The value of developing a schedule to guide the execution of a procurement project may not be obvious at first. Developing a schedule does a number of things for the procurement officer. First, it provides a simple and quick view of the important milestones and their dates of occurrence. Second, it serves as a tool that the procurement officer can use to manage the overall project because the schedule shows all of the activities (tasks), their duration, and their sequence. At a glance, it is easy to see what the major activities are and the dependencies among them.

Developing a schedule begins with identifying the necessary inputs: task list, work breakdown schedule, and milestones. The first step to create schedule is to sequence the order of the tasks. Anetworkorlogic diagram(i.e., a simple graphic of the tasks linked in a logical sequence) is an effective tool to use for this. At this point, identifying the dependencies between tasks is what is important. Once the network diagram is complete, it is useful to examine it, looking for tasks that have multiple inputs. These are "choke points" that can signal potential breakdowns, delays, in project execution.

The next step in schedule creation is converting the list of tasks into activities with defined durations. This is a difficult step because there is an inherent tension between the person estimating the task duration and management's desire to minimize the overall schedule; time is money. There are many strategies that claim to find the optimal task duration. Some are described in the textbook, and colleagues probably have their own tricks of the trade.

Once these steps are accomplished, the overall schedule can be created. Individuals who have experience in leading procurement projects should review the overall schedule to identify potential problem areas that may need to be reworked or at least monitored closely. Finally, the schedule is published to the procurement project team in accordance with the communications plan discussed in a later module.

During the development of the schedule, there may be a task or set of tasks that have to do with investigating whether the procurement will require portions to be executed in countries outside of the United States. In today's global supply chain world, there may be potential suppliers who can produce the necessary components or provide the services and are located in another country. If the organization's policies allow the use of foreign suppliers, it will be important to determine whether there are different regulations governing procurements in the countries where potential suppliers are located. Often, this is done as part of a vendor pre-selection or qualification process.

Lastly, while one is evaluating and qualifying potential suppliers, it is an opportune time to begin the process of creating the selection criteria and tool that will eventually be used to evaluate the bid responses received. It is likely that the development of this tool will have started earlier in the process, when the procurement requirements were being defined; however, additional concerns and criteria may be identified. These include import-export duties, export-import restrictions, International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and many other potential pitfalls. One may ask, "Why would export duties or restrictions apply to my procurement? I am buying things, not selling things." That may be true, but sometimes those "things" are actually systems comprised of multiple pieces. It is not hard to imagine buying computer components from Taiwan, mechanical components from Germany, software packages from Ireland, and glass components from India. The company packages all of these components together into a new widget and wants to sell it to customers in China, only to discover exportation of this widget is restricted because high-precision mechanical components from Germany are used. That would be a very inopportune time to discover this.

• What inputs are necessary to build a schedule?
• Briefly summarize the steps involved in creating a schedule.
• What is the difference between task effort and task duration?
• Why are milestones used in addition to task activities in a schedule?
• What is the purpose of a table or GANTT-style diagram of the schedule?