Planning vs. Scheduling
SCHEDULING AS A PLANNING TOOL
The lack of standardization of terminology in various industries is the cause of much confusion. Although different entities may use different terms, for this book we have made a clear distinction between some important, related terms, to avoid misunderstandings. The definition of terms here may not agree with some other definitions used, but the authors have endeavoured to keep definitions and meanings as close to industry accepted norms as possible.
One such example are the two terms “planning” and “scheduling”, and because they are many times misinterpreted, and they are also instrumental in the science of project management and project scheduling, specific mention is made to them in MODULE 3 rather than just providing definitions in MODULE 1.
PLANNER OR SCHEDULER?
There are individuals in the industry who prefer the term Project Planner, and others prefer Project Scheduler. Some people argue that there are two distinct levels of competency – a lower level named a Project Scheduler, and a higher level named a Project Planner. Another school of thought ignores the scheduler name and defines levels of project planner: Junior Planner, Planner, Senior Planner and Master Planner. These arguments are all academic. The function and its interaction with the rest of the project planning team remains the same. The only distinction should be that the higher levels might do more management and auditing than scheduling per se.
For the purposes of this course, we will use the terminology Project Planner – simply because it is the most widely used term in the South African industry, where this book originated. The Project Planner may be at a junior or senior level – but that does not concern us for now.
The software (or manually) generated plan for the project will be called the Project Schedule. Be aware that other terms are used in industry, of which the most common are Project Plan or Project Program, but we will stick to the more descriptive name – Project Schedule.
In the broader function of project planning, the scheduling function is performed by the Project Planner – with input from the project planning team. Creating the project schedule is a time-consuming process and is typically created during a number of project planning work sessions. On finalisation, it is signed off by the project planning team. Thereafter, the Project Planner will take ownership of the schedule, update it regularly, and create various important management reports from it.
On larger projects there may be a team of project planners who each have a schedule or part of a schedule they need to manage, and the data is fed into a project master schedule which shows the overall picture for the total project.
The Project Planner must have in-depth knowledge of project planning/scheduling principles (the subject of this book) and must know the project scheduling software package well. In addition, he/she must have the ability to use the software functionality to represent the real-life situation on site as accurately as possible in the schedule. The project start date and activity interdependencies are defined – resulting in specific timelines being calculated for each activity.
The scheduling software will not and cannot schedule the project and deliver answers and reports. This is the work of a skilled project planner. If the project planner has insufficient skill, the schedule and reports will be inaccurate. The old cliché of ”garbage in, garbage out”, is seldom more relevant than with project scheduling.
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INCLUDED IN THIS CHAPTER: Planning, Scheduling, Scheduling as a planning tool, Scheduling as a work control tool, Planner or Scheduler?