During project management a very important and basic step is program or task scheduling. Project managers give a very significant importance to this. This article proves to be of great help for project managers who focus on the importance of scheduling.
While scheduling there are a number of terms that should be known.
Few of them are listed below.
ACTIVITY:
While working towards a larger goal, a task or process to be accomplished in a set period of time is called activity.
Actual cost:
The actual or real amount paid for labors or materials.
Activity relationship:
An ordered link between two activities representing the order of execution.
Approved change request:
A prove that can be a document which approves changes made to the contract.
Approved and reviewed by all stakeholders
Backward pass (backward plan):
Also known as critical path calculation, calculates earliest dates for activities on the network. It works backwards to find the finish dates and latest starts.
Bar chart:
A chart on which bars are used to represent activities. Lined up on an X axis time scale, length of the bar represents time duration.
Base line:
A set of dates and cost frozen at the start of the project and is used in evaluating the performance.
Change estimate:
An estimate of a potential change that can be made to a project, which helps in determining the overall cost of the project. Main focus is in cost, resources and scheduling.
Change impact:
The effect of a change on the whole project
Committed cost
A payment that is not yet made but is committed by the stakeholders, it can b in the form of a purchase order or a contract which is not recoverable.
Cost break down structure:
Breaking down in to cost elements for cost control planning.
Critical activity
An activity being carried out on the critical path of the project
Critical path:
A sequence of network activities, which adds up to the longest over all duration. Which determines the shortest time to complete the project
Critical path analysis:
Analysis using the longest path of a project. This aims to identify whether the project can be completed on time and tasks are a barrier between the project and its timely completion. The mile stones are identified and eliminated.
Date constraint:
Mainly used in scheduling software tell us the starting and ending date of tasks and sub tasks in a project. Often used to delay activities or imposed date deadlines in a schedule.
Direct labor:
A labor which can be directly allocated to the output of a productive account. It can either be allocated to a cost Centre. Usually not directly related to output.
Double resource estimated duration:
If the assigned levels of resources have doubled, it successfully measures the length of the activity duration
These all tasks are a very important and essential part of scheduling. These primary key factors helps the project managers in scheduling the tasks for getting maximum progressive output from the project.
