Understanding Scheduling in Microsoft Project

As a project manager, your schedule is one of the most critical tools used to manage a project to completion. Microsoft Project helps you schedule a project from the information you enter about the overall project, the individual work items (called tasks) required to complete the project, and, if necessary, the resources (the people, equipment, and materials) needed to complete those tasks. If anything about your project changes after you create your schedule, you can update the tasks or resources and Microsoft Project adjusts the schedule for you.

You can learn more about the ways in which Microsoft Project adjusts your schedule based upon the changes you make by reviewing the answers to the following questions:

How does Microsoft Project schedule a project?

How does the project start date affect the schedule?

What are the default settings for calculating the schedule?

How do constraints affect the schedule?

How do deadline dates affect the schedule?

How do calendars affect the schedule?

How do resource assignments drive the schedule?

What is the difference between planned, scheduled, and actual dates?

How does Microsoft Project schedule a project?

For each task, you enter durations, task dependencies, and constraints. Microsoft Project then calculates the start date and finish date for each task. You can enter resources in your project and then assign them to tasks to indicate which resource is responsible for completing each assignment, and to calculate how many machines are needed or how much material will be consumed.

If you enter resources, task schedules are further refined according to resource work, units, and working times entered on calendars. Other elements, such as lead time and lag time, task types, resource availability, and the driving resource can affect scheduling, so understanding the effects of these elements can help you maintain and adjust your schedule as needed.

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