What is Software Engineering Scheduling?

Scheduling:

In Software Engineering, Scheduling is an important project planning activity. In scheduling, it consists of deciding which tasks would be taken up when and by whom.

Once a schedule has been worked out and the project gets underway, the project manager monitors the timely completion of the tasks and takes any corrective action that may be necessary whenever there is a chance of schedule slippage. To schedule the project activities, a software project manager needs to do the following:

1. Identify all the major activities that need to be carried out to complete the project.
2. Break down each activity into tasks.
3. Determine the dependency among different tasks.
4. Establish the estimates for the time durations necessary to complete the tasks.
5. Represent the information in the form of an activity network.
6. Determine task starting and ending dates from the information represented in the activity network.
7. Determine the critical path. A critical path is a chain of tasks that determines the duration of the project.
8. Allocate resources to tasks.