We were looking for books on project scheduling the other day and surprised to find that there really aren’t that many good ones out there! Our team decided to round up our favorites so you don’t have to hunt for the best advice. Here are our five top reads, plus some advice on how to choose the right materials to continue your learning.
1. Construction Project Scheduling & Control
Construction Project Scheduling and Control is a popular book by Saleh Mubarak, now in it’s fifth edition, so be sure to get the most recent version.
Published by Wiley, it’s written for practicing construction management professionals, as well as students of civil engineering, construction management and architecture, so there is a lot in here that will support you in managing projects of all sizes.
2. Planning and Scheduling Excellence Guide
The Planning and Scheduling Excellence Guide, also known as PASEG, was written by the National Defense Industrial Association and is available free on their website. It’s designed to support practitioner with setting up an integrated master schedule (IMS) which is an important artifact for organizations using earned value management methods.
Ideal for teams working on projects that require the use of earned value analysis or on government contracts, this is very much a practical ‘how to’ guide that covers everything you need to know to get started.
3. The Practice Standard for Scheduling
PMI’s Practice Standard for Scheduling is another good read, especially if scheduling is new to you, or you feel like the team would benefit from going back to basics. Bonus: PMI members can access the Standard for free, so go to the PMI website and log in if you’re a member.
The book is a general overview of lots of different planning techniques including guidance on how to use scheduling models. It also covers adaptive project management approaches like how scheduling works with agile methods. The Standard is industry-agnostic, so whether you work in construction, software development or hospitality you will take something away from this.
4. GAO Schedule Assessment Guide
The GAO Schedule Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Project Schedules is one of our favorites, especially if you lean on the GAO’s Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide as well, as these two fit together perfectly.
This is another publication that is available free, this time via the Government Accountability Office website. There really is no excuse for not having access to good quality scheduling approaches, because there are books available in PDF format that you can access to work through at no charge.
It covers all the content you’d expect in a book focused on best practices: assigning resources, understanding the work, critical path method, traceability, float, schedule risk analysis and more. The navigational system online makes it easy to skip to the sections you need at the moment, and you can search the text to quickly find relevant content.
5. Project Management: Planning & Scheduling Techniques
Project Management: Planning and Scheduling Techniques by Vijay Kumar Bansal is the newest book on this list, and it’s a modern, comprehensive look at all things scheduling. From work breakdown structures to creating networks, critical path, crashing and resource scheduling, it’s all in here. Whether you want a refresher on precedence diagramming method or a deep dive into PERT, you’ll find it in this easy-to-digest book.
We’d recommend this one to new project managers, or those wondering whether a career in scheduling is the right move.
Choosing the right book
As a practitioner, how should you choose the right book to support your learning goals and your project? We think it’s important to think about what you want to get out of it. If you’re following particular guidelines or standards as part of your project management methodology, you’ll want a guide that aligns to those constraints. If you are starting out in project scheduling and want an overview of various tools and techniques, then a general guide is going to give you that background.
The good news about project scheduling is that it isn’t a discipline that has evolved rapidly. We’ve got tried and tested approaches for scheduling, and beyond the formalization of agile approaches with the Agile Manifesto in 2001, there haven’t been that many huge leaps in how project schedules are created.
Another good source of information is the Help section and resources for your project management software. Check out the online support available to you, both overall and for specific functions. You can learn a lot by setting aside a short time each week to watch training videos or read the online help materials, and dive deep into the functionality of what your scheduling tool can do.
Finally, it’s worth acknowledging that there is only so much you can get from a book. To become an experienced, confident scheduler, you also need hands-on practice, and you only get that from using the software and doing the job. Scheduling training will help you understand the ‘why’ of scheduling as well as how to get the project team’s vision into the software in the best possible way.
Combining a range of resources, from training to online guides, software help functions to more ‘traditional’ reading material in book form, will give you a rounded view of scheduling as a discipline and allow you to deep dive into the areas you need to deliver your projects successfully.