What is a work schedule in Project Operations?

The work plan breaks the project down into tasks with a duration, sequence, and responsible role. It resembles a traditional project plan, but is linked to the finances: each task has an estimate that becomes part of the budget, and the hours logged against the task become the actual expenditure.

Why a spreadsheet isn't enough

Many project managers create the plan in a spreadsheet because it is faster. The downside is that the plan and reality immediately diverge—the hours are logged in one place while the plan is maintained in another. As a result, no one can say whether the project is ahead of or behind schedule without manually reconciling the two.

The level of detail determines whether the plan survives

A plan with two hundred tasks will not be kept up to date. A plan with four is useless for management purposes. As a rule of thumb, a task should be large enough to be worth tracking and small enough that you notice if it slips. For most projects, this means tasks lasting from a few days to a couple of weeks.

The plan is not finished when the project starts

The estimate from the sales phase is a starting point, not the final word. As the project progresses, what is actually required becomes clearer. The whole point of having the plan in the system is to be able to update it and immediately see the impact on staffing and margins.