Project Management Made Easy

Simply, a Project Plan sets out the tasks and activities needed to deliver a project, and for each of these, a duration and timeframe is given. The duration may simply be the estimated duration of each task (how long will it take to do), and the timeframe could be a start on date X or start after task Y. When these are put together for all tasks, the Project Plan enables an expected project completion date to be determined.

More sophistication can be added by adding the resources (people) assigned to do each task, a project calendar (working days, e.g. Mon to Sat but not Wed), and milestones, which indicate key dates in the projects progress.

Another term for a Project Plan is a Project Schedule, and a further common term is a Gantt Chart. A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates the project plan pictorially, illustrating the start and finish dates of the tasks and dependencies between the tasks. Since the initial introduction of Gantt charts, they have become an industry standard as a key project management tool for showing the project tasks and activities. Smart-Planner wisely adopts this method of pictorially showing task duration, timescale and progress.

Smart-Planner also enables the grouping of tasks and activities in sensible groups, often referred to as a work breakdown structure, the visual effectiveness of the Project Plan is increased and this allows packages of works to be assigned to teams or individuals easily. Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings.

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