Question

What planning steps should precede total program scheduling? What steps are necessary?

Answer 1

Answer-

Effective total program scheduling cannot be accomplished until the required information is available at the project initiation phase. Statement of Work (SOW), Project specifications, Milestone scheduling, Work break down structure (WBS). These are the steps which should be taken prior to the total program scheduling
Statement of Work (SOW): it is a narrative description of the work required for the project. Top management and customer are responsible to determine SOW complexity based on their desires. These sows are generally prepared by the project office for internal use of the company and for external use a contractor should prepare the SOW.
Project specifications: specifications are used for man-hour, equipment and material estimates where a small change is specifications can cause large costs overruns. The main reason for identifying project specifications is to make sure no surprises occur at the last moment.
Milestone scheduling: it contains information regarding the project start, end dates, meetings, testing, and procurement. Without milestones it is hard to reach the vision of the organization.
Work break down structure (WBS): it is a process of structuring the work into small and meaningful components or elements that provide a great opportunity that accounting major and minor activity.
Along with the above steps there are certain things to be noted such as resources should be known, priorities should be created, and flow of work is shown in the network diagrams. All these steps are necessary and followed in a sequence prior to the total program scheduling.