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Scheduling Basics: 18 Essential Terms
The most planning knowledge per word of any newsletter available
Micah Piippo & Dustin Peterson
February 23, 2024
The goal at Beyond Deadlines is to help you become the best Planner or Scheduler you can be. And unlike other companies, we give 99% of what we do away for free.
"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."
Float or Slack: The amount of time that a task can be delayed without causing a delay to subsequent tasks or the project's completion date.
Dependency: A link between two tasks, usually where one task cannot start or finish until another has started or finished.
Resource Allocation: Assigning available resources in an economical way to various tasks or projects.
Milestone: A significant point or event in a project, program, or portfolio.
S-Curve: A graphical display of cumulative costs, labor hours, percentage completion, and other project data over time. It helps visualize the progress and growth of the project.
Finish-to-Start (FS): A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has finished.
Start-to-Start (SS): A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has started.
Finish-to-Finish (FF): A logical relationship where the successor task can't finish until the predecessor task has finished.
Start-to-Finish (SF): A less common logical relationship in which the successor task cannot finish until the predecessor task has started.
Monte Carlo Simulation: A mathematical technique that allows for risk and uncertainty in quantitative analysis and decision-making, often used for project scheduling to predict completion dates.
Duration: The total amount of time that is expected to be spent on a task.
Lead: The amount of time a successor activity can be advanced with respect to a predecessor activity.
Lag: The amount of time a successor activity is delayed with respect to a predecessor activity.
Earned Value Management (EVM): Earned value management (EVM) is a project management technique that measures project performance by integrating costs, schedule, and scope. EVM uses planned and actual values to predict the future and help project managers adjust.
Gantt: A type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule, showing the start and finish dates of the various elements of a project.
Schedule Performance Index (SPI): A measure of schedule efficiency on a project. It is the ratio of earned value (EV) to planned value (PV).
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): A hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.
Critical Path Method (CPM): A step-by-step project management technique for process planning that defines critical and non-critical tasks with the goal of preventing time-frame problems and process bottlenecks.
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