Guidelines for project scheduling 

Like all other fields of software engineering a number of basic principles guide software project scheduling:

Compartmentalization: The project must compartmentalize into a number of manageable activities and tasks to accomplish compartmentalization both the process and the product are decomposed.

Interdependency: Some activities cannot commence until the work product produced by another is available. Other activities can occur independently. The interdependencies of each compartmentalized activity or task must be determined. Some tasks must occur in sequence others can occur in parallel.   

Time Allocation: Each task to be scheduled must be due some number of work units.  Additionally  each task must assigned a start date and a completion date that are functions of the interdependencies and whether work will be conducted on a part time or full time basis.

Effort validation:  Every project has a pre define number of staff member.  As per time allocation occurs the project manager must ensure that no more which the allocated number of people has been allocated at any given time example for take a project which has 3 assigned staff members. On a given day seven concurrent tasks must be accomplished.  Each task needs 0.50 person days of effort.  More effort has been allocated than there are people to do the work.

Defined responsibilities: Every task which is scheduled should be assigned to a specific team member.

Defined outcomes: Every task which is scheduled should have a defined outcome.  For software projects, the outcome is normally a work product or a part of a work product.  Work products are often combined in deliverables.

Defined milestones:   Every task or group of tasks should be related with a project milestone.   A milestone is accomplished when one or more work products have been reviewed for quality and have been approved.

Each and every principle is applied as the project schedule evolves.