Recall from your notes that a milestone highlights a significant point or event reached in a project$$s life cycle. For example, a milestone could indicate the completion of a phase or that a product has been delivered and accepted, such as the project plan being approved or the project's primary deliverables being signed off by the client. Milestones have no duration and hence, by definition, cannot involve any work. No resources or effort can be assigned to a milestone, and milestones do not produce any deliverables. Milestones should be included in the project schedule.

Although effort, duration and schedule are measured using a common metric $$ time $$ they describe different aspects of a project. Note the following definitions:

$$ Effort quantifies the amount of labour units required to complete a particular task and is typically measured in hours, days or weeks.

$$ Duration is a measure of a task's $($or project$$s$)$ contiguous time from start to finish. It is important to note that the measure of a task$$s duration excludes non$-$working time. For example, if measured in hours, it excludes the time between work days; if measured in days, it excludes weekends, public holidays and any other non$-$working day.

$$ Schedule is the elapsed time on a calendar for a task to run from start to finish. It is similar to duration but includes non$-$working time.

Example:

A task requires $80$ hours of work to complete, i$.$e$.$ the effort. If one person is assigned to this task and, assuming a work day comprises $8$ hours of work, the task's duration will be $10$ days, calculated as follows: $80-$: $8=10$ days.

Assume a work week comprises $5$ work days. The task's schedule, accounting for weekends and assuming no public holidays, will finish on the $11$th calendar day after its start day, for example, Monday in Week $1$ through to the Friday in Week $2,$ counting the weekend in between the $2$ work weeks $($i$.$e$.12$ calendar days from start to finish$).$ Or it can run from Tuesday in Week $1$ through to Monday in Week $3,$ i$.$e$.9$ working days after day $1$ but taking up $14$ calendar days from the start of day $1$ through to the end of the last day because of the $2$ weekends, which increase the $10-$day duration to a $14-$day schedule.

If we add a similarly skilled worker to the task, then the effort will theoretically remain $80$ hours, but the duration can be halved to $5$ days, calculated as follows: $80-$: $(8$ x $2)=5$ days.

WBS ID

Task name Predecessor$($s$)$ Resource$($s$)$ Resource effort in days Task duration in days Start date End date

$0$ End$-$of$-$Programme Ceremony $--$

$1$ Planning and approval phase $--$

$1\mathrm{.}1$ Begin project $--$Denver $0021/11/201621/11/2016$

$1\mathrm{.}2$ Gather requirements $1\mathrm{.}1$ Denver $1121/11/201621/11/2016$

$1\mathrm{.}3$ Prepare project plan $1\mathrm{.}2$ Denver, Elise $4222/11/201623/11/2016$

$1\mathrm{.}4$ Get plan approved $1\mathrm{.}3$ Denver $1125/11/201625/11/2016$

$1\mathrm{.}5$ Planning and approval complete $1\mathrm{.}4-0025/11/201625/11/2016$

$2$ Execution $--$

$2\mathrm{.}1$ Prepare and distribute invites $1\mathrm{.}5$ Elise $28/11/201629/11/2016$

$2\mathrm{.}2$ Source suppliers$$ quotes $1\mathrm{.}5$ Denver $28/11/201630/11/2016$

$2\mathrm{.}3$ Validate supplier quotes $2\mathrm{.}1,2\mathrm{.}21/12/20161/12/2016$

Denver, Elise $212/12/20162/12/2016$

Denver $335/12/20167/12/2016$

Denver $118/12/20168/12/2016$

Elise $445/12/20168/12/2016$

$2\mathrm{.}6,2\mathrm{.}7$ Denver, Elise $219/12/20169/12/2016$

$2\mathrm{.}8$ Denver $2212/12/201613/12/2016$

$2\mathrm{.}8$ Elise $3312/12/201614/12/2016$