Project Schedule Resource

What is planning? According to BusinessDictionary, planning is a basic management function involving formulation of one or more detailed plans to achieve optimum balance of needs or demands with the available resources (n.d.). The planning process (1) identifies the goals or objectives to be achieved (2) formulates strategies to achieve them, (3) arranges or creates the means required, and (4) implements, directs and monitors all steps in their proper sequence (businessdictionary.com).

In this week’s assignment, we were to conduct a web search and find two resources that are useful in creating our project schedule and estimating the duration of each task or project activity. In my search, I found two that I would like to share in this post:

The first resource I found helpful is https://www.tomsplanner.com

Tom’s Planner is an online Gantt chart software that allows anyone to create, collaborate and share Gantt charts online with drag and drop simplicity (tomsplanner.com). It is a web-based tool and seem very easy to use and it allows more than one person to edit, download the file and update everyone in your team on the progress of your assigned task. But first, you may be wondering, what is a Gantt chart? and why would you need one in creating a project schedule? To answer your question, a Gantt chart is a visual view of tasks scheduled over time (projectmanager.com). Using this chart makes it easy to keep track on what is going on with the project and if you are staying on task, within your budget and within your scheduled timeline. Below is a visual from ProjectManager of what a Gantt chart looks like when used by your project management team

Tom'sPlanner, a web-based software, is available for free, but you can also choose to subscribe and pay on an annual basis if you want to use it for more than one project and to access more features of the software. I find this tool is going to be very useful in planning any project I have at work, especially when working with a group of people with scheduled tasks to complete.

The second resource I found is a blog written by Ashley Coolman on May 9, 2017. https://www.wrike.com/blog/project-manager-calendar/

The author of the blog lists three different ways you can create your project schedule. She also provided a comparison on what the pros and cons are for each of the project schedule planning tools namely Excel, Google Calendar and Gantt charts. This blog explains each of the three tools, identifies what they are useful for and what makes one tool better than the other. I think this is helpful for project managers in deciding what tool they want to use to make their project schedule. Before I discovered the use of Gantt charts through this blog, I’ve been using Excel spreadsheets and Google Calendars and never even thought of any other software because I was comfortable with what I knew and what I was used to. I will definitely give Gantt charts a try because I like the idea that I can collaborate with my team using one online spreadsheet. I hope that you will find this blog useful as well and can help you decide which project schedule tool suits you best.

References:

Business Dictionary (n.d.). Definition: Planning. Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/planning.html

Tom’sPlanner (n.d.). Tom’s Planner: Online Gantt Chart-Project planning software. Retrieved from https://www.tomsplanner.com

ProjectManager (n.d.). The Ultimate guide to Gantt charts. Retrieved from https://www.projectmanager.com/gantt-chart

Coolman, A. (2017). 3 Ways to Create your Project manager calendar. Retrieved from https://www.wrike.com/blog/project-manager-calendar/