Schedule development: activity sequencing, dependencies (FS, SS, FF, SF), critical path, float, milestones, crashing and fast-tracking

A schedule turns the WBS (work breakdown structure) into dated activities. The project manager lists the activities needed to produce each work package, identifies milestones, estimates durations, then sequences them and finally assigns dates and resources. Sequencing is drawn as a network diagram, usually with the precedence diagramming method (PDM), where boxes (nodes) are activities and arrows are dependencies. The finished schedule is often shown as a Gantt chart, a bar chart of activities against a calendar, which is easier for stakeholders to read.