Planning is the most important function of a project because it commits the management process to define the scope of activities to be performed, identifies who is responsible and how the work will be performed, and sets the overall time frame and budget considerations. Planning is necessary to avoid the consequences of crisis and conflict management of projects. Planning involves research, analysis, and communicating the results of planning. Planning increases motivation and successfully helps accomplish project goals.
ACM's expertise in developing Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) facilitates identification of the complete project scope. The WBS is used to associate activities in the plan and schedule with the scope definition. Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS) development facilitates association of the activities to the responsible individuals from work crews and first line supervision to management.
ACM recommends the precedence diagramming method for preparing networks and computing schedules to identify the critical path. Scheduling is used to identify critical and near critical activities. ACM also advocates the use of performance measurement to assure project activities are being accomplished to meet time and budget requirements.
ACM staff can provide various levels of planning and scheduling expertise. This ranges from leading a client team to providing staff support of advanced applications and training. ACM assists clients' projects in the application, training, and operation of project management (scheduling) systems.
