Managing a project

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] When you work in supply chain management, the only thing that's constant is change. Suppliers come and go, new technologies emerge, and old facilities shut down. We implement all of these changes through projects, and that means sooner or later, you're going to end up creating and managing project plans. So let's walk through some project planning basics. The first step in planning a project is to make a list of all the things that need to get done and how long they'll take. This is called a work breakdown structure, or a WBS. You organize a WBS like an outline with tasks, sub-tasks, and so on. You could also have milestones or deliverables which will help you measure your progress. For small projects, I usually create a WBS using a spreadsheet. But for bigger projects, I'll use project management software like Microsoft Project. One of the cool things about project management software is that it makes it really easy to convert the WBS into a horizontal…