Implementing a Health Information Technology Project, Part IV: The Project Schedule (Defining and Sequencing Activities)
Once a project’s deliverables and their respective work packages have been identified and diagrammed during the creation of the project’s work breakdown structure, the next step in the project planning process is to subdivide each deliverable-specific work package into smaller components that represent the specific work that needs to be performed in order to complete the work package. These decomposed components are the work package’s defined activities and, once sequenced, they provide the basis for the project schedule.

To prepare for this Team Application Assignment, review the information about defining and sequencing project activities that was presented in this week’s Learning Resources. Make sure to consider how the real-world perspectives on scheduling project activities that were offered by the presenters in this week’s Media Segment might apply to the work that your team will do this week in beginning to create its own representation of a project schedule.

Then, spend time familiarizing yourself with the specific project management software that you will be using to complete this week’s work—either the trial edition of Microsoft Project 2010 that is included with your Project Management in Practice text or OpenProj 1.4 (which is available as a free download at https://openproj.org/ )—and, if needed, by reviewing the software-specific tutorials and other user resources provided for your reference as part of this week’s Optional Resources.

To complete this Team Application Assignment, work with your team to define and sequence activities for each of the hypothetical project’s high-level deliverables (which the team previously identified as part of the Work Breakdown Structure document that it created during Week 3, for Part III of the Implementing a Health Information Technology Project assignment) ***will be uploaded*** and to individually generate a Project Schedule document of these defined and sequenced activities using project management software (either Microsoft Project 2010 or OpenProj 1.4).

Working in its designated Team Collaboration Area, your team will brainstorm together to first sequence the hypothetical project’s deliverables, then define each deliverable’s activities, then assign durations for each defined activity, and finally sequence the activities by establishing dependencies between them. Next, each team member will work individually in either Microsoft Project 2010 or OpenProj 1.4to create a Project Schedule document that includes all of these scheduling elements (sequenced deliverables, defined activities, durations for defined activities, and sequenced activities with established dependencies) that the team worked together to define and sequence for the hypothetical project.

Finally, each team member will post his or her completed Project Schedule document to the Team Collaboration Area