Managers need to have an innate understanding of the project and its scope and timelines help a lot in that regard. Timelines are also fantastic for managers because they make it easy to understand the amount of work that has been done and the amount of work that remains to be done. Better to create a plan that can take a few hits without going off the rails. Your timeline shoul have some cushion room because in real life there are going to be a few complications no matter how well planned you are. Do not create a timeline which goes totally off the rails if any of the tasks involved are delayed. Often people end up being too optimistic when creating timelines and commit to completion dates that are unachievable. If you are creating a timeline to set the pace it is important that you take realistic measures of how long each task will take.

The timeline defines when the project should be completed which tells everyone involved in the projct how much time they have for the project. A project involves many different people and tasks and having a unified template means that people know what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it. Timelines are often created at the beginning of the project because they allow the managers to set the pace of the project.

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