How to Develop a Project Schedule Using Task Decomposition

Through decomposing project work into simple manageable and measurable activities or tasks it is possible to develop project schedules. A project schedule is a time management document that explains what project work needs to be performed, which resources are necessary, and which timeframes are preset for performing project work.

There are 10 steps for developing a project schedule through task decomposition:

1. Identify an amount of work to be performed within a project
2. Estimate all resources required for the project to perform necessary work
3. Develop a timeline that shows rough timeframes for the project
4. Define tasks and simple activities that perform project work
5. Develop a decomposition diagram that displays project tasks and timeline (incl. project resources)
6. Use this diagram to identify project breakdown levels or key steps of project work
7. Perform accurate time estimation to determine time for every individual task of the decomposition
8. Sum up all durations of individual tasks and compare the resulting value with rough timeframes estimated earlier
9. Make necessary corrections of project timeframes if needed
10. Develop a project schedule based on the corrected timeline.

CentriQS Task Decomposition Solution CentriQS lets users decompose large tasks into smaller sub-tasks for creating work breakdown structures. Task decomposition in CentriQS is a very simple process. Users can either add tasks as subtasks to the parent task or simply "drag'n'drop" them into parent task. When task becomes parent for other tasks its state and duration chages automatically depending on its subtasks.