You’re likely wasting 9.9 percent of every dollar invested in a project due to poor project performance. That is why it’s essential to schedule your tasks and resources carefully. A well-designed schedule helps your project to be successful.
Harnessing the power of the cloud will help your team stay organized and on track. File management and reconciliation will be simpler, and managing multiple iterations of documents can be trimmed to a single version. Accessibility to relevant project data will no longer be limited to being connected to the office intranet.
Modern technology now offers many options for cloud scheduling software that helps teams develop, monitor, and adjust project schedules no matter how complicated they may be. The length and complexity of a project further complicate a schedule. But there are basic steps you can follow to build a solid schedule.
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Brainstorm with The Team and Write Down The Tasks
List down all the tasks, no matter how small they may be. You can start with broad tasks related to the goal of the project and work your way to more specific work.
Then, to make sure you don’t forget an important task, finalize the list by getting the input of everyone in the team. The best way to do this is to conduct several brainstorming sessions. Your team members can add a different point of view. Plus, conducting more than one session will help everyone reflect on the list and adjust it if necessary.
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Plan Out The Order of The Tasks
Now that you have a list of all the tasks that need to be done, it’s time to establish the order of things. You can’t do all the tasks at the same time so you need to order them based on a logical system.
Consider how the tasks are connected. See which ones can be combined. Weigh the importance and time-sensitivity of each task. Deliberate on how external and internal factors could affect the tasks.
If you need to, consult people from outside of the team. This will give you a clearer and more comprehensive idea of how to order the tasks.
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Create The Project’s Milestones
A milestone is a task has a very large significance on a project. It could be the end of a phase. It could be an important meeting. It could be a holiday that could impact your schedule.
Make the milestone prominent throughout the schedule. Link it to important tasks so everyone is continuously reminded of it.
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Plot The Time
At this stage, you can now calculate how much time each task needs. So you can plot the dates with the corresponding tasks.
Take note that cloud scheduling software can automatically plot your schedule. But you should still double-check the dates to make sure that these are within your expectations. You can manually override the automatic schedule that the software creates.
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Assign The Tasks
Now that the tasks and dates are organized, you can start assigning things to everyone in the team. Consider a person’s skills and other projects when doing this step. You wouldn’t want to overwork anyone. If you can, adjust the order of the tasks or the dates to accommodate a person’s workload.
Cloud scheduling software will be very helpful at this point, especially if your project is complex. With this software, you just click a button and the schedule will rearrange things accordingly. Of course, you need to review the changes but you won’t have to go cross-eyed trying to spot which tasks need to be adjusted.
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Conduct Regular Reviews
No plan is perfect. There will be delays, new tasks, or new requests from clients. Different things will affect the plan so hold regular review meetings. Keep adjusting the schedule but always keep the milestones in mind.
A schedule will evolve as your project evolves. Be sure to let everyone, including the stakeholders, know that the plan will be updated when necessary. Also, be sure to maximize your cloud scheduling software for hassle-free project management.
