Project schedule

Ingredients

• What is the schedule for the major milestones or events that will occur?
• What deadlines or other key dates are mentioned in the RFP?
• What activities do you need to schedule in order to meet those deadlines?
• How soon after award you will start and how long it will take to complete?
• What is the critical path for the project?
• Are there any schedule constraints or limits that need to be shown?
• What is the schedule for any meetings?
• What is the schedule for project deliverables?
• Are there any compliance issues that must be factored into the schedule?
• Are there any contingencies or scenarios that you anticipate might impact scheduling?
• Are you using any planning models or methodologies you should cite?
• How and when you will communicate with the customer and any third parties?
• What reports will be produced and will be their frequency?
• How is your schedule compatible with the customer’s?

Approaches

In the Technical Approach, you describe what you will do for the client. This may involve providing a schedule. In the Management Plan you describe how you will ensure that it gets done – on time, within budget, and according to the specifications required.  This also may require a schedule.  But each one emphasizes different things.

Project schedules often include Gantt Charts to show the schedule, milestones, and allocation of resources.  A narrative description of the Gantt Chart should address trade-offs and other issues.  Some projects will have surge resource requirements, often at the front-end, back-end, and around key milestones.  A Gantt Chart illustrates whether resources are consumed evenly or in peaks and valleys.  The narrative should describe the implications for this project, demonstrate your understanding of the project environment and any problems or issues that the client is facing. 

For projects where the completion schedule is important, it can be a good idea to show that you understand the critical path and how to mitigate any possible risks of delays to tasks on the critical path. The critical path is the longest sequence of events that must be performed on a project to complete it.  Any delay in a task on the critical path will delay the project.  Other tasks may happen in parallel with the critical path.  

Critical path analysis is one methodology for project management.  There are many other methodologies that may be relevant to your project.  You should describe any that you plan to use and show how the customer will benefit from your application of it.