October 2016 – Construction and Schedule Management Services

Construction Scheduling. Are you Including the Complete Project Scope in the Schedule?

person-question-300x300 When you begin the planning for your project schedule, are you defining the project scope and breaking it down into work packages? Do you ever discover that work may have been missed if you had not completed this exercise?

You are not alone.

It’s just so easy to take off and start building the activities to build the project. It’s already in our head and all we need to do is get that plan on paper. Right?

I’ve found that even for a simple project, it makes the schedule development much more effective if the project team goes through the process of breaking the project down into the basic work packages and cross checking with the bid documents. This is often when we discover some piece of the scope is not included in any bid package. It happens….

This is why planning is a very important part of the schedule development. During the planning process, the work packages are developed, the sequencing of the work package delivery is worked out, the coordination of the work package execution is worked out… The list goes on…

I like to work through the planning process and then develop the WBS for the project schedule. This helps me determine how to develop the activities that create the deliverable work package and also helps with the preferential logic to coordinate work packages and resource usage.

The planning process is also a good place to develop the project calendars, activity coding, and resources. I like having these in place before I start developing the activities. It makes it easier to make the assignments as I go and keep the momentum of developing the work flow going. Having to stop and create a calendar or activity code breaks my flow. I also hate going back and trying to make calendar or code assignments after all the activities are developed. Some activity coding is simple to assign, but activity coding for responsibility, area, level, or CSI is more difficult to go back and add. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The process of sequencing the activities and assigning the durations is easier for me then too. I can compare similar work through the use of activity coding. I can also use the resources I assigned early to make cost loading easier.

What other methods have you found to plan and develop your project schedules?

I’d love to hear what you think!

Please visit https://conschmanservices.com to learn more about Construction and Schedule Management Services, LLC

Please visit my LinkedIn account to learn more about me.

Please visit my “The Blue Book” ProView.

Paul Epperson CCM, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP

Construction Scheduling. Are you using Calendars Appropriately in Your Project Schedules?

excalmation-mark Do you understand the need to develop specific activity, resource and project calendars? So you put the effort into this process? Do you understand how calendars can help you?

Many, many smaller projects have project schedules with calendars that are set to whatever the default calendar setting is. Typically, this is a 5 day work week calendar with 8 hour work days.

You may ask, what is wrong with this?

Well, the short answer is, you are not allowing your schedule program to effectively schedule the work for you. You should really have a calendar for each different work week, such as a 4-10 hour day calendar, (if you have a resource working this shift). A 7 day work week calendar with no holidays is very helpful for project milestones because the total float is in calendar days. A typical work week calendar with defined holidays and anticipated weather related non-work days is a great way to ensure weather sensitive activities have anticipated “weather days” assigned.

For this post, I will only talk about activity calendars. Resource calendars can add complexity, and must be addressed, but not in this post…

For activity development, I prefer to keep things simple. I use the appropriate calendar, based on the planned work week for the work tasks. This includes holidays and any other don-work days identified in the contract. I develop a weather day calendar, based on the appropriate normal work week calendar to assign to my weather sensitive activities. I use a 7 work day week calendar, with no holidays or any other non-work days for my contract milestones and as the default for the project. This allows the team to see calendar day total float values.

Of course, the use of multiple calendars creates a little confusion when reviewing the schedule. The total float values for a string of activities will be different based on the calendars assigned. The actual start date to finish date durations will not match the “work day” duration assigned. These types of issues confuse many people. But once you use the calendars appropriately, you are letting the schedule better model your plan for the work.

Isn’t this what the schedule is supposed to be used for at its’ most basic level?

What other methods have you found to model and manage work with calendars?

I’d love to hear what you think!

Please visit https://conschmanservices.com to learn more about Construction and Schedule Management Services, LLC

Please visit my LinkedIn account to learn more about me.

Please visit my “The Blue Book” ProView.

Paul Epperson CCM, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP