Any carefully planned and well-managed project requires good communication. Team members need to be clear about tasks, milestones, deadlines, and other scheduling issues.

Visio scheduling diagrams make communication easy at all stages of a project. Depending on your needs, choose one or more of these handy tools:

• Timeline   A horizontal bar diagram that represents the life of a project and presents its major events and milestones in a clear, easy-to-grasp format.
• Calendar   An at-a-glance view of team meetings, due dates, milestones, and other events in a monthly or annual format.
• Gantt chart   A timescale that displays tasks graphically. Use a Gantt chart to track the progress of your project and monitor the effects of changes on your overall schedule.
• PERT chart   A high-level brainstorming tool that helps you identify tasks, dependencies, and time frames. You can also use PERT charts to show the hierarchical structure of a project's individual tasks.

Before you distribute your project schedule diagrams to your colleagues, learn how to prepare the diagrams for presentation by adding color schemes, background designs, titles, legends, and other graphical and informative touches.