Construction Scheduling Services – Construction and Schedule Management Services

Construction Scheduling. Is the Schedule a Complete Schedule? (For Owners).

Do you review your Baseline Schedule to make sure all the work to complete “The Project” is included?

Are you sure?

When the contractor develops the schedule, they should be planning the project execution first. This includes the phasing of the project, the necessary permits, the long lead submittals, the procurement of subcontractors, equipment, and material, the close-out of the project, and the actual work necessary to build the project.

Often, we see schedules which do not include permits, or the procurement of long lead items, or complete commissioning, testing, and inspections. Let’s not forget the closeout requirements for as-built documents, warranties, or training, (if required).

The CPM schedule should include all the work necessary to execute the project. An easy way to ensure all the work is included is to make a list of all the closeout deliverables and compare that to the WBS for closeout section of the schedule. The same for special inspections, commissioning. For whatever reason, we always look closely at the construction section of the schedule, but tend to gloss over the administrative, procurement, and commissioning sections.

Just as we look at constructability for the project plans, we need to thoroughly look at the project schedule to make sure all of the deliverables are included. And, the activities to provide these deliverables need to be complete and broken down into sufficient detail to control the work!

An activity at the end of the project schedule that says “Finish Project” is of no use. All the activities necessary to actually plan and control the post “Substantial Completion” work for the project should be as detailed as the construction work is. The same for the commissioning and testing of systems.

And, let’s not forget the initial administrative requirements which have to be fulfilled prior to starting any work. We usually need an approved Safety Plan, an approved environmental permit, and building permit at a minimum. The time to develop these, get them submitted and reviewed and approved needs to be in the front of the schedule.

Also, we need the long lead time equipment or material submittals in the schedule. I also like to have the main materials submittals, in general form, in the schedule just to make sure we get them in and reviewed in time for their use in the project. Often, the contract documents state the required review period for the owner. We use this for the review period in the schedule.

There should be a fabrication and delivery activity(s) for any major equipment which should drive the start of any installation of the equipment. This activity(s) should be driven by the submittal and procurement of the equipment. Often, this will drive the Critical path.

Everyone tends to really look at the construction activities. As Planning and Schedule Professionals, we need to look at the project deliverable as a whole.

I’m sure many of you have comments or additional insight into this subject. Please share!

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. General Progress Update Information for Owners.

When we develop the Baseline CPM Schedule for a construction project, we know we will need to use the Baseline CPM Schedule to measure performance during project execution. With this in mind, we work with the contractor to help get an acceptable Baseline CPM Schedule for the project. That’s usually a tough task, many contractors don’t believe it necessary or simply do not want to follow parts of the schedule specifications or best practice for schedule development. But, we usually end up with a schedule we can use to track progress and manage the work and changes.

I often see problems on projects once we start getting schedule updates from the contractor. Some owners believe the Original Baseline CPM Schedule is the most important schedule we measure against. This is partly true, we do need to reference the original plan as we go. But, after the first couple of progress updates, the remaining plan to execute the project has changed. Sometimes there have been major change orders, delays or resequencing of work. When this happens, we need to revise the Baseline CPM Schedule. Most of us understand the need to re-Baseline.

What I find many do not understand is how important it is to keep the progress updates valid. The owner really needs to be able to validate Actual Start and Finish dates in addition to agreeing with the partial progress reported for work in progress. These three items determine the as-built schedule condition and establish the plan to continue with project execution.

That is what the owner can see in the Gantt Chart pdf.

What about what goes on behind the scenes when the contractor is applying the update data? Who is watching to see if logic is changed? If calendars are adjusted? If resources are revised?

There are many things the owner cannot verify or validate that absolutely need to be confirmed. This is where the Owner’s review and oversight of the scheduling process come in to play.

With each progress update submitted by the contractor, we look at several areas to ensure the schedule integrity is maintained.

First, we simply make sure the network logic is still complete. This also includes verifying there are not any open ends such as a Start-to-Start, SS successor relationship which leaves the finish of an activity open. We run diagnostics to uncover what logic, durations, calendars, and activity additions/deletions have been revised and analyze this data to understand what the changes actually do to the schedule. We need to determine if the contractor’s revisions of a few relationships from Finish-to-Start, FS to SS shortens a network path enough to shift the Critical Path. It may be unintentional, but we must still review and validate. Sometimes these relationship revisions are done to correct Out-of-Sequence, OOS logic, sometimes it is done to recover lost time and bring the schedule completion back.

We look for calendar changes which often affect Total Float and the Network Path. We look at changes to durations and flag lack of progress for activities not projecting to complete as planned. This needs to be investigated to determine the causation. We verify Out-of-Sequence Logic has been corrected to keep invalid relationships from driving remaining logic and dates.

We analyze the actual progress of the project as a whole and also look at the Critical Path work performance as well as Near Critical Path(s) work performance. Doing work on the Critical Path is important. Doing work on the Near Critical Path(s) is also important. However, if work not yet Near Critical is not executed aggressively, the result in the stacking of work adds unachievable resource demand to the remaining scheduled work. This often drives the search for the “miracle” towards the end of the project….

We have to monitor all this, and you really can’t get that kind of insight from the Gantt Chart pdf.

We have to validate the progress update schedule. After all, the revisions to pull back the schedule and make minor sequencing changes have obviously resulted in logic or other changes. We need to verify that the schedule still meets the schedule specifications and best practices. Each progress update becomes the basis for any time impacts for the next performance period. The schedule update has to be valid.

I will elaborate more on how we accomplish many of these tasks in future posts.

I’m sure many of you have comments or additional insight into this subject. Please share!

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. Use the Work Breakdown Structure to Verify the Deliverables.

When the project baseline schedule is developed, activities are created that represent work to complete the project. It’s tempting to jump in and start adding activities as you build the project in your mind. Resist this temptation….

First, plan the schedule! How will the schedule be used? How will progress and performance be tracked? Will resource and cost be tracked by cost accounts? What presentation types are required by the contract?

What is going to be the approach to the project execution? Who are the team members? What are the contractual requirements for the schedule? Is there coordination with other work by contractors or the owner required?

Once you’ve answered these, and any other specific questions for the project execution, you should define the deliverable and break the deliverable down into smaller and smaller pieces until you have individual work packages. This helps ensure you get the entire scope of the project in the schedule.

Setting up your resources, cost accounts, activity coding and calendars is also part of the planning phase of developing the schedule.

Now you can start adding the activities to support the deliverables in an organized manner. The best part is this allows the use of mandatory logic for the completion of each work package. This makes it quick and simple.

Next, you can apply the preferential logic to create the phasing you planned earlier in the process. If you organized the WBS by phase, this is easily done as well.

Planning the schedule development and management will help ensure you end up with a complete schedule for the project. It will also make the schedule more useful and easier to manage.

I know many of you can offer additional comments and recommendations. 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. Layouts and Options for Layouts.

Do you ever look at a schedule pdf and get lost in the many pages of data and bars?

Would you like to be able to quickly find out what is most important to you, as a PM? As an Owner? As a subcontractor?

When your contractor develops the project baseline schedule, they develop several activity code structures for the project. (Or they should…) We typically set up activity coding for phases, areas of work, subcontractor or trade responsibility, cost accounting source, CSI Division….

We do this so we can assign specific code values to each activity. This allows a filter or sort or group on specific or combinations of activity code values. We can filter by trade and sort by start. We can then group by area or phase or building. There are many ways to view the schedule which can make it easier for everyone.

However, often what you find in a progress or owner’s meeting is the two or three week look ahead schedule. This is a good tool. But, it is a specific tool. The look ahead schedule layout can show the work by phase or area or trade or simply as a “waterfall” by start date. The project team should decide what works best for them and request that layout for each meeting.

There are other layouts, in addition to the look ahead and the entire project schedule that are very useful.

One layout that I always use is the Critical Path (Longest Path) by Start/Finish date with no grouping. This provides a simple view of the critical activities by start date in a “waterfall” view. Very helpful for seeing what is critical and next in line.

I also like to produce a filtered list of incomplete and not-started activities sorted by Total Float value and then Start/Finish. No grouping, just a “waterfall” again. This allows us to see what is most likely the Near Critical Path activities by simply going down the list to the paths after the Critical Path. (I use a filter to remove the Longest Path) This is very helpful to the PM and Superintendent. They can ensure they focus on work that is near critical as well as critical. Too often this is missed.

Those are very simple layouts.

There are options for the Project Team. Let the scheduler show you what they can produce and work with them to find layouts that work for your project. It will make managing work much easier for everyone.

I know many of you can offer additional comments and recommendations. 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 Really Need a Scheduler to Develop and Manage the Schedule?

Does an experienced contractor really need a professional scheduler to create the baseline schedule and manage the update and revision process? Not necessarily, many projects can be scheduled using a worksheet or a simple program to model the activities and bars against a timeline.

But, does that typically provide the best schedule for managing the project? Can the contractor benefit from having a schedule professional on their team? Or at least as a third-party consultant?

Budget constraints, lack of staffing, or bad experiences with project scheduling can be some of the reasons a contractor will not have a scheduler on the project team. And, make no mistake, there is cost to this

I can understand why a contractor may be reluctant to use a professional scheduler, 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 contractor with schedule development techniques, best practices and an understanding of what the schedule specifications actually require? What value do they receive when they have that support in place?

First, they should benefit from having the scheduler review the RFP specifications, prior to submitting the proposal, to review and quantify what the schedule specifications require and assist with the budget for schedule development and management. Many contractors see the specification requirement for a “CPM” schedule and assume it means a “P6” schedule or a fully resource and cost loaded schedule. A professional scheduler can interpret the schedule specification and explain the requirements for the development of the baseline schedule and schedule updates. There is much more to it than most people think there is.

Almost all contractors pride themselves on knowing how they can and will build the project, better than their competitors and for less cost than they budget for. I do not doubt this. I’ve met some great Project Managers and Superintendents and they know how to do amazing things when it comes to coordinating work and managing subcontractors.

But, they are great in their area of expertise. They are not necessarily project controls experts or professional schedulers or cost estimators. Those are specific “trades”, just like being a Carpenter or an Electrician. Most of us in the construction industry can do a little of several “trades”, but we cannot be a specialist in many trades. A few can, but I’m not one of them.

That said, a schedule professional can work with the contractor to put their plan in the program, correctly utilizing the program settings and schedule best practices, to model the plan for use by the entire project team. If done correctly, with input from all the trades and the owner, the schedule becomes a map to the completion of the project.

The schedule professional provides this map with the quality and integrity to be accepted by the owner and used to manage the subcontractors, submittals, procurement, deliveries, mobilization, and the coordination of work. The schedule also provides the Project Manager the ability to manage change order impacts to the schedule and measure performance of the various project team players.

Often, owners require the schedule to be updated and maintained as part of the invoice process. The professional scheduler supports this process by applying the actual progress to the schedule and helping the project team with identifying production slippage and schedule impacts as well as modeling revisions as necessary to revise the plan going forward.

A contractor can possibly manage a project without a schedule professional on their team. But, would they manage a project without field superintendence or materials coordination, or subcontractors for specialized work?

It’s tough to quantify what value a professional scheduler brings to the contractor’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. 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. Reviewing a Time Impact Analyses, TIA or Change Order Fragnet. Or, “Is this for real??”

Surprise I 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 Delays I 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?

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. How do we, as Scheduling Consultants, help our clients succeed against the odds?”

There are times when the schedule update process shows the project has not made adequate progress to maintain the schedule as planned. It could happen…..

The problem starts when we work with our contractor client to correct the out-of-sequence relationships and make the necessary revisions to best model the team’s path going forward.

At some point, it becomes apparent that nothing we can do to the schedule, which doesn’t include adding cost/resources, is going to model a plan to complete on time. We typically look at resequencing work on the critical (longest) path, which may or may not include costs. We look at reducing durations to work on the critical (longest) path, which almost always includes costs. This is an iterative process as the critical (longest) path continually shifts as we change the various paths.

So, what happens we’re working with the contractor’s team to bring the project back on schedule? We strive to find the most cost-effective method of reducing the time required to complete the project, but there is soon going to be a point of diminishing returns for costs to “recover” the schedule.

What do you tell your client?

Does your client arbitrarily direct work to be scheduled concurrently or reduce durations greatly without input from the subcontractor?

Does your client look at past delays or change orders and consider re-visiting them to request additional time they did not pursue during the “honeymoon” phase?

I believe that we, as planning and scheduling professional consultants, should strive to keep the project on course and assist eh project team with providing a successful project.

The question is: As consultants, how do we accomplish this?

We must always maintain our integrity and be honest with our client.

What has your experience been?

Do you tell your client to “suck it up, we can’t afford to get back on schedule”?

Do you advise your client to convene a team meeting with the major subcontractors to see if they can assist with developing a recovery plan, at the least cost to the project? They are often well aware of the problem and have great ideas….

Do you suggest your client convene with the subcontractors and then meet with the owner to see if there is a way to provide what the owner absolutely needs to make the project successful for them and allow you to finish some of the work later than required?

Real scheduling is messy. But we all deal with issues all the time…..

There is power in building team consensus and almost every owner and contractor I have had the pleasure to work with have wanted a successful project and were willing to work with the entire project team to accomplish it.

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