A scheduling method implements flexible scheduling in a relay network. A method includes: determining, by a first device, information about a transmission time difference, where the transmission time difference is a time difference between a control channel of a first link and a data channel that is of the first link and that is scheduled by the control channel of the first link; notifying a second device of the information about the transmission time difference; and performing, by the second device, scheduling based on the information about the transmission time difference. In this way, the second device determines whether a resource needs to be reserved for the data channel of the first link, and it is possible that a time division resource, a frequency division resource, or a space division resource is shared for data of the first link and data of a second link.