This module is about getting a plan out of a list and onto a timeline. You will explore the five inputs every scheduling tool needs from you, what phases, milestones and timescales do for the readability of a chart, and why importing a prepared list beats retyping it. You will also compare how the same features appear across widely used scheduling tools, and what free plans typically include and leave out, so you can work with whichever tool your organization has chosen.

This module covers what turns a set of bars into a schedule: the links between tasks. You will explore the four dependency types, how lag and lead describe waiting time and overlap, and how a delay travels along a chain of linked work, sometimes shrinking and sometimes growing. You will also work out a critical path by hand and then see it calculated in a scheduling tool, so you can say which tasks control the finish date and how much room the others have before they start to matter.

This module is about keeping a plan honest once the work has started. You will explore ways of scoring percent complete that resist wishful reporting, the test that compares work finished against time used, and the difference between a task that is late and one that is merely at risk. You will also look at baselines, which preserve the approved dates that a self-updating plan would otherwise overwrite, and at four ways of recovering a slipping schedule, from re-sequencing work to reducing scope.

This module covers the final step of planning: making a plan readable for the people who decide about it. You will explore why teams and sponsors need different levels of detail, what belongs in a stakeholder view (phase bars, milestones, today's position and a date stamp) and what to leave out, and the trade-offs between sharing a live link, a PDF and a screenshot. You will also look at the weekly routine, the change log and the short status note that keep a shared chart worth opening.