5 Tips to Reduce Scheduling Tool Headaches

Like a sharp knife for a chef, a scheduling tool is a must-have item for a project manager. Scheduling tools, like any technology, can help or hurt. Here are five tips for using your project scheduling tool with less drama. 

1. Use a template or copy a successful plan. Although projects are unique endeavours, they are rarely totally different from past projects. Use a project template or copy and modify a schedule from a successful past project. You can save time, leverage the success of these schedules, and capture tasks you might otherwise overlook. 
2. Keep task relationships simple. The straightforward finish-to-start task relationship works most of the time and it’s the easiest for people to understand. Use that simple relationship unless there is a pressing reason for start-to-start or finish-to-finish (or lag and lead time).
3. Customize calendar and hours/day defaults. The calendar settings you use need to match your organization’s and team member’s work schedules or your schedule won’t be accurate. Don’t forget to add holidays and other non-working days like factory maintenance periods to your project calendar. Also, consider adjusting the default hours per day or other calendar settings to reflect the actual project work time. While an 8-hour workday is common, team members rarely work 8 hours on your project tasks. Team meetings, other project and operational work is often required. You might change the hours per day to 6 or even lower based on your environment. Or you can assign people at less than full time to their tasks. Talk to your team members about what’s realistic.
4. Keep resource assignments simple. Managing and modifying resource assignments is a huge source of scheduling headaches. A best scheduling practice is to break down project work so tasks are shorter than your reporting periods and have one or two resources assigned. With tasks like these, it’s a lot easier to create resource assignments – and change them once work gets underway.
5. Train people to use the scheduling tool. Scheduling tools help you produce easy-to-understand reports. Sometimes, people believe they can modify your schedules or produce project reports without any training. That is a recipe for inaccurate reporting, expectation management issues, and a project manager migraine! Make sure everyone who will use the scheduling tool to maintain the schedule and produce reports is properly trained.

For more about scheduling and Microsoft Project, check out my Project Management Foundations: Scheduling course and Microsoft Project Essential Training course.