The Schedule management plan is a PMBOK document that sets out how the project schedule will be developed, monitored, and controlled. It includes the scheduling methodology and tools that will be used, units of measure and the acceptable range of accuracy in duration estimates. stakeholdermap.com
The plan also shows how the project manager will know whether the project is on schedule. For example, will earned value measurement techniques be used and/or schedule performance measurements such as schedule variance and schedule performance index.
Schedule Management plans can be very detailed, but may also be one relatively high-level document that refers to pre-existing tools and techniques. For example, the plan may refer to agreed processes for monitoring and controlling progress, or to a scheduling tool that has already been procured.
This is a FREE Schedule management plan Template in Word and PDF. The template is fully editable with Microsoft Word and can be converted or changed to suit your project requirements.
The contents of the Schedule Management Plan Template
Field
Field Description and Tips to Complete
Project details and document control
Provide information on the project and document:
Project Name and Reference
Document information: ID, owner, issue date, last saved date, file name or path
Document history: version, issue date, changes.
Document approvals: role, name, signature, date
Schedule Method and Technique
Document the schedule method and techniques that will be used. This may already be decided by your organizations Project Management Method. For example, critical path method and rolling wave planning.
Scheduling Software
Note the scheduling software that will be used during the project. This may well be already decided by a wider organizational standard. You could include any requirements around additional licenses and refer to any default settings that will be used. For example, pre-agreed non-working days so that work is not scheduled over holidays like Christmas.
Note the unit of measurement which will be used for each resource type on your project. For example, staff hours or days, for time durations or meters, tons, kilometers for quantity measures.
You could use a table like the one shown below.
Item
Unit of measurement
Human resources effort
Days and Hours. Min 4 hours and max 10 days. Greater duration requires further decomposition to ensure scheduling accuracy.
Include relevant links to organizational procedures. For example, process documentation for the control and updating of the schedule, or pre-agreed settings in the scheduling tool like nonworking time or the duration of the working day.
Schedule Maintenance
Explain how the schedule will be maintained. For example, how it will be updated (perhaps via project team calls), version numbering and control, and who will own the master plan. Also describe how the progress of tasks in the schedule will be shown. For example, when and how schedule baselines will be created.
Schedule Tolerances
Document the amount of deviation from agreed schedule tolerances that can happen before corrective action needs to be taken.
Sometimes known as variance thresholds, schedule tolerances are percentage deviations from the schedule’s baseline. For example, it might be permissible for scheduled activities to be delayed by up to 5% but no further. Another example could be that it is acceptable to be behind schedule by up to one week, but any further delay would trigger a project board escalation.
Measuring progress
Document the procedure for saving the baseline (the dates against which progress will be measured). Note how and when actual start and finish dates will be collected, and for tasks in progress how the amount of work completed, and the time needed to finish the task is measured.
Make a note of the formats that you plan to use to for scheduling and reporting. For example, you might use a Gantt Chart and Tracking Gantt for day to day management of the project combined with resource to do lists. For reporting purposes, you might use a timeline format. This could be created separately in PowerPoint of use Microsoft Project’s inbuilt timeline function.
