Overview

The Production Timeline is a schedule of your delivery dates of the components.

One of the primary roles of the Project Manager is to coordinate who does what, when. In this task, the Production Timeline is the principal tool.

Though it is the Project Manager's ultimate responsibility to create a timeline that works, the entire team needs to have input; otherwise, it's possible that some aspects of the timeline will be unrealistic, or the team may be committed to accomplishing tasks that are too ambitious.

What's in This Module

1. Project management software
2. A timeline table
3. Procedure for developing a production timeline

For large projects, creating a timeline can be a complex task . Gantt and Pert charts were developed during the early and mid twentieth century to help with this sort of task, and during the late twentieth century, software was designed to partially automate the creation of these charts and keep track of progress on the project.

This software is fairly complex itself, and requires time and effort to use well. Since the projects in this class are not really complex enough to require Gantt or Pert charts, it is not necessary to use project management software. However, learning to use it is good experience, so if someone on the team is interested, using the software is recommended. However, the Project Manager is probably not the best person to do this, since it can be time-consuming to learn and use, and the Project Manager has a number of higher priority responsibilities.

If you decide to use it, you'll need to decide what project management software you want to use. Microsoft Project is one of the best-known PC-based applications, but you can find shareware through a search engine, or by going to sites like:

• C|Net and Shareware.com: http://www.shareware.com/
• Winsite: http://www.winsite.com/
• ZD-Net: http://www.hotfiles.com/index.html

If you decide not to use project management software, the alternatives are word processor, HTML, and graphics software to create charts (but charts are optional).

This table lists all the phases of a Web development project, and can serve as a starting point. Phases will usually need to be clumped together into Milestones, taking into account the need for some phases to be completed before others can be begun.

These steps are suggested for creating the Production Timeline:

1. Decide on software: to use project management software or not; if so, which project management software to use.
2. Research dependencies and resources: Most phases depend on input from previous phases. These are listed in the instructions for each phase, and should be entered into a list - or into the project management software, if it was decided to use it.
3. Assign order, relative time, and resources: Whether you are using project management or not, you will need to assign the order in which tasks need to get done, the amount of time they will take, and the resources necessary. In this case, "resources" other than time are primarily human: it will be necessary to assign who does what. Suggestion: if team roles are already assigned, team members may be assigned to estimate the time it will take them to accomplish tasks that would normally be assigned to them.
4. Draft the Timeline: The Project Manager will take the material developed in previous steps and draft a Timeline. You may use the table above as a model, or use output from project management software if you decided to use it.
5. Team Approval: When the draft is complete, the Project Manager should circulate it to the rest of the team (and the instructor) by email. It should then be discussed in class, so everybody has a chance to give their input and suggestions.
6. Revision: Project Manager or Document Specialist revises the draft based on input from team members and the instructor.
7. Publicize Timeline: Once revisions are made, they are approved by the Project Manager and a quality control team member. The Project Timeline is then put on the team Web site and becomes the schedule by which the project is run.