Project Planning Online
Online Project Planning
Making use of the project scope, tasks and activities are decided upon. Using a work breakdown structure (WBS) durations are formulated for the lowest level of drill-down, the activity. The interrelationships between tasks and activities are also defined, called dependencies, which then drive the schedules. The resources required to perform each of the tasks and activities will then be estimated. Costs can be calculated for the schedule. Using a bottom up approach – attaching a cost to each activity, and subtotalling and totalling to generate an overall cost.
Introduction to Project Planning
Project Planning Online – Challenges
Traditionally the difficulties come when the schedule changes, which it is expected to. Changing a schedule with a number of dependencies, can often be a time consuming challenge, especially when tasks are mid-way through execution. Changing the schedule for an activity may affect the availability of a resource, or that resource may not be available at that time. Re-planning will then take place to correct these factors. Project planning online is no different – good online project planning software should allow you to easily change a schedule without much effort.
Project management generally has the challenge of communication. Information is not communicated at all to the stakeholders, or does not have enough information or is simply incorrect. Project planning online is no different, since the project team is possibly spread across cultures, languages, geography and time – a virtual team. Project planning online needs to be able to address and simplify these aspects of the planning process.
Projects with a schedule may then track their progress using techniques such as earned value management, which tracks the completed activities (through actual costs) against the planned ones (scheduled costs) to determine if a schedule is behind or ahead.
Project planning online should facilitate good project management integration, meaning changes in scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk or procurement should inform and update each of those areas appropriately. The cyclic nature of projects means that changes should be expected to occur quite regularly, project planning online should simplify this process. The tools should be very efficient at making changes, thereby encouraging the changes to be regularly integrated, and the project plan to be as close to real time as can be expected.
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