Some PMs find project scheduling to be good fun. It’s exciting to see all those tasks come together into one structured whole. The project appears before your very eyes and suddenly the screen shows a complete initiative, with everything and everyone aligned to deliver a meaningful business benefit. Plus there is something satisfying about sorting out over-allocation for resources and dealing with task conflicts. When the schedule is done, it’s a work of art.
What isn’t fun, is the time it takes to develop that beautiful project schedule. Here are some tricks to help you produce a schedule faster.
1. Work Together
You can’t put the schedule together by yourself although I have tried! That was a long time ago, before I realized the value in having input from others in the project team. Everyone on the team will have a different take on the tasks involved to get the work done, and as they see it from a slightly different angle, with a focus on their own work, they will identify the tasks that they need to do that you wouldn’t be able to see. Input from subject matter experts is invaluable and will save you loads of time going back and forth between team members for information.
You can hold a project scheduling workshop and brainstorm all the tasks together, which is a fast way to get the whole schedule produced in just a couple of days. You could never do it that quickly if you worked alone.





