According to Tom Peters, “Projects, rather than repetitive tasks, are now the basis for most value-added in business”. Based on this, it is clear that projects are of utmost importance to businesses in both the service and the manufacturing industries.
The projects in today’s world are given a lot of importance and it will continue to grow in the coming years. There are a lot of companies which do not have production, but all of them do have projects. There are a lot of books which have been published on which related to planning and managing the projects. The one of the most important one was published by the author Eli Goldratt in his book ‘Critical chain’. This book basically talks and shows how the application of theory of constraints in the field of project management. The novel is basically based on one of the MBA classes in America where a number of ideas are developed in discussions among the students and the lecturers. The lecturer is basically fighting for a tenure with the president of the university who expects a downturn in the executive MBA. The lecturer who teaches project management has a word with one the senior colleagues and project management was the right topic to teach. There were three students who were placed in the project management team of their company which manufactures electronic products. The students are enrolled in this MBA class along with other students, here they discover a new approach to project management which is known as the
“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind” a famous quote about our goal by Seneca. It is a metaphor about the achievement goal and objectives by good planning skills. One has to plan for what one wants to achieve and where one wants to go. One of the most important things is to have good planning, before taking any project the first think you should do is to create project plan. Planning can be defined as preparing a sequence of action to achieve specific goals and objectives. According to Kerzner (2009), “project planning is desirable that the project manager is involved from project conception through execution. It must be systematic, flexible to handle, closely disciplined through reviews and control and capable of accepting multi functional inputs (pg. 412)”. The importance of planning a project is to describe the work so that it will be easily identifiable to the project team member.
This traditional project management tool can provide many key benefits for Sabre because they have recently relied on a large modelling software package to help their company make flight schedules more profitable. When the WBS is used accurately,
Wideman, M., (1993). Project Management Case Study The Custom Woodworking Company - Woody 2000 Project. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.maxwideman.com/papers/woody2000/intro.htm. [Last Accessed 24 April 2014].
Project management is said to be completed within time when it completed within the “triple constraints”: cost, time and quality. And in a lot of causes, one them is sacrificed so as to meet the other two. Project managers prioritize which ones are the most important.
Project management creates a situation where the workers perform their duties and responsibilities in a structural and devoted manner. With much dedication and focus it is possible to use fewer workers to accomplish and execute a project. Allowing fewer workers to perform a project allows frees up possible persons to work other tasks. The increased efficiency of teams in their tasks is of a consequent meaning that the effectiveness of the organization as whole is increased as well (Larson, 2014). Doing this allows project management the ability to hold people accountable and this makes the workers much more efficient in their tasks than a slew of