Scheduling and Project Management PERT and CRM

Planning and Scheduling: Rock Fest

Planning and scheduling play a key and critical role in smooth operations and easy execution of organizational decisions. In the case of Hard Rock, we notice that Chris Tomasso understands the significance of planning and scheduling especially in the case of an event of as huge a scale as Rock fest. For this reason, he consistently uses MS Project software to keep himself abreast of the changes and to see his own progress on the planning of the event. The Event has a tight time frame of nine months which is not much considering Hard Rock is no ordinary cafe and Rock fest is no simple event. Elaborate planning and preparations are needed to successfully launch an event on such a gigantic scale and hence even 9-month period seems way too short. However with careful planning and scheduling especially when using good software helped Tomasso a great deal in reaching his goals on time.

We must understand a few key terms and ideas that a project manager needs to know before he undertakes a huge project. For one it must be understood that some activities will need to be crashed in order to meet the deadline. Crash time refers to the shortest possible time in which an activity can be completed. Hence when planning, a project manager like Tomasso will most definitely keep both the normal and the crash time in view and will try their best to get some activities done in crash time instead of normal in order to get things done on time.

The first most important step is to get the dates from performers. At an event like Rock fest, people are expecting big names to perform. But that also means that big names must be informed and hired way before the event. This is because big name artists are normally extremely busy and do not have the time or dates available to match the event date. For this reason when an event is planned, dates are booked in advance even before the event is announced. This is because many events are planned around available dates and not around when company wishes to have such an event. Most large organizations have an advantage over small ones that performers are looking forward to being invited. They keep their dates open for when the event is anticipated and hence are usually readily available. If I am the project manager, I would still contact all performers' way in advance to make sure we have the right dates and performers for the planned event.

The critical path for Rock fest planning includes some key activities such as:

1. Confirming dates with performers

2. Booking the venue

3. Making accommodation arrangements for performers and VIPs.

4. Checking the political and other key events surrounding the event