3 Major Schedule Formats For Projects: Explanations And Examples

In my previous article, I have looked at all that you need to know about the work breakdown structure for projects.

 I want to look at some of the facts you need to know about schedule formats for projects. Follow me as we are going to look at that together in this article.

The project schedule can be presented in different formats, depending on the circumstances.

#1 Bar chart

The bar chart as a schedule format has:

• Show the start and end dates, expected durations, and dates and order of project milestones.
• Shows the precedence relationships between activities.
• Shows the percentage of an activity completed to date and the actual progress in relation to planned progress.
• Lists, activities or work packages vertically on the left. Time is represented with horizontal bars that correspond to the activities and show projected start and finished dates

• Often used for project status presentation to upper management. 
• A detailed view is used when reviewing the project status with the project team.

Milestone chart

The milestone chart provides a:

• Summary level view of a project’s schedule in terms of its milestones.
• Use an icon or symbol to show scheduled milestone events.
• Milestones are typically listed from the left to the right of the chart.
• Time intervals- divided into hours, days, weeks, or months- are usually presented horizontally across the top or bottom of the chart.
• Effective in demonstrating the project’s overall schedule to project team members, stakeholders, and upper management.

#3 Project schedule network diagram with dates 

This discusses : 

• Helps assign start and finish dates to activities on the project schedules network diagram. 
• Useful when you need to communicate the project team status in terms of activity precedence relationships.

Action Point

PS: I know you might agree with some of the points raised in this article or disagree with some of the issues raised.

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