Mastering Project Timelines with Pinnacle Series LMS

Project planning can be a guessing game, but Pinnacle Series brings clarity.

At the start of any significant project, one of the first questions on the minds of leadership and employees alike is: “How long is this going to take?”

It’s a fair question, but it’s also not always simple to answer. Establishing a project timeline helps you maintain a clear view of your work capacity, accurately predict revenue and expenses, and build trust with your clients. But a timeline is only as good as the information that goes into it, and to create a comprehensive one, you need details. 

The same project can have very different timelines depending on your resource allocation, the project scope, and a range of other variables. This also means that if any of those variables change along the way, the project timeline will shift. So, it’s not enough to pin down your details before you get started—you also need ways to keep track of them while the project is ongoing. 

A comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) like Pinnacle Series provides a unified knowledge platform that can help you answer thorny project questions while you plan. Additionally, it collects project data for easy access and sharing, so you can stay on pace with your timeline. Let’s look at just a few of the core Pinnacle Series features that make it easier for project managers to create and stick to their project plans.

The keys to developing a project timeline

There are as many structures for a project timeline as there are projects, including formal methods like Gantt charts and Kanban boards. But before you decide how you’ll visualize your timeline, you need to determine the content. Some of the details are things you’ll need to research or calculate, and others will be decisions you have to make. Key components include:

• Project scope and objectives: First and foremost, determine what you aim to achieve—and, crucially, what you don’t. Where there’s uncertainty, “scope creep” can take over and spread your project too thin.
• Tasks and dependencies: Lay out the subtasks you’ll need to complete along the way, and identify which ones can’t start until others are completed.
• Milestones: Pinpoint critical achievements or deliverables in the project that represent a shift in phase or focus.
• Deadlines: Include information about time constraints and due dates.
• Resource allocation: Determine what resources—staff, equipment, workspaces, materials, and more—are needed for your project, what you have access to, and for how long. 

All these factors play a role in how you structure your timeline. To solidify them, you’ll need information about work processes, assets, and employee skills, and you’ll need a central location to store and share project details. Pinnacle Series consolidates org-level and project-level knowledge into a single accessible location, and has powerful tools to enable you to structure and share it in the way that works best for you.

Understanding the flow of work

Pinnacle Series features:

• Content management
• Enhanced search
• Workflows

Once you’ve established the scope of your project, you can start to lay out the individual tasks that will make up the process. Estimating how long each of these tasks will take and then adding the times together will provide the first rough idea of your project timeline. 

No project manager is an expert on every subtask of their larger project, so this part of the process can require some research. Pinnacle Series provides the tools to capture institutional knowledge from your workforce, giving you a way to build and organize documentation on work processes. Document types cover a spectrum, including video and workflows, so you can get a clear idea of what’s involved in each task via the medium that’s best for you.

Flexible content management tools make it simple to grant access to the information you need, based on job role or project participation, and intelligent search capabilities connect you with answers at a glance.

People and resource management

Pinnacle Series features:

• Skill assessments
• Assignments
• Reporting
• Subscription content libraries

With your tasks laid out, you can begin to assess their resource needs and start finding ways to meet them. One of the first questions to answer is who your project team will be. You want team members who not only have the relevant job skills, but are organized and communicate well, to keep the gears of your project turning smoothly. If you’re leading a small workforce, there’s a chance you have an in-depth knowledge of every one of your employees’ skills—but that’s a lot to ask of any manager, no matter the size of their organization.

Integrated skill assessments and robust reporting in Pinnacle Series provide you with a concrete way to visualize your workforce’s capabilities. With these insights, you can ensure that the right people for the job are assigned to the project team and minimize your risk of under-utilized staff or training-related setbacks. You’re also able to identify knowledge gaps, both with existing data and additional assessments. In response, Pinnacle Series allows you to assign workers learning content and keep an eye on their progress, so you can be sure the right skills are part of the equation.

Knowledge sharing and documentation

Pinnacle Series features:

• Work groups
• Permission management
• Custom libraries

Seamless communication within a project team is critical for maintaining forward momentum. If key aspects of your project change and the timeline needs to shift in response, you’ll want to be able to share those details with the team. Maintaining a single, accessible source of truth for team members to refer to is essential.

Pinnacle Series supports content access permissions by job role and work groups, ensuring that information can automatically be available for authorized users. Permission management is as specific and flexible as you need it to be, and Pinnacle Series can even incorporate outside contractors to minimize communication hurdles. Organize project documentation, essential learning content, and reference materials into your own custom libraries alongside subscription content from leading software providers. Pinnacle Series provides the framework for keeping your project team informed and capturing their progress.

Pave the way for project success with Pinnacle Series.

Our flagship LMS is designed to be the brain for your business: a place where you can store the valuable knowledge your workforce has accrued, and continually build on it toward greater heights. Pinnacle Series’ flexible, powerful knowledge framework adapts to your workplace and offers an intuitive, streamlined way for workers to get answers—either in the moment when a question arises, or at their own pace, in one of our thousands of regularly updated courses. 

There’s more to learn about how Pinnacle Series can help you keep your projects on target. To see a full demo, request one today.