Project Timeline is a visual list of tasks or activities placed in chronological order, which lets project managers view the project’s entirety in one place. A project timeline typically takes the form of a horizontal bar chart, where each task is given a name and a corresponding start and end date.
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What is a Project Timeline?
It delivers an in-depth overview of the entire project from start to finish. You can see when a task starts and when it’s due—and importantly, whether or not it’s dependent on another job.
A [project timeline] can be precious for a project team, but it can be challenging to make by hand or even in Excel. Fortunately, project timeline software can generate an interactive timeline in just a few clicks. By ProjectManager.com, all you have to do is add your tasks and due dates.
Project Timeline Uses:
Uses give project managers a chance to:
Organize their tasks
Display when in the project the charges start
View task deadlines
Link dependent tasks
Break the project into phases
Identify team members assigned to a task
How To Create a Project Timeline?
Project management timelines can take many different forms with varying levels of efficacy. They can be drawn by hand or on a whiteboard, but this method is minor and significant changes to your [project] might require scrapping the entire timeline.
A spreadsheet full up of macros can make for very capable, if time-consuming, creating a timeline.
A [project timeline] excel template can work except you the effort and time it takes to complete your spreadsheet. However, such macro-heavy Excel sheets can prove challenging to maintain for more oversized products.
Project managers prefer [project timeline] software that mixes their tasks with an interactive, feature-rich Gantt chart that can schedule, assign tasks, monitor progress, and report performance to track projects effectively and efficiently.
Here [project timeline] software is more versatile than [project timeline] templates because it allows project managers to easily update the timeline and track tasks with dashboards and reports.
How Do You Calculate?
To make a complete [project timeline], follow these stages:
Write a project scope statement: However, a scope statement plans the tasks, milestones, and deliverables for the project. It’s a vital part of the project management plan, and it has all the information you need for your [project timeline]
Make a work breakdown structure (WBS): This graphic tool breaks down the project scope into smaller work packages. The WBS lets you visualize and organize the project’s tasks, milestones and deliverables by hierarchy to establish a chronological order
Identify task dependencies: Here and now that you’ve identified every task required for the project, find out which of those doings are dependent on other tasks to start or end
Estimate task duration: Make a sensible time estimate for each task. It is a critical step to create your project management timeline and determine the time required to complete the project
Define deadlines: Determine how much time your squad can spend on each task
Set milestones: Milestones are significant dates that mark the end of one phase and the beginning of the next, making them a vital project management timeline component. Milestones are reached by finishing task sequences and deliverables
