8. Create a Task and Cost schedule

Create a task and cost schedule that links activities and expenditures and sets out a plan for both cost and work

hen you think of scheduling the work for projects you need to realize that the cost schedule and task schedule of the project are considered together. Not only do you need to complete the project on time, you also need to complete it within budget. It's generally considered bad form if you consume the entire budget before the project is finished. In this topic we'll consider both the task and cost schedule.

Tasks always have a schedule component.  Task schedules are affected by resource availability and by task relationships and dependencies.  In most projects there are dependencies between tasks that affect the schedules. For example, when building a house, framing is dependent upon the foundation being completed. Roofing is dependent on framing. Electrical and plumbing are both dependent on framing, but often can take place in parallel.

Tasks always have a cost component based on assigned resources. Resource costs can be fixed, variable or recurring. The sum of these is the cost of the task, and the sum of the task costs is the cost of the project. Conversely, funding can also have an affect on scheduling, especially when it delays resource availability or the purchase of a needed asset.  Sometimes the funds for a particular project are not all available at the beginning of the project. Tasks cannot be worked if the required resources are not available.

Scheduling and costs go hand in hand. If a project is slated to last six months and cost $60,000, you are expected to complete the project on time and within the $60,000 Budget. If you use more than $60,000 you will overrun the budget and possibly reduce the profitability of the project. One view is that the project is using $10,000 per month, though in actual practice, project costs are rarely distributed evenly. More often the bulk of the cost is spent at the beginning, middle or end of the project depending on the task relationships and requirements for things like purchased equipment or materials. Your cost schedule should reflect when money will be made available and when it will be spent.

Build a preliminary project schedule. You'll need to know when tasks will start and finish when you begin to allocate resources to the tasks. You'll need to adjust the start and finish dates to take into account the resource availability. If you have the resource costs you should record those as well. then you'll be ready to build the first schedule.

A commonly used tool for presenting schedule information is the Gantt chart. The Gantt chart is made up of horizontal bars displayed on a grid with tasks down the left hand side and dates across the top. The left end of the bar indicates the start date, the length indicates the duration, and the right end indicates the end date. Some Gantt charts also indicate task dependencies and relationships using arrowed lines to indicate the relationship between any two tasks.

Project management software like Microsoft Project can do much of the work for you, but Gantt charts can be created manually or with other types of software like spreadsheets or diagramming tools. If you used something other than project management software, you'll need to transcribe your project into the tool you're going to be using.

The illustration below shows a Gantt chart created with Microsoft Project.

Task Schedule

Budget consumption can be shown on the Gantt chart as well. Various costs can be rolled up from individual tasks to summary tasks above. For example, using Microsoft project, rolling up actual costs against the value of costs, baseline cost or EAC, and rolling the task bars up to the summary bar does a fair job of presenting the budget consumption, as illustrated below.

When your plan is completed, you should present it to the stakeholders and get their agreement. They may be contributing resources or may even be resources themselves. Get their input and incorporate it into your final schedule.

Record the plan so you can use it as a baseline. While the project is underway, you'll want to compare how things are going to the original plan. The original plan is called the baseline. Some project management tools have the ability to capture the baseline separately for comparison. If not then you'll want to make a copy of the original plan so that you can make changes to the working plan as things move forward without compromising the original baseline. As you work the project, and after it is completed, you'll be able to compare to the original baseline and report variances. This will help you track the project against your original task and cost schedule and it will help you learn from situations that happened while it was in progress.

 - Jake Alexander

Next in the series: Implement Project Status Tracking