CPM Schedule Consultant – Construction and Schedule Management Services

Construction Scheduling. Do you have a Schedule or a CPM Schedule?

Is what you’ve created a CPM schedule? Or is it a schedule with dates and activity bars?

Can you tell the difference?

First, CPM stands for Critical Path Method and is kind of a general term often used for Precedence Diagram Method, PDM schedule development.

Almost any schedule developed, using one the many current scheduling software programs, will be created based on the precedence diagram method. Most of the current scheduling software programs are set up for that.

Creating the WBS structure or summary bars and adding activities that model the work for the project in these programs will produce a schedule.

But is this really a useful schedule? Or is it a list of activities with dates assigned through the use of incomplete logic and date constraints? We get a list of activities with planned dates. That’s all we need, right? Isn’t that a schedule…?

Not really. That may be useful for conveying the basic plan for future work. But this is not a dynamic CPM schedule that can be used to model future work based on current progress, produce a Longest Path, or model the impact added or delayed work may have on future completion dates for the project.

I run into this a lot. A PM or someone on the project team will create a schedule and assume it is a CPM schedule. There are a few requirements to meet before a schedule can be considered a true CPM schedule.

Listed below are the minimum requirements for a CPM schedule.

Calendars.

For your schedule to be reasonably accurate, calendars need to be created to allow activities to have durations based on planned work periods. This usually requires the development and use of multiple calendars to account for various work periods such as 5-day 8-hour workweeks; 4-day 10-hour workweeks; workweeks with specific holidays set as non-workdays; anticipated non-workdays due to anticipated weather impacts….

Logic.

The only activity without a predecessor should be the first activity in the schedule. Usually NTP. The only activity without a successor should be the last activity, usually Project Complete or CCD… To be a true CPM schedule, all activity dates should be driven by the predecessor activities durations and logic. Having only all the predecessors assigned is not enough. There must be activities that are driven by the start or finish of a predecessor activity. If the activity in fact, does not drive the start of any work except the end of the project, then the successor should the last activity.

Constraints.

There are valid uses for date constraints in any schedule. However, overuse creates multiple interruptions to the forward and backward passes which determine float values. This produces snippets of paths based on the types of date constraints. Just using a constraint to set a planned start date for an activity is not a valid use of a date constraint. An interim date constraint should represent an external driving force for an activity or milestone or the contractually required date for a milestone. Limiting the use of date constraints allows the activity durations and activity relationships, (logic) to drive finish dates and produce a Longest Path to the finish of the project. This gives us the Critical Path for completion of the project.

Relationships and lags.

There valid reasons for using SS and/or FF relationships to model the planned sequencing of activities. But they should not be used in lieu of decomposing the work. Using SS and /or FF relationships should only be used to model work which will run concurrently even when the work is broken down to a reasonably small duration. Lags should not be used to model work or a waiting period. Lags are not transparent and using a lag with SS or FF relationships results in the work being modeled to start or finish based on a set time after the driving relationship has been satisfied, not on actual measurable work being complete to a specific point.

These are the most basic requirements for a CPM schedule.

The idea is to end up with a schedule that will model the impact actual progress to-date has on remaining scheduled activity dates. A CPM schedule can be used by the project team to proactively manage current schedule slippage, more accurately manage resources, and project finish dates and time-scaled cost flow.

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. Developing the Project Schedule Plan.

When you’re bidding a project, do you start developing a schedule plan? Or plan your schedule?

Before we ever start developing activities, we should plan the project, and this includes planning the schedule.

We need to determine how we plan to sequence the major portions of the work, establish required and preferential phases, break the project down into smaller deliverables based on area, CSI code, sub-contractor, type of activities – contract milestones, procurement, administrative activities…

This information is probably part of the cost proposal development process and provides us with the building blocks for developing the WBS.

We also need to have an idea of what type of activity calendars and coding we will need to use. The resources we will need to develop can be based on the subcontractor or CSI deliverable list.

As a CPM Schedule Consultant, I use this information to develop a schedule plan. I use this plan to develop the project WBS, activity coding, resources, and project calendars. I develop these before I ever start creating the activities for the schedule. Having the WBS developed helps ensure we have the entire scope of work in the schedule. Having the activity coding developed allows me to assign these items to the activities as I create the activities. This helps with filtering and sorting to assign hard and preferential logic and for reviewing work for specific resources or subcontractors for trade stacking and for reviewing specific areas for trade congestion. It’s just easier to assign the Responsibility and CSI activity coding along with assigning the resources. This saves time and avoids mistakes. Having the calendars developed helps with setting the original durations once we have all the logic assigned.

Planning the project as well as the schedule is the important first step in developing the project schedule.

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. Schedule Revisions and the Reality Check.

When we finish updating Actual Progress for the Schedule Update, (See previous post), how do we revise the schedule to maintain the contract completion date or whatever period of performance is required?

How do we get the Project Schedule back on-track?

More often than not, the Schedule Update models actual performance which does not support an on-time project completion. Work slips, production isn’t what was planned, deliveries are late…..

The Project Team usually has to make Schedule Revisions to “recover” the lost time. This is sometimes called “crashing” the schedule.

This is an exercise based in future failure.

When most schedules are developed, they are already overly optimistic because the Project Team had to “crash” the schedule to even create the Project Baseline Schedule. Once the work starts and progress slips, the work starts to stack. Even if the Critical path work is completed sufficiently to maintain the Critical Path, all the other work activities have to maintain or beat their dates. If not, that work pushes out and soon stacks up to double the resources necessary to complete the work later. If we couldn’t complete the work as-planned, why will we be able to complete it later, when we have fewer resources to work with? What is going to change?

Back to the Schedule Revision process. The process is basically looking at the current Critical Path and deciding which activity duration can be shortened cost-effectively or which logic for sequential activities can be changed to have them run concurrently, with a slight bit of lag time. Then the schedule is calculated again and this process is repeated until the schedule is “on-track”.

Unfortunately, this is also when contractors are pressured into completing work in less time than they may have budgeted or have the resources to support. But, this is often exactly what happens.

Now we have a schedule for the remaining project work which is most certainly impossible to execute. Sure, the owner will issue change orders which may provide some concurrent delay the contractor can attach their lack of progress to. But most likely, there will not be enough changes to cover all the time lost.

It is my opinion that the best thing the Project Team can do, is establish the most realistic expected Finish Date for incomplete work. This also applies to establishing the most realistic delay (lag) in concurrent work planned to recover time. If these revisions are not realistic, the contractor can’t support the shortened duration or additional resources necessary, then we are just kicking the proverbial can down the road.

We should, as Schedule Professionals, provide the “reality” of the project performance and the realistic plan to execute the remaining project work and let the Project Stakeholders know sooner than later that the project cannot, under the current cost or resource constraints maintain the contract completion date or period of performance.

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. 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. Do You Manage Your Project with the Project Schedule?

Question Why 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. 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. How do we, as Schedule Consultants, “Value” our Services?

Question Do you provide proposals to contractors or owners for your schedule development and management services? Do you provide a lump sum hard bid based on the project? Or, do you provide an hourly rate for your services? Which is best? Are there circumstances that make one the better choice?

I still struggle with this issue.

At some point, all of us are asked to propose on a project.

So, what do you do? What do you use as your guide for setting a lump sum price proposal? Do you estimate your hours based on past, similar projects? How do you account for relying on a new project team for input and reviews?

Do you provide an hourly billable rate? How does your client budget for you services? Do you provide a budget estimate of hours and your rate for their use?

I typically provide a budget estimate based on my estimated hours and billable rate. But even then, coming up with the hours for a new client and team, and hoping for proactive input for development and updates/revisions is very subjective. But I do my best to provide a budget estimate they can have confidence in.

There must be a better way to go about pricing our work based on the value we bring to the project.

What works for you? Have you figured out a “safer” way to price the project scheduling services you will provide?

I believe that we, as planning and scheduling professional consultants, should strive to provide the best possible schedule support to assist the project team with providing a successful project.

The question is: As consultants, how do we “value” this?

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

What has your experience been?

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

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. Why are there no schedule requirements in the RFP?

person-question-300x300 Are you ever asked to develop the project baseline schedule and find out there are not any requirements for the schedule in the contract documents. It could happen…..

Or the requirements are “fuzzy” at best or so limited as to be of little value.

At some point, all of us have come across this scenario, or soon will.

So, what do you do? What do you use as your guide for setting the critical path, activity and duration types, and resource and cost loading? Does your company have guidelines for this situation? Do you have a preferred method you fall back on in these situations?

I have a couple of guidelines based on useful schedule specifications I’ve worked with in the past. But I have to find out what the project team wants from the schedule before I can decide which requirements to employ.

Does your client want to project and track progress using resources? Does the owner? Does your client want to use cost loading? If so, by unit cost or lump sum? What does your client expect or understand about setting the critical path? Will the project be resource driven? Or will durations and logic rule with resources handled via logic? What about constraints? Calendars and weather days?

There are many more variables we work with every day. Without schedule requirements for the project, we are left deciding which settings and approaches are best for the specific project. With experience, we can become comfortable with this situation. But what if the project is a new industry or contract type for you?

How do you approach these situations in your company?

I believe that we, as planning and scheduling professional consultants, should strive to provide the best possible schedule support to assist the 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 just default to the simplest methods and settings?

Do you advise your client to convene a team meeting with the owner to see if they can agree on some basic requirements?

Do you just pull one of you favored specifications out of the drawer and run with that?

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

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 Schedule Consultants, Best Serve the Client?

schedule1 As I start working with new clients, I seek to understand how I can best help them?

What do they expect to gain from me? I know they want a project schedule developed and approved for use on the project. That’s only part of it…….

A large part of what we do, as a planning and scheduling professional consultant, is add to our clients’ knowledge base. We teach the importance of using schedule best practices, ways to better manage and use the schedule, and how to better understand what the schedule update is telling us.

I enjoy all of it.

I believe that we, as planning and scheduling professional consultants, should also improve the clients’ understanding of scheduling in general. We should improve the clients’ ability to deliver the project. We should help the client understand better how the project schedule integrates with their cost and resource management.

What has your experience been?

Do most of your clients already integrate their project schedules with their resource and cost control practice? Do they only need your expertise with the software and schedule techniques?

Or, do you sometimes find your efforts resisted due to your clients’ lack of schedule knowledge or project management maturity? If so, how? And how do you deal with that?

Do you often feel pressured to develop the schedule based completely on best case scenarios? If so, how do you deal with that?

What client management techniques have you developed to better manage and help your clients with their schedule development and management?

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.

Paul Epperson CCM, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP

Construction Scheduling. Time Extensions and Delays. How do we best work through these with less mature Project Teams?

Delay outputs All projects run into change orders with time extensions and just plain old delay claims.

But, how do we manage these on smaller projects with teams that are not well versed in CPM schedule methodology and analysis?

Typically, these projects manage change order time extensions or delays by marking off days on a calendar or looking at daily reports for days worked and deciding that if the contractor worked, he must not have been delayed…..

Part of what we do, as a planning and scheduling professional consultant, is to help the contractor support their case for a time extension for additional work, if it drives the longest path. We also help the owner defend against frivolous time extension requests or delay claims.

If the change order or the delay impacted the longest path, we need to quantify the impact to the completion date. But, even if the impact does not push the completion date, there is still an impact to the sequencing of work, delivery of materials, efficiency of work resources, and the consuming of total float from the near critical paths.

I believe that we, as planning and scheduling professional consultants, should strive to improve the clients’ understanding of change order insertion into the schedule and the analysis of the impact. We should improve the clients’ ability substantiate their impact or defend against the unsubstantiated claims. Sometimes this means telling our clients that there is no impact to the longest path. Sometimes it means helping our clients model the disruption to their work or the increased cost of resequencing their work. Sometimes it means telling the owner that the contractor is entitled to the time extension request.

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

But sometimes, our clients demand we support their position, regardless of our analysis and advice against pursuing time for the change order or delay.

What has your experience been?

Do most of your clients understand how the inserted “fragnet” may or may not impact the completion date? Do they understand how the near critical paths can be impacted to become the longest path and even push the completion date?

Or, do you sometimes find your efforts resisted due to your clients’ lack of schedule knowledge or project management maturity? If so, how? And how do you deal with that?

Do you often feel pressured to support your client’s preconceived belief, rather than what the analysis shows? If so, how do you deal with that?

What client management techniques have you developed to better manage and help your clients with their schedule impacts and change order management?

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.

Paul Epperson CCM, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP