There are 10 knowledge areas of project management and Project Time Management is an important one. The first process of the PMP Time Management knowledge area is Plan Schedule Management process. In this article, we are going to explain Plan Schedule Management Process in detail.
A Brief Guide to Time Management Time management is the process of planning and controlling how much time to spend on specific activities. Good time management enables an individual to complete more in a shorter period of time, lowers stress, and leads to career success
Time is the one resource that we can't buy, but we often waste it or use it ineffectively. Scheduling helps you think about what you want to achieve in a day, week or month, and it keeps you on track to accomplish your goals. How to Schedule Your Time. Set a regular time to do your scheduling – at the start of every week or month, for example.
Scheduling is the process by which you plan how you'll use your time. Doing it well can maximize your effectiveness and reduce your stress levels. Follow this six-step process to prepare your schedule: Identify the time you have available.
Start by establishing the time you want to make available for your work.How much time you spend at work should reflect the design of your job and y...
Next, block in the actions you absolutely must take to do a good job. These will often be the things you are assessed against.For example, if you m...
Review your To-Do List, and schedule in high-priority and urgent activities, as well as essential maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated or avo...
Next, schedule some extra time to cope with contingencies and emergencies. Experience will tell you how much to allow – in general, the more unpred...
The space you have left in your planner is "discretionary time": time that is available to deliver your priorities and achieve your goals. Review y...
If, by the time you reach step five, you find that you have little or no discretionary time available, you need to go back through steps two, three...
Schedules change as projects evolve. You need to review and analyze your schedule often to see what is working and what needs modification. For example, If you find that you don’t have enough discretionary time and you keep moving tasks to next week’s calendar, you need to step back and review previous steps.
If you have any time left, that is your discretionary time, or time that is not assigned to a specific task or activity. This is personal time for reading emails, reviewing your schedule, preparing for a meeting, working through important but not urgent items, and so on.
If you are working on a project that involves a team, you may want to consult with team members to help you determine how much time it will take to finish individual tasks. You may want to try one of these estimation methods:
If you still don’t have enough discretionary time, you may need to renegotiate your workload, look for automation solutions, or maybe outsource some work.
It is a useful exercise that will help you to make sure that nothing is overlooked.
Using more words than necessary, Franklin is saying that missing a half day of work is the same as throwing away a half day’s wages. Similarly, taking a whole day to complete a four-hour job is the same as your employer throwing away a half day’s wages paying you for work you didn’t do. Learning how to build a schedule and effectively managing your ...
Stuff happens, and you need to schedule some white space for contingencies and emergencies. You may not initially know how much extra time you will need to schedule, but experience, consulting with others, and simple trial and error can help you determine how much time to add. The more unpredictable the project, the more contingency time you may need.
After considering the benefits of time management, let’s look at some ways to manage time effectively: 1. Set goals correctly. Set goals that are achievable and measurable. Use the SMART method when setting goals. In essence, make sure the goals you set are S pecific, M easurable, A ttainable, R elevant, and T imely. 2.
Setting time constraints for completing tasks helps you be more focused and efficient. Making the small extra effort to decide on how much time you need to allot for each task can also help you recognize potential problems before they arise. That way you can make plans for dealing with them.
Prioritize tasks based on importance and urgency. For example, look at your daily tasks and determine which are: 1 Important and urgent: Do these tasks right away. 2 Important but not urgent: Decide when to do these tasks. 3 Urgent but not important: Delegate these tasks if possible. 4 Not urgent and not important: Set these aside to do later.
Not urgent and not important: Set these aside to do later. 3. Set a time limit to complete a task. Setting time constraints for completing tasks helps you be more focused and efficient.
Utilize your calendar for more long-term time management. Write down the deadlines for projects, or for tasks that are part of completing the overall project. Think about which days might be best to dedicate to specific tasks. For example, you might need to plan a meeting to discuss cash flow on a day when you know the company CFO is available.
When doing a lot of tasks without a break, it is harder to stay focused and motivated. Allow some downtime between tasks to clear your head and refresh yourself. Consider grabbing a brief nap, going for a short walk, or meditating. 5. Organize yourself. Utilize your calendar for more long-term time management.
Let’s also consider the consequences of poor time management. 1. Poor workflow. The inability to plan ahead and stick to goals means poor efficiency. For example, if there are several important tasks to complete, an effective plan would be to complete related tasks together or sequentially.
Schedule the activities that address your priorities and personal goals in the time that remains.
Scheduling is the process by which you plan how you'll use your time. Doing it well can maximize your effectiveness and reduce your stress levels.
Follow this six-step process to prepare your schedule: 1 Identify the time you have available. 2 Block in the essential tasks you must carry out to succeed in your job. 3 Schedule high-priority urgent tasks and vital "housekeeping" activities. 4 Block in appropriate contingency time to handle unpredictable events and interruptions. 5 Schedule the activities that address your priorities and personal goals in the time that remains. 6 Analyze your activities to identify tasks that can be delegated, outsourced or cut altogether.
If you find that your discretionary time is still limited, then you may need to renegotiate your workload or ask for help . Use your newly prepared schedule as evidence of your heavy commitments. This demonstrates to your boss how well-organized you are, and might make him or her more receptive to your request!
Scheduling is the art of planning your activities so that you can achieve your goals and priorities in the time you have available. When it's done effectively, it helps you:
Faced with endless meetings, frequent interruptions, and urgent last-minute tasks, you can easily be busy all day without making any progress on high-priority projects and goals. That's why it's so important to know how to schedule your time properly.
There are a number of different tools to choose from. A simple and easy way to keep a schedule is to use a pen and paper, organizing your time using a weekly planner. (Click here for a free downloadable planner template to get started.)
Add in the variable of individual training, experience and aging of the workforce, planning and scheduling can become quite complex, with the added issue of production and operations departments that may not turn over equipment for maintenance. As a result, many planning and scheduling philosophies take the easy way out and over-schedule work.
Performing time and training studies in order to determine the time necessary to perform tasks and to determine optimal methods for performing the tasks; Development of best practices to match the optimal task methods. These should be created in terms of processes and may include times for actual steps;
However, the total man-hours benchmarked is the original 1:45 minutes. The analyst reviews the notes and observations and makes the following calculations:
The philosophy of WFC/DFM will have dramatic immediate impact when the ‘hanging fruit' maintenance opportunities are identified and improved first. However, most applications will have very dramatic results. It is also important to gage the required culture change as all new implementations will meet with resistance, especially in consideration of time studies and flow changes.
The analyst will have to determine which mix of personnel are selected for each of the time studies. This particular approach will also provide us with an estimation of the training gap time from each of the levels to the next, along with training and experience records for each level.
The idea is to break up a task into manageable chunks and determine the times for each step. The result of a time study can provide the following information:
It is also reviewed and determined that the lockout/tagout procedure only requires one maintenance personnel. The same review is given to the rest of the experience levels and the results are shown in Table 2.
Guidelines on how estimates should be stated must be in the schedule management plan. After activities are determined and resources are assigned, effort estimation takes place . And in order to ensure coherent estimation and reporting, units for estimations must be documented in the schedule management plan in Plan Schedule Management Process.
Plan Schedule Management process provides guidance and direction on how the project schedule will be managed throughout the project. Based on the information in the beginning of the project, in Plan Schedule Management Process, the activities are determined, resources that will be performing these activities are planned and durations of activities are estimated. Then, the overall project schedule is constituted. But, regardless of your project planning accuracy, project actual values will differ from the planned ones. And once there is a deviation in the project schedule, necessary corrective and preventive actions must be taken to get back on track. Plan Schedule Management process provides this guidance when necessary.
Variance thresholds must be included in the schedule management plan during Plan Schedule Management Process. Schedule performance index shows whether a project is behind the schedule or ahead of schedule. And variance threshold defines when there should be a corrective action taken.
Schedule baseline is critical during Plan Schedule Management Process. It helps to check whether the project is going as planned and whether the project deadline will be met. Therefore, schedule baseline is included in the schedule management plan.
If you are studying for PMP Certificate, one of the PMP exam requirements is enrolling in a PMP course to get your 35-hours of PMP education. In this training, you will learn about the knowledge areas and processes. There are 10 knowledge areas of project management and Project Time Management is an important one.
Creating the project schedule requires a planning as well. Determining project activities, assigning resources to activities, effort estimation, sequencing activities and finalizing the project schedule must be planned properly. And this is included in the schedule management plan.
Plan Schedule Management is the process of establishing the policies, procedures, and documentation for planning, developing, managing, executing and controlling the project schedule. In other words, plan schedule management process aims to ensure the timely completion of a project.
When determining the timing and degree of capacity change, one can use the approach of: expand early strategy.The wait-and-see strategy is simply a decision to delay making a decision.
Increasing capacity just before a bottleneck operation will improve the output of the process.
Increasing the effective capacity of a constraint is an example of overcoming the constraint. Capacity decisions are usually one-time decisions; once they have been made, we know the limits of our operations. False. A number of factors can either increase or reduce a unit's capacity over time.
Utilization is defined as the ratio of effective capacity to design capacity.
Capacity affects organizations' images. Capacity is a strategic decision that influences costs and the firm's ability to satisfy customers. Design capacity refers to the maximum output that can possibly be attained. True.
effective capacity. Effective capacity reflects the realities of the production environment.
Capacity planning requires an analysis of needs: what kind , how much, and when. True. Type, quantity, and timing are essential to capacity decisions. Maximum capacity refers to the upper limit of: rate of output.
A lot of time management is really about taking responsibility for your work - therefore you need to be realistic about it. Be aware of how much time you have and manage it effectively.
Try to follow it as best you can, but if you miss a planned study period, don't panic - look at the schedule, rearrange your time and make it up next time.
It's easy to procrastinate when you experience difficulties with an assignment, but putting off starting only means you will have less time to work on it. If you miss an assignment deadline, you will lose marks. So, if you think you need some assistance, ask for it. Remember, good time management includes good self-management. Talk to your tutor about difficult assignments, or visit services like The Learning Centre or The Counselling service. Don't put off seeking advice - the longer you wait, the more anxious you'll feel.
You can't produce well-researched and written work unless you give yourself enough time to think, research and write. Brilliant assignments are not produced the night before, so start them in good time.