Canned project breakdown suitable for training interns in scheduling

Question

I'm looking for a project with a well-constrained breakdown that would suitable for training interns in scheduling projects. (The desired context is actually software project scheduling, but I'm willing to expose them to other disciplines.) Ideally, the trainees would create a schedule in MS Project from a given task breakdown. Can anyone provide suggestions for that task breakdown?

Answer 1

Assuming your interns know nothing about projects and project management it is better for initial training purposes to pick something simple that everyone in the class can relate to. For example:

• Getting to work on time
• Taking a vacation
• Finding a new place to live
• Getting a job

This lets you focus on basic principles first (e.g. how to create a work- or product- breakdown structure to ID scope, how to ID dependencies, how to do bottom-up and top-down estimates, how to create the first draft of a schedule, how to do the forward & backward passes to ID critical path, contingency planning, etc etc) before trying to teach them software development.

Once they have a handle on the basics work through a "typical" project that your company has completed to give them an idea of what to look for. Using something canned from outside your organization won't likely add as much value.