Project Schedule Management - Course Name - Semester Details

This document presents a comprehensive solution to a project schedule management assignment. It differentiates between project requirements and a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), emphasizing the WBS's importance in project management. The solution explores the use of WBS for efficient project planning and cost allocation, highlighting its role in tracking project schedules and facilitating communication. It identifies Gantt and PERT charts as essential tools for monitoring project schedules and discusses strategies for handling resource over-allocation. The assignment also examines the advantages and disadvantages of fast-tracking a project, providing insights into this time-saving technique. The solution is supported by references to key project management literature.

Running head: MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

1MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
Table of Contents
Differentiates a list of project requirements from a work breakdown structure (WBS).....2
What is the importance of developing a WBS to manage a project?..................................2
How does the WBS contribute to the success of a project?................................................3
Tools needed for monitoring the schedule...........................................................................3
How do you handle resource over allocation?.....................................................................4
What are the advantages and disadvantages of fast-tracking a project?..............................5
References............................................................................................................................6

2MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
Differentiates a list of project requirements from a work breakdown structure
(WBS)
Ans: A project requirement can be defined as a condition which defines how the project should
be completed to ensure that there is success. It merely provides a clear picture of the work that
needs to be done so that it can be aligned to the different project resources. The mere focus is on
the project resources with the different objectives of the firm (Kerzner, 2017). It can benefit
focus on gathering the project requirement which is inclusive of cost reduction, the high success
rate for project. Project requirement is mainly distinguished in between the two that is business
requirements, solution requirements and stakeholder requirements.
In the planning stage, WBS aims to occur before for the approval phase of the project. It
merely highlights scale of the project and its overall cost. The mere notion of WBS is all about
segmentation of project which is the cost. It is very much easy to put the work price and
materials on much small segments instead of project as a whole (Meredith, Mantel Jr & Shafer,
2017). WBS is the result of oriented tool where each of the section has a goal to achieve a
component which required for upper section.
What is the importance of developing a WBS to manage a project?
Ans: WBS will help the project manager to plan most of their work in much efficient way.
Project is generally defined by certain number of time-limited activities which has fixed time
frames and associated cost (Kerzner, 2017). If a project is completed, then it should meet the
different stakeholder needs which were expected to be addressed. The mere notion of WBS is all
about reducing different kind of complicated activities needed for collecting different task
(Schwalbe, 2015). It is important for project manager and he or she can overview the different

3MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
task in a much efficient way. As the task in WBS are measureable, the project manager can
easily assign some particular cost for each of the cost. WBS will help the project manager to
easily distribute the given project budget into a set of packages. WBS is known to be an
important process for tracking the overall project schedule (Fleming & Koppelman, 2016). WBS
task come up with certain number of limits and project manager can analyze how much the
project is advanced by analyzing certain number of task.
How does the WBS contribute to the success of a project?
Ans: WBS will help in the overall success of the project by addressing the following points like
 WBS can easily prevent the work from passing through any of the cracks. WBS project
will highlight the project deliverables and different work needed for completing the
project (Heagney, 2016). It merely guides the project team on a different need that needs
to organized.
 The second benefit of using WBS is that it provides the project team members with an
idea regarding where the particular piece which will fit within the plan of project.
 WBS aims to facilitate proper communication and co-operation between team members
and stakeholders (Schwalbe, 2015). WBS aims to provide the hierarchy for project work
and delivery of scope and completed work.
 WBS helps in preventing any changes which are inevitable in project (Fleming &
Koppelman, 2016). There is a need of preventing and taking corrective measures which
will help in analyzing the root cause for changes in the project.
 WBS provides the basis for carrying out estimation with respect to staff, time and cost
(Heagney, 2016). It is very much tough to analyze the staff need, cost and time which is
need for big work.

4MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
Tools needed for monitoring the schedule
Ans: The two tools which can be used for monitoring the schedule of a project are PERT chart
and Gantt chart. Both the chart aims to provide certain number tool which help the manager to
analyze the project through visualization (Walker, 2015). The mere focus of this tool is all about
dividing task into certain number of manageable parts.
Some of the benefits of using Gantt chart are
 Clarity
 Communication
 Motivation
 Co-ordination.
Pert chart will merely make the project planning much easier (Walker, 2015). It merely
asks three important question for each of the activity that will help the manager to identify the
relationship in between the task and their dependencies.
How do you handle resource over allocation?
Ans: Resource over-allocation comes into picture when there is number of task in comparison to
resource the people can handle it. When an organization deals with many project then resource
allocation is one of the major risk (Turner, 2016). There are mainly three methods to handle over
allocation in project like
Resource levelling: In this particular method, the project manager can either level the
resource by hand or by using any software like Microsoft project plan (Meredith, Mantel Jr &
Shafer, 2017).

5MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
Prioritize project: By giving priority to the project, resource over-allocation is found to
be a conflict task (Turner, 2016). This can be resolved without any kind of pilling of pressure on
an individual or team members.
Linking task: It is considered to be a logistic solution when the resource has been
assigned for researching the market for any project.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of fast-tracking a project?
Ans: It can be defined as a project management strategy which is required for completing the
project in the given time-frame. An organization can easily implement this particular technique
for a list of reasons (Verzuh, 2015). It can have a certain number of benefits for small business
along with risk based on the structure of work and management. Fast-tracking project requires
the team members so that can run the operational task. It merely highlights that team members
need to organize project team so that they emphasize on each of the task (Verzuh, 2015). When
errors are encountered in project, finding these errors is important for keeping the project on fast-
track. It merely requires high level of coordination which is among the management proposal for
analyzing each of the issue. For fast tracking project management personnel need to look for
intermediate changes.
The advantages of a fast-tracking project are
 Early delivery of Project
 Brings back the project on schedule
 Free up the complete resource in the early phase.
The disadvantages of a fast-tracking project are
 Lacks the idea of critical path

6MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
 Rework risk
 Close monitoring of critical path.

7MANAGING A PROJECT SCHEDULE
References
Fleming, Q. W., & Koppelman, J. M. (2016, December). Earned value project management.
Project Management Institute.
Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.
Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Meredith, J. R., Mantel Jr, S. J., & Shafer, S. M. (2017). Project management: a managerial
approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Turner, R. (2016). Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.
Verzuh, E. (2015). The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Walker, A. (2015). Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.