PWPM Wiki

Web Application Development Project Schedule

This is a practical guide to building a project schedule for a web application development project — the planned dates for performing activities and reaching milestones, adapted to the realities of building a custom web application.

What a Project Schedule is

A project schedule is the planned dates for performing activities and reaching milestones. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Project Scheduling. On a web application development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.

Why it matters for a Web Application Development project

Web Application Development projects live or die on building a custom web application. A well-built project schedule gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how web application development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.

What to include

  • Activity list
  • Durations and dependencies
  • Critical path
  • Milestones
  • Baseline dates

Web Application Development-specific considerations

Tailor the project schedule to the risks that most often derail web application development projects:

  • Unclear or shifting requirements
  • Technical debt
  • Security and performance at scale

Example

On a real web application development project, the project schedule would be shaped by building a custom web application. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — unclear or shifting requirements, technical debt, security and performance at scale — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.