Courses / Scheduling Fundamentals / Lesson 1.1
Welcome to Scheduling Fundamentals
In this lesson
- Know what the course covers and how each lesson is built
- Know the conventions used in every lab
- Map the course's terms to Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project
The dates in a good schedule are not typed in. They are calculated from three things: the activities, how long each one takes, and how they depend on each other. Change any of the three and the dates move. This course is about that calculation, the Critical Path Method (CPM), and about reading what it tells you.
You don’t need any scheduling experience. If you already use Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project, expect to find out why the software puts the dates where it does.
How the course is organised
| Chapter | What you’ll do |
|---|---|
| 1. Getting started | Learn the lab and its conventions |
| 2. Dependencies | Tie activities together with the four relationship types, lags and leads |
| 3. The Critical Path Method | Run the forward and backward pass, and find the critical path |
| 4. Float | Use total and free float, and recover negative float against a deadline |
| 5. Wrap-up | Build a schedule from a logic table, then take the knowledge check |
Each lesson follows the same pattern: a short explanation with a worked example, a lab where you make the change yourself, and review questions. The lab tasks check themselves, so you know when you’ve got it right.
Conventions used in every lab
- Durations are in working days. The working week is Monday to Friday, with no holidays.
- Day 1 is the first working day of the project. Every lab project starts on Monday 2 November 2026.
- Activity IDs step by 10 (A1000, A1010, A1020…) so there is room to insert work later. That is a common habit in real schedules.
- Behind the scenes, CPM counts time in working days from the project start. Lesson 3.1 explains the numbers the lab shows as ES, EF, LS and LF.
What you need
A current desktop browser and a screen about 1280 pixels wide. Nothing to install, nothing to book. Your lab work is saved in your browser; use File › Save project file if you want a copy.
Same ideas, different words
You don’t need P6 or Microsoft Project for this course. If you use one of them, this table maps the terms:
| This course | Primavera P6 | Microsoft Project |
|---|---|---|
| Activity | Activity | Task |
| Relationship (FS, SS, FF, SF) | Relationship | Dependency or link |
| Lag (negative lag = lead) | Lag | Lag (lead time) |
| Total float | Total Float | Total Slack |
| Free float | Free Float | Free Slack |
| Schedule (F9) | Schedule (F9) | Calculates automatically by default |
| Start no earlier than | Start On or After | Start No Earlier Than |
| Finish no later than | Finish On or Before | Finish No Later Than |
Ready? The next lesson is a tour of the lab. It takes ten minutes, and everything after it builds on it.