Construction Scheduling. What Value do Schedule Professionals Bring to a Project Owner?

Many construction project owners have specifications for the project RFP which, at the very minimum, require a CPM schedule and a specific schedule progress update process. This tells me that they take the project schedule development and management very seriously.

But, do owners always have a schedule professional on their team? Perhaps in-house, with the CMa contractor, or at least as a third-party consultant?

More often than you would think, they do not.

Maybe it’s budget constraints, lack of staffing, or bad experiences with project scheduling in general, but some owners choose to receive a simple schedule Gantt Chart pdf from the contractor and call themselves managing the project schedule.

I can understand this, to a point. Some projects are simple enough and can be managed this way. Some owner-contractor relationships are strong enough that both parties trust the other will compensate them for delays or late completion.

What about the projects that really should have a schedule professional supporting the owner with schedule oversight? What value do they receive when they have that support in place?

First, they should benefit from bringing the scheduler in early, prior to issuing the RFP to review and refine the schedule specification. Many owners use the same specification over and over and have not updated to the current schedule program outputs or schedule best practices. A professional scheduler can help develop a schedule specification that will provide the requirements for the development of a quality schedule which can be used to manage the project.

Second, they can review baseline schedule submissions and verify the contractor is meeting the requirements of the schedule specifications and following best practices to produce a valid baseline schedule.

This may require multiple iterations of the development and review process, depending on the contractor’s ability and willingness to actually develop a quality schedule. But once this is accomplished, the entire project team benefits from a baseline schedule which can be trusted to provide a sound basis for change order management and work management.

That said, a schedule professional adds value to the update process as well. They review the progress update for errors in updating the schedule such as actual dates in the future and the coordination of percent complete, duration changes, calendar changes, resource changes, schedule revisions to correct out-of-sequence work and revise the contractor’s plan going forward. The schedule has to be validated each update to maintain the integrity of the schedule network.

The schedule professional also provides the owner’s analysis of delay impacts submitted by the contractor for change orders or delays by the owner. This is not possible without all of the supporting work listed above for baseline development and update validation.

What about when the contractor is not meeting the planned production rates and the scheduled activities are getting pushed back in the schedule each update without the scheduled finish date being affected? Seems like that would be obvious to the owner’s team, but often it is a slow creep of slippage that is hard to pin down. The schedule professional knows how to quantify the slippage and identify the work driving the slippage. This is handy when discussing miracle options with the contractor.

An owner can possibly manage a project without a schedule professional on their team. But, would they manage a project without a cost estimator for scope planning or change order management? What about an inspector for quality assurance? Would an owner manage a project without being able to monitor and validate the quality of the construction?

It’s tough to quantify what value a professional scheduler brings to the owner’s team, but there are definitely costs to not having one. A questionable baseline schedule, the inability to project work with confidence, and the inability to accurately quantify change order delays are only a few basic functions that would be lost.

I know many of you can offer additional comments and war stories, for all of us. I welcome your comments and input. My goal, as always, is to help our industry and help the projects we support….

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. Schedule Updates, Revisions and Recovery.

In my previous posts, I described some basic schedule quality validation suggestions.

This post will cover progress updates, schedule revisions and basics for recovery schedules.

When the contractor updates the schedule each reporting period, they record the actual dates for the start and finish of activities. We all know that. What about the progress for activities underway? Are they using duration percent complete to report progress? Or are they using physical percent complete? Or schedule percent complete? Or another method? There are several choices….

The project specifications often include requirements for the type of percent complete. When they do not, the easy way is to use duration percent complete, which is typically the default setting anyway. This is fine if you’re only concerned with duration.

What about work in place percent complete or cost percent complete? I personally like to track all three. On resource driven projects, I prefer to track the resource usage against the duration percent complete and work in place progress. But that is another post….

You should verify the percent complete type used in the schedule you are using. This can be done by simply showing the percent complete type column in the Gantt Chart layout.

This is important because it defines how you will compare progress performance and identify trends and foresee problems. This is also a topic for a future post.

Require the contractor to provide validation of the percent complete type setting used and ensure it meets your project schedule specifications.

That said, the update process is just that, the entry of actual dates, adjustment of remaining durations or schedule finish dates to model the plan going forward and the assignment of progress for work in place and cost of work in place.

There is a process called a bifurcated or two step progress update. This is a valuable method which is not used as much as it should be.

When the contractor updates the actual progress, the schedule shows the actual performance and completion date with total float value based on only the period performance. This is step one. I personally keep this update for record. The next step in the update process is the minor schedule revision to correct the out-of-sequence work. This could also be done during the update process, but I prefer to do this after…. This provides the “as-built” history of the project’s progress to-date and allows any revisions to model the plan going forward to be made based on valid data.

If/when the contractor needs to change the sequence of work or reduce durations to allow the remaining plan to achieve the desired finish date, a record of these changes with the reason for the revision(s) of should be provided to the owner or their agent so all parties understand and agree with what was changed and why. Simple transparency and relationship preservation.

This is the end product, (less the list of revisions with explanation) typically submitted by the contractor as the updated progress schedule.

I prefer the two step or bifurcated process and when possible I like to get the update only schedule and then get the revised schedule. It’s possible to “back into” this process but that is not the same as working as a team to manage the schedule process…. Having both pieces of the update allows the owner, and the contractor to easily see schedule slippages and then see the measures taken to recover time. Many schedule specifications require the contractor to propose the corrective revisions for approval, but that rarely happens. The owner wants the update asap and the contractor wants the invoice processed asap…. However, it is a good practice for the project team to review the update and revisions together. Owners understand the contractor will encounter problems and schedule slippage and just needs to confirm that the contractor is taking care of business…… The tricky part is the owner not taking over the schedule by directing revisions or denying revisions unless there is a justifiable reason to do so…. Again transparency and communications are key.

From time to time, the contractor may change the plan for completing the remaining project work and a true recovery schedule is called for. This could be driven by changes in their supply line, material delivery delays, changes to the contract….. This is a big step and the process for reviewing this revised schedule is the same as that used to review the baseline schedule. After all, this will become the new baseline schedule!

I will only touch on recovery schedules in this post. Recovery schedule are typically described and required in the project schedule specifications and are required by the owner when the schedule performance trips a metric for poor schedule performance.

The development of a real recovery schedule is a specialty unto itself and the contractor has many cost/benefit decisions to weigh before they can start to make any presentations to the owner. This is a subject for a future post…..

As you can see, there is a lot to a project schedule update. And as always, the schedule settings, logic, constraints all need to be verified as part of the schedule update review. It is important to maintain a high schedule quality level throughout the project cycle.

I know many of you already know this information and can offer additional guidance and support, for all of us. I welcome your comments and input. My goal, as always, is to help our industry and help the projects we support….

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. Checking the CPM Schedule for Lags/Leads and Relationship Types.

In my previous post, I provided some basic schedule quality validation methods for use by project management professionals without access to, or proficiency with Primavera P6.

Continuing this area of discussion, this post will cover relationship lags, leads, and relationship types. This is a sore subject and there are typically many problems found in this area.

Again, when someone hands you the schedule update Gantt Chart, how do you know that the plan is valid? How can you do a quick validation of the schedule for basic requirements?

As I said before, a pdf of the schedule is nice for meetings, but someone from the owner’s and the contractor’s project teams needs to verify the schedule quality. The contractor usually has an in-house scheduler, so this is part of their processes during the development, update, and revision processes. What about contractors using a third-party planning and schedule professional? How do you validate our work? What about the owner and their construction management agency? How do they validate the schedule as presented by the contractor?

The owner and CMa will require the schedule in native format. That will allow their planning and schedule professionals to use the schedule program and verify schedule settings and structure. This is a must. I still see owners who simply look at the pdf and hope the schedule slippage will stop, one day….

Simply reviewing the schedule log generated by Primavera P6 will let you see the open relationships, out-of-sequence relationships, schedule settings, constraints, and other information.

You will not, however,  be able to find the relationship types and lags/leads used. One word of note here, I personally, do not use leads or negative lags. This is my preference. That said, you need to know how the logic is structured to know why it flows across the Gantt Chart layout the way it does. Just because the dates make sense does not mean that the logic is valid.

You can require the contractor provide you with a logic report from Primavera P6. This can be run sorted on activity ID. You can also have the predecessor and successor columns shown. The recent version of P6 will also show SS or FF relationship information, (with lag durations) much like MS Project does. Older versions of P6 do show relationships or lags/leads in the predecessor and successor columns. The logic report does. It just requires you to use the report as a legend while looking through the schedule layout to verify predecessors, successors and lags/leads used. This is very tedious, but this is a good practice. There are third party software programs that will produce reports only showing the activities with relationships other than FS. You can also produce this report in P6. But you must know how to do so…

The use of SS or FF relationships and limits for their us is a bit of a hot topic among planning and schedule professionals. Many organizations and government agencies include requirements in their schedule specifications limiting the use to a percentage of the total relationships. Many specifications do not speak to the use of relationships at all. I personally severely limit their use during development and only grudgingly use them when I do.

I avoid lags, but I do use them to push submittal development activities out to stagger the process. I do not use lags for concrete curing or other non-work activities which drive successor activity starts. These should be activities and transparent to all users of the schedule.

When reviewing the schedule for the use of SS, FF relationships and lags, simply make note of the usage and decide for yourself if the logic could be better modeled by breaking the activities into smaller areas or processes to allow the use of FS relationships. This is always the best approach. Review the use of lags the same way. If the activities can be broken down into more detail to allow the use of FS relationships for the work process, that is your best choice.

You can’t review or validate any of the information above if you don’t have the information in a format that allows you to analyze it. Require the P6 logic report or use third party software or learn how to find and analyze this information using P6 yourself. It is basic schedule mechanics, but the logic, relationships and activity durations are the backbone of the schedule. If the schedule isn’t developed following the project schedule specifications and schedule best practices, it is very doubtful the schedule will be a valid tool for the planning or control of the project performance and management.

These are just a couple of additional items that form the basics…. There are other items worthy of validating and I will speak to these in future posts.

I know many of you already know this information and can offer additional guidance and support, for all of us. I welcome your comments and input. My goal, as always, is to help our industry and help the projects we support….

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. Checking the CPM Schedule for Complete Logic, Verifying the Use of Calendars, and Identifying Constraints.

When someone hands you the schedule update Gantt Chart pdf, how do you know that the plan is valid? How can you do a quick validation of the schedule for basic requirements?

First and foremost, a pdf of the schedule is nice for meetings, but someone from the owner’s and the contractor’s project teams needs to verify the schedule quality & validity. The contractor usually has an in-house scheduler, so this is part of their work during the development, update, and revision processes. What about contractors using a third-party planning and schedule professional? How do you validate our work? What about the owner and their construction management agency? How do they validate the schedule as presented by the contractor?

The owner and CMa will require the schedule in native format. That will allow their planning and schedule professionals to use the schedule program and verify schedule settings and structure. This is a must. I still see owners who simply look at the pdf and hope the schedule slippage will stop, one day….

Simply reviewing the schedule log generated by Primavera P6 will let you see the open relationships, out-of-sequence relationships, schedule settings, constraints, and other information. This report includes the most basic information you need.  You should receive and review this report!

If you only have one activity missing a predecessor and one missing a successor, you are OK. This doesn’t mean all the logic in the schedule is correct, that is a very subjective review. It just means you don’t have any open ends reported. You can still have activities with only start-to-start successor relationships, which is basically the same as having no successor relationship. But, you need third party software or the ability to use the program filter, sort and report features to ferret these out.

The out-of-sequence activities listed on this report simply tell you that the successor to these activities most likely started prior to the finish of the activity listed. There are other reasons the activity may be listed, but this is the most likely reason. Why does this matter? Because the logic continues to drive successor dates and correcting the logic ties to model the as-built progress allows the remaining work to model correctly. It also provides you with an as-built schedule, one day….. Require the contractor make corrections to remove all out-of-sequence activities from the schedule log. It’s not hard for them to do.

The schedule settings are typically listed in the schedule specifications. You can use the schedule log to verify several of these. Retained logic or progress override, total float computation, longest path definition, and predecessor calendar use are just a few of the settings which should be reviewed and verified.

The schedule log will also list activities with constraints applied. What it will not do is tell you if the project has a must finish by date applied at the project level. It will also not tell you what type of constraints, (or their dates) are applied to the activities. Again, you must use third party software programs that will report the constraints or you must know how to use the filters, sorting, and reporting functions of the program to see this information.

This schedule log is a very important tool and you should require it with each schedule submission.

What about calendars? How do you verify calendars are assigned? How do you verify the calendars assigned to activities use the correct work days, work hours, holidays? Again, third party software or manually going through the calendars for the project. You can require a pdf layout with the calendar column showing. This will at least let you verify there are calendars other than the default calendar in use.

These are just the basics…. There are other items worthy of validating and I will speak to these in future posts.

I know many of you already know this information and can offer additional guidance and support, for all of us. I welcome your comments and input. My goal, as always, is to help our industry and help the projects we support….

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. Do You Manage Your Project with the Project Schedule?

QuestionWhy would you not use the schedule to manage the project?

If you put the effort into developing a detailed CPM schedule with input from the project team members, isn’t the schedule the best road map you have?

One of the great opportunities development of the baseline schedule offers is the project team’s review and input into the analysis of the scope of work for the project.

Depending on how your company estimates and proposes on projects, the people charged with executing the project after the award of the project to your company may have had limited to no involvement or exposure to the project requirements and the basic plan to execute the project based on the proposal.

The schedule development process encourages the project team to review the requirements, understand the sequencing of the work and sometimes even uncover an opportunity to improve on the initial proposed plan.

Assuming the project team has developed a great detailed baseline CPM schedule. I can’t imagine why anyone would not use the schedule to plan and manage work. Management likes to use the schedule to track and measure performance, but I consider the project schedule to be the project team’s best tool for executing the project.

Unfortunately, I run into projects that only produced the baseline schedule because it was required. The progress updates were used for invoice backup only and no effort was put into accurately updating and correcting out-of-sequence work and revising the plan to complete the remaining work in the project. Sadly, these projects do not have a valid schedule to base change order and delay impacts on. They also do not have an accurate idea of if or when the project will complete, much less what is required to get there.

There are many reasons to develop and use a detailed CPM schedule to manage the project. I can’t think of a good reason not to.

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. Resource and Cost Loading the Schedule

person-question-300x300Once you have the basic CPM schedule development completed and you’re ready to start resource and cost loading, do you find the schedule specifications lacking in requirements or guidance for this part of the schedule development?

Some schedule requirements simply do not require resource or cost loading. Some require the assignment of resources but do not speak to cost. Some allow simple lump sum cost loading, some require unit pricing with equipment and material costs broken out.

Whatever the case, most of us prefer the schedule be cost loaded, at least the baseline schedule. This allows us to create the performance measurement cost curve for EVMS and the early and late cost curves many of us are familiar with and most specifications require.

Each planning and schedule professional will have their own preferences for resource and cost loading the schedule.

Myself, when a lack of requirements allows, I prefer the resource and cost loading be kept simple. Unless the payment process for the project is based on unit prices and crew pricing, I avoid unit pricing with equipment and material costs broken out. I work mostly in mid-size construction projects and find that lump sum cost loading works just fine.

One thing I prefer is to keep my percent complete type set to physical and make the cost percent complete equal the physical percent complete. I find this works well if the delivery of large equipment is cost loaded and work activities are assigned cost which includes labor, equipment and basic materials. Simple to develop, manage, understand and track. Remember, this is for general construction. Road, UG infrastructure, and other linear unit driven schedules will benefit from unit pricing.

I also like to assign a resource for each subcontract, even though I lump-sum cost load. This allows a resource or cost curve for each. This helps with resource level analysis.

I believe resource and cost loading of schedules is an underserved discussion topic and our industry as a whole would benefit from learning how various industries and project types approach this process.

Hopefully, this post will help start some dialogue among us.

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. Reviewing a Time Impact Analyses, TIA or Change Order Fragnet. Or, “Is this for real??”

SurpriseI am sometimes bewildered by the reaction some owners have when they review the Time Impact Analyses, (TIA) or change order time extension request they receive from the contractor.

What I see, sometimes, is the owner being completely surprised that the contractor believes there was any time impact by the change order or delay. We all know that many change orders do not affect the project schedule critical (longest) path. But when they do, it gets interesting….

Let’s say the owner has delayed some part of the project in some way, but only for 3 days. When the contractor submits their TIA or change order time extension request for 5 days, the immediate reaction is usually not so good.

I find this happens more often than not because the owner does not understand how work days and calendar days work and their effect on the contract finish date.

If the 3 days happen to be 3 work days delay to the start of work on a 5 day work week calendar, it is most likely going to push the work out to include a weekend “non-work” period, perhaps even a holiday. If this happens, it will most likely push the scheduled finish date out 5 calendar days. (Most contracts have the liquidated damages based on calendar days.) In this particular case, the impact to the schedule is 5 calendar days, not 3 days.

This is can also the case when weather-sensitive work is pushed into time periods with more expected and accounted for weather days. As it should be.

How can we, as professional planning and schedule consultants help owners better understand the TIA’s and change order time extension fragnets they receive?

There are best practices and white papers devoted to the development of “fragnets”. As professional planning and schedule consultants, we should follow these best practices. But, we also need to review TIA and time extension requests to verify the “fragnet” correctly models the impact and is inserted into the most recent updated or revised schedule with reasonable logic.

Then we need to explain that to the owner to refute or validate the request. I find that once the owner understands what is driving the time from “behind the scene” in the schedule network, they tend to be more comfortable with the request. Then the negotiations can start!

None of this is possible, of course, unless there has been a disciplined process of managing the schedule development and update/revision process to maintain a valid schedule for use in validating the requests.

What other methods have you found to help with this issue?

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. Key Requirements for your Schedule Specifications. Or, Owners Beware…

CPM Consultant Professional Project Management
Project Management

Do you ever find yourself pulled into projects with schedule specifications lacking even the most basic requirements necessary to establish a schedule development and management process which will produce acceptable results?

In a perfect world, we, as Professional Planners and Schedulers, would be involved in the schedule specification development. Unfortunately, more often than not, a schedule spec from a previous project, which was pulled from a previous project is used without much review for completeness or relevance to scheduling methodologies and software currently in use and endorsed.

Perhaps it would be easier to just insist on a few key requirements that at a minimum should always be in the schedule specifications. We could then edit and add additional requirements for each project as appropriate.

Each planning and schedule professional will have their own preferences for these basic requirements.

However, for me, the first thing I would add is the requirement for a CPM schedule.

This would list the requirement for complete logic to allow the production of a critical path for the project. In this requirement, I would also add the requirements for a restriction of activity durations and total float values to force the breakdown of work into enough detail to plan, manage and track the work. I would also severely limit the use of SS and FF relationships and positive lags for the same reason. I would not allow the use of SF relationships or negative lags.

Second, I would require the development of the schedule based on a WBS. This would help ensure the complete project scope was included in the schedule and make it easier for the owner’s review and verification.

Finally, I would only allow two activities to be constrained; all activities percent complete type set to physical; development of appropriate calendars for weather and other non-work days; and require manual updating of progress with correction of out-of-sequence relationships and any other schedule revisions done in a two-step or bifurcated update process with the submission of the update only and then the revised update as separate parts of the update package to allow owner review of actual progress and the impact of this to the existing schedule with follow-on review of plan corrections.

We could address resource, crew, cost, and activity code requirements as needed for each project. But at least we could start with the basics for schedule development and management.

This would help all of us in the industry.

What other requirements would you add as basic requirements to help with this issue? What requirements would you not include?

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. Developing the “Time Impact” Fragnet. Or, this is how bad this change hurts!

Avoiding Project DelaysI often assist contractors with their schedule development and updates. This also includes preparing the “fragnets” for Time Impact Analysis, (TIA) or change orders. I find that many smaller contractors are not used to following a procedure for managing their schedules. This makes it nearly impossible to manage their change order time impact.

What I find, more often than not, is a schedule, (not the latest update, if there is one) that someone has increased the duration for a piece of work that is “impacted” by the change order or delay.

This may seem intuitive to the project manager or superintendent. It may actually work somewhat to model the impact of the change order or delay impact.

But, does it model the actual change or delay? Is it applied to the most recent accepted update or revision? Can it be used as a tool to visually explain the sequence of events associated with the change or delay to arrive at an understanding and agreement of the change package, associated relationships to existing work, and impact to the scheduled completion date?

There are best practices and white papers devoted to the development of “fragnets”. As professional planning and schedule consultants, we should follow these best practices. But, we still need the involvement and direction only the contractor can provide.

The contractor needs to explain the series of events driving the impact and be prepared to provide dates and references to RFI’s, field directions, RFP’s, meeting minutes, or other records which will support the request. We can then build the model of the impact events accurately. Then the contractor needs to tell us specifically which activities this impact actually drives so we can apply the correct logic. We also need to know what work was starting or underway when the issue presented so we know how to apply that logic as well.

It is much more complicated than simply increasing the duration of the activity impacted. The goal of the professional planning and schedule consultant is to model the impact package so it can be presented to the owner as an easily understood representation of the group of events laid out in a timeline fashion with durations and logic the owner can agree to or discuss further. Once this is accomplished, there isn’t much more to argue about. The impact model or fragnet stands on its own and the subjectivity is all but removed from the issue.

But this all depends on the willingness and ability of the contractor to provide the information and direction to support the development of the fragnet.

What other methods have you found to help with this issue?

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. Developing trust with the Owner, for Schedule Management.

person-question-300x300I often assist contractors with their schedule development and updates. This also includes preparing the “fragnets” for Time Impact Analysis, (TIA) or change orders. I get the impression from many owners that they do not trust the fragnet or analysis supporting the time extension request.

I worked many years on the “owner’s side” of projects. I understand the concerns most owners have. It only takes being lied to once to create a skeptic…

How do we, as professional planning and schedule consultants overcome the widespread distrust owners have, specifically when it comes to developing and supporting fragnets, TIA’s, or change orders?

I find the majority of contractors I work with to be honest & above board. They act with integrity and genuinely want to provide the best product and service they believe the owner has contracted for.

I find the majority of owners I work with believe they have provided the contractor with a good set of contract documents to work with and really do want the contractor to be successful on their project.

I believe the most important thing we can do, as professional planning and schedule consultants, is educate our clients by teaching them how the time impact “plugs” into the schedule; how the various calendars with non-work days affect the scheduled dates and total float downstream of the fragnet; how to properly manage the schedule updates and revisions to use the correct schedule to base the impact on.

If we could teach our clients the basics of change management for schedules, they might have a better understanding of what is prepared and presented, which would perhaps help in making the “negotiation” of the time impact go smoothly.

Who knows? It just might help build a little trust on the project…

What other methods have you found to help with this issue?

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