Setting a Project Timeline

The next step in completing your project is to pull together a Project Timeline. This timeline should not only consist of a schedule for completing the project, but should identify important milestones, deadlines, and the resources needed along the way.

Timeline Components

Milestones — Signposts that mark the distance along the way.

A milestone is an identifiable product or phase that needs to be completed before beginning the next phase. For example, a house building project would have milestones like the following:

Completing the architectural drawings
Obtaining the necessary building permits
Preparing the site

As a part of this module, you have already completed two project milestones:

Goals and purpose
Prioritized list of ideas

Reaching a milestone is a good time to step back and determine if corrections need to be made. In government or building projects, this evaluation process can be quite formal. Your project milestone evaluations are much simpler. Your team could call on outside reviewers (your instructor, actual users, or friends and family) for feedback.

In completing your next assignment, you will need to identify milestones as part of your timeline.

Resources — Project building blocks.

What about resources? Different projects require different resources. However, the most basic resources that all projects use are:

Time
Money
Staffing

There's an old joke that's become a truism for doing projects:

Any project can be done - Quick - Cheap - High Quality. Pick any 2.

For a class project like this one, chances are you do not have a big budget or extensive resources. However, you do have yourself, your teammates, and computers with Internet access. You also have your ingenuity and a certain amount of time for completing the project. You may also be able to identify other resources.

Constructing timelines

Once your team has identified milestones and resources, you can structure a timeline. Generally, it's a good idea to work backwards, since you know the when your project is due. Next, drop in your milestones along the way. Make adjustments depending on your time estimates to complete each milestone. In setting milestones, don't forget to consider how much time you'll need to gather resources and do the work.

It's always a wise practice to allow extra time for the unexpected. Since you're working with computers, plan extra time for technical glitches (power outages, software or hardware crashes, etc).

Murphy's Law: Anything that can possibly go wrong - will.

Murphy's Laws and Corollaries
http://dmawww.epfl.ch/roso.mosaic/dm/murphy.html

So, let's check in with our vacation planners to see how they are handling this phase of their project.

Setting a Timeline:
Chris:	So, what do we need to do to get ourselves to the Aloha State?
Pat:	Well, we've got our budget of $1,000 each, and we know we can take a week off in six weeks. It looks like we're going to need some plane tickets, a place to stay, and a car to rent. We also have to think about eating while we're there.
Lee:	That's a lot to ask for $1,000.
Kim:	Hey, we can do it. All we have to do is organize ourselves. Since we have six weeks, we should qualify for airline specials, so I would think that's our top priority. We may even get some sort of a package deal.
Pat:	If we need to make our plane reservations a month ahead to get the best prices, we'll need to have our tickets settled within two weeks at the very latest.
Chris:	Let's say we'll have our plane tickets [1st milestone] ordered in a week and a half, taht would be about 10 days, to give us some leeway, and our lodging/transportation [2nd milestone] nailed down another 10 days after that? Then we can use the last three weeks for figuring about how we're going to eat, have fun, and pack.
All:	General agreement.

The following is a simple example of a timeline for the Vacation Team. This simple timeline done in MS Word is all you need to do for your next assignment. Project management software applications are available for more professional timelines.