Activities Schedule is the backbone of every project and is essential for a successful outcome. It gives all personnel involved in the project common understanding of what is required, how this will be achieved, when it will be achieved and who will be responsible for the successful outcome of each activity. In addition project plan defines a baseline for monitoring and control the project implementation progress.
In order to develop the Activities Schedule, the following steps should be followed (Figure 7-6):
| • | Application of Work Breakdown Structure in order to subdivide the major project deliverables into smaller, more manageable component based on the project scope |
| • | Identification of the activities needed in order to produce the project deliverables and if necessary breaking down the activities into more manageable tasks which can then be assigned to individuals |
| • | Determination of activities’ sequence (i.e. in what order should related activities be undertaken?) and dependencies (i.e. is the activity dependent on the start up or completion of any other activity?) |
| • | Scheduling of activities by defining the start up and completion dates of each activity/task. |
Figure 7-6: Steps to be followed for the development of the Activities Schedule