Why Calendars Take More Than a Leap of Faith

Leap years remind us that in the world of project management calendars matter and can impact cost and schedule. When building a schedule, setting up calendars is an essential early step to assure that dates are consistent across the project. This is especially important for global projects or projects with major partners or subcontractors / suppliers.

Here are 3 tips that apply whether you are using Microsoft Project, Primavera P6, Open Plan Professional, or any scheduling tool:

1. Assure each major player creates a calendar that includes company holidays–particularly end of year or major holidays like 4 day weekends.
2. Decide on the overall project calendar and holidays for the master project.
3. Create business rules to address industry and customer reporting requirements. Clearly designate deliveries and whether they are based on calendar or workdays. Label Gantt, critical path, and other reports to include task or resource calendar fields when you know those can come back to bite if not considered.

For fun, take a look at these two links:

• Leap Day Look Wold Calendars:https://public.tableau.com/s/gallery/leap-day-look-world-calendars
• Aztec and Maya Calendar tool: https://www.azteccalendar.com/

Oh, and please don’t forget that AzTech is pronounced like the AzTec calendar, but we include that all important H!

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