Project Management Planning and Scheduling

Project Scheduling and Planning

Build realistic schedules, coordinate resources, and keep projects on track from kickoff to closeout

Project Scheduling and Planning logo
Quick Course Facts
17
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
17
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
5.7
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Project Scheduling and Planning Course

Project Scheduling and Planning is a practical Project Management course designed to help you turn ideas and scope into a clear, workable schedule. You’ll learn how to build realistic schedules, coordinate resources, and keep projects on track from kickoff to closeout with confidence.

Master Project Scheduling And Planning For Better Project Outcomes

  • Learn a step-by-step approach to Project Scheduling and Planning that supports real-world delivery
  • Build realistic schedules that reflect scope, dependencies, resources, and deadlines
  • Strengthen Project Management skills with tools for tracking progress and handling change
  • Create schedules that improve communication with stakeholders and support smarter decisions

Plan, sequence, estimate, and manage schedules that hold up in real projects.

This course starts with the foundations of project scheduling and helps you develop the planning mindset needed for effective execution. You’ll move from defining scope and deliverables to breaking work into activities, setting milestones, and sequencing tasks in a logical order. Along the way, you’ll practice the core techniques that make Project Management schedules more reliable and easier to follow.

You will also explore duration estimating, resource planning, and baseline creation so your schedule reflects both task effort and team capacity. The course covers critical path method essentials, float and slack, Gantt charts, constraints, and contingency planning, giving you a practical toolkit for managing complexity. You’ll learn how to compress timelines when needed, monitor progress against the baseline, and respond to changes without losing control of the plan.

By the end of the course, you’ll be able to create a complete project schedule, report status clearly, and adjust plans with purpose when priorities shift. You’ll finish with stronger confidence in Project Management and the ability to build schedules that help you coordinate resources, reduce risk, and guide projects from start to finish with greater control.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations of Project Scheduling

1 lesson

This opening lesson establishes the mindset behind effective project scheduling and planning. Learners will see how schedules support decisions, why realistic planning matters more than perfect planni…

Work Breakdown and Deliverables

1 lesson

Lesson 2: Defining Scope for Schedule Planning

20 min
This lesson shows how to define project scope in a way that supports realistic scheduling. You will learn how to turn a broad objective into clear deliverables, break work into manageable components, …

From Scope to Task List

1 lesson

Lesson 3: Identifying Activities and Milestones

18 min
In this lesson, learners turn project scope into a practical task list by identifying the activities needed to deliver the work and the milestones that mark major progress points. Professor Samuel Ree…

Building Logical Order

1 lesson

Lesson 4: Sequencing Tasks and Dependencies

22 min
This lesson explains how to sequence project tasks into a logical order by identifying dependencies, deciding what must happen first, and spotting work that can overlap. Professor Samuel Reed shows ho…

Time Estimates That Hold Up

1 lesson

Lesson 5: Estimating Duration and Effort

20 min
This lesson shows how to estimate task duration and effort in a way that is practical enough to use in real project plans. You will learn the difference between effort and elapsed duration , how to br…

People, Tools, and Capacity

1 lesson

Lesson 6: Resource Planning and Availability

19 min
Resource planning turns a schedule into something people and teams can actually execute. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to identify the people, tools, and capacity needed for project work; how to sp…

Turning Tasks into a Plan

1 lesson

Lesson 7: Building the Baseline Schedule

22 min
In this lesson, learners build the baseline schedule —the approved version of a project schedule that becomes the reference point for tracking progress. Professor Samuel Reed explains how to turn a ta…

Finding the Longest Path

1 lesson

Lesson 8: Critical Path Method Essentials

24 min
This lesson introduces the Critical Path Method (CPM) as a practical way to find the longest chain of dependent work in a project schedule. You will learn how to identify activities, map dependencies,…

Understanding Timing Buffer

1 lesson

Lesson 9: Float, Slack, and Schedule Flexibility

18 min
This lesson explains how float , slack , and schedule flexibility help you protect a project timeline without confusing buffer with extra time to waste. You will learn how to identify where timing cus…

Visualizing the Schedule

1 lesson

Lesson 10: Gantt Charts for Project Communication

18 min
Gantt charts turn a project schedule into a visual timeline that is easier to explain than a task list or spreadsheet alone. In this lesson, learners focus on using Gantt charts to communicate timing,…

Real-World Scheduling Limits

1 lesson

Lesson 11: Managing Constraints and Dependencies in Practice

21 min
In this lesson, Professor Samuel Reed shows how real projects are shaped by constraints and dependencies , not just task lists. You will learn how to identify what limits a schedule, spot hidden seque…

Planning for Uncertainty

1 lesson

Lesson 12: Risk-Based Scheduling and Contingency

20 min
This lesson shows how to schedule projects with uncertainty in mind instead of pretending every task will go exactly as planned. You will learn how to identify schedule risks, estimate their likely im…

Compressing the Timeline

1 lesson

Lesson 13: Fast Tracking and Crashing Schedules

22 min
This lesson explains two practical ways to compress a project schedule: fast tracking , which overlaps work that was originally planned in sequence, and crashing , which adds resources to shorten task…

Tracking Against the Baseline

1 lesson

Lesson 14: Monitoring Progress and Updating Plans

19 min
Monitoring progress is where a project schedule becomes a management tool instead of a static plan. In this lesson, you will learn how to compare actual performance against the baseline, spot slippage…

Responding to Project Changes

1 lesson

Lesson 15: Change Control and Schedule Replanning

20 min
This lesson explains how to manage project changes without losing control of the schedule. You will learn how to tell the difference between a real change and normal variation, document requests clear…

Communicating Status Clearly

1 lesson

Lesson 16: Schedule Reporting for Stakeholders

17 min
This lesson shows how to turn schedule data into clear stakeholder updates that support decisions, not just reporting for the sake of reporting. You will learn what stakeholders need to see, how to pr…

Create a Complete Project Schedule

1 lesson

Lesson 17: Capstone Planning Exercise

25 min
In this capstone exercise, you will build a complete project schedule from a realistic project brief. Professor Samuel Reed walks you through turning scope into tasks, ordering work with dependencies,…
About Your Instructor
Professor Samuel Reed

Professor Samuel Reed

Professor Samuel Reed guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.