Periodic Reporting – Construction and Schedule Management Services

Construction Scheduling. Actual Date(s) Progress Update Information for Owners.

In my previous post, I touched on some of the important progress update items we review and analyze.

I will now discuss the process for Actual Start and Finish Dates and partial progress of work in progress. I will not hit this too hard as most everyone understands this process and the process varies from industry to industry. But the basics are very similar.

When the project is large, or smaller, and there is a full-time Owner’s Scheduler on the project, the Owner’s scheduler can periodically walk the project with various team members to validate Actual Start and Finish Dates. More often, for me as a Schedule Consultant, I rely on that verification by the Owner’s Representative on site. It’s a standard part of developing the “pencil copy” pay application or draft invoice.

However, what often happens is the review is overly concerned with determining what percent complete work in progress is. While this is important, getting the accurate Actual Start and Finish Dates is critical as well.

When working with the contractor to determine the progress for a performance period, we typically walk the project and either agree or disagree with their assessment. We should also be reviewing our daily reports for the actual dates.

Back when I was an inspector, I liked to keep a copy of the three week look ahead schedule with me so I could jot down an actual date when I came across it in the field. This allowed me to write it and forget it so I could focus on other matters. It was also very helpful when reviewing the “pencil copy” pay application.

Coming to the agreement of percent complete for work in progress was not too difficult, but getting the expected Finish Date was. We really had to discuss the performance of that work individually, decide if the progress was improving, had some delay or was simply not important enough today to throw resources at. In any event, the expected Finish Date for an in-progress activity is crucial to determining what the status is and how the project proceeds from this update. It needs to be as accurate as possible. If we bag it, we can force it Critical or Near Critical resulting in an erroneous shift in resources. If we only rely on the best-case scenario, we may not allow the focus necessary to recover this next update period.

The owner really needs to have someone in the field, daily, keeping up with the actual and planned progress. The rest of the schedule progress update is based on this data. Any revisions and planning done by the contractor to recover time lost or shift resources to maintain schedule are dependent on this information being accurate. Any potential delay or change order issues are also affected by this information. This information sets the status of the project at the time of the progress update. This determines the current Critical and Near Critical Path(s).

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. Progress Updates and Incomplete Work.

When we update Actual Progress for the Schedule update, how do we report the incomplete activities? How do we report the progress for the work, (activities) currently in progress?

We know how to report the completed work.

More often than not, there are many activities which may have Actual Start Dates in the previous Update Period. There are also activities which will have Actual Start Dates and Finish Dates in this Progress Update. There will also be activities which will not have Actual Finish Dates. The way we report the Actual Progress for these activities is crucial to maintaining the schedule validity.

The Project Team has to decide just how much of the “work” represented by the activity is complete. What percentage of the work is complete…. This should be a measure of quantity completed.

Too often, we see the Duration Percent Complete set as the Progress Percent Complete. This is not the best method of reporting the Actual Progress.

If the Duration Percent Complete is used to report the Actual Progress, the schedule is not going to be valid. Setting the Duration Percent Complete to a specific value results in the program calculating the Remaining Duration. This, in turn, establishes the scheduled Finish Date for that activity. This is the problem. The scheduled Finish Date for an incomplete activity should be set by the Project Team as the date they expect the work for that activity to actually finish. Unless this scheduled Finish Date is used, and the successor activities driven by the remaining duration and logic for the network string are allowed to calculate the new scheduled dates, the schedule is not valid.

Using Duration Percent Complete does not, in most cases, represent the actual schedule progress and accurately model the remaining plan to execute the project.

A better method to report Actual Progress is the use of Physical Percent Complete. This value is based on the actual work in place. The Duration Percent Complete should be the result of setting the scheduled Finish Date or Remaining Duration based on Project Team input. This allows us to have the value of work in place and the value of the time used to complete this work in place. We can then easily see if we are meeting the required productivity rate for this work activity.

The next step, after entering all the Actual Dates and Scheduled Finish Dates, (or adjusting Remaining Durations for in-progress work), is to “schedule” or calculate the project schedule. We should then look at the Out-of-Sequence, OOS logic and make corrections.

I believe in correcting all the OOS logic each update. Many do not consider this necessary and others consider it only necessary for activities on the Critical or Near Critical Paths. Some Schedule Specifications or Requirements address this issue, but most do not. I consider it a best practice for keeping the schedule valid for the as-built progress and do not like the idea of the OOS logic driving future dates and logic, which can happen.

Using the Physical Percent Complete for reporting Actual Work in Place, letting the Duration Percent Compete report the actual Activity Duration consumed, and correcting the OOS logic is the first part of the Progress Update process.

This allows us to maintain the schedule as a valid tool for planning the remaining work from the Data Date forward. If the Progress Update results in a late Finish Date for the project, then we have some work to do. This is, more often than not, the case. We can make adjustments to the plan to complete the remaining work through Schedule Revisions. This issue is a subject for another post.

It is my opinion that the best thing the Project Team can do is establish the most realistic Progress Update possible, each Update Period. If we don’t know where the project actually is, how can we drive the project to a successful completion? If the Progress Update is not valid, the Critical Path and Near Critical Path(s) are most likely not valid. How then, can a Project Team manage the Critical work? How can the Project Team identify and address work which is actually lagging?

We should, as Schedule Professionals, provide the “reality” of the project 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. Schedule Progress Updates and the PM.

The Project Manager is responsible for many deliverables and processes for the project.

Scope, cost, communication, time, and quality.

Part of managing the cost and time is the coordination of work and subsequent reporting of work completed.

Many projects base the periodic invoicing on the percentage of work completed for that period. Others use Milestones for payments. There are other methods as well. For this post, we will work with the percentage of work based on the progress completed for each activity.

Correct updating and reporting of the schedule progress is a large part of the process. And invoicing is a big deal!

How does the PM report on the work completed? Should they use the percentage of time used for the activity? Should they use the percentage of actual cost expended? Should they use the percentage of work in place?

Depending on the contract type, there are options. Personally, I prefer to base the invoicing on the percentage of physical work in place. After all, why would an owner pay for your time or actual expenses, unless the work is T&M?

To update the progress based on physical work in place, you simply manually assign the physical percent complete for work in progress and set the scheduled finish date based on the planned remaining duration or finish date. It is that simple. The cost can be calculated in the software program or in a spreadsheet.

One of the useful things about using physical percent complete and letting the remaining duration or scheduled finish determine the duration percent complete is the variance between percent complete this creates.

If you have completed 50% of the work and the remaining duration or scheduled finish date results in a duration percent complete of 70%, it is obviously taking longer to complete this work than planned.

Perhaps this indicates a learning curve for this work. Perhaps there was a delay in material delivery once the activity started. There could be many reasons. But, the PM should know the reason and they cannot know to find out if they do not have an indicator that there is a problem.

Many people just assign the percent complete as duration percent complete and let the program assign the scheduled finish date based on the original duration and remaining duration values. This is a problem for several reasons. First, this method models the time used and remaining, not the work in place. Second, the scheduled finish date is based on the assumption that the productivity rate is as planned. Seldom is this correct. Finally, letting the duration percent complete value calculate the scheduled finish date does not model the remaining work for the project accurately. Basing an invoice on this method will result in inaccurate invoices for work in place and a schedule that is not valid for the remaining work. It’s a good practice to be accurate in these areas.

Although it is not often used in the typical layouts I see, displaying the “At Completion Duration” column in the layout also provides a quick flag for activities that are exceeding the original duration. Most layouts display the “Original Duration” and the “Remaining Duration” columns. But this doesn’t really alert the PM to a potential problem with activity progress and productivity.

I’m a big supporter of using physical percent complete for work in place and setting the scheduled finish date for work in progress by revising the remaining duration value or setting the date based on field input. I also like to display the “At Completion Duration” column in my layouts. I think providing the Project Manager with as many tools as we can to help them make intelligent decisions for managing the work is our primary function.

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. Recovering Lost Time or Saving Work for Later?

When the project baseline schedule is developed, most of the relationships used should be Finish-to-Start, FS. There is always the need for Start-to-Start, SS or Finish-to-Finish, FF relationships to model some sequences of work, but it’s best to break the work down enough to schedule with predominately FS relationships.

That said, far too often it seems that progress is not what was planned due to one reason or another. During the update process, assigning the actual dates and expected finishes to current activities pushes the schedule out. Sometimes only a day or so, but sometimes the schedule can push out weeks…..

How do we recover this lost time? How do we plan the remaining work to mitigate the late project finish? How do we keep from turning in a schedule update that the owner will immediately reject with the demand for a “Recovery Schedule”?

Often, there is a mix of activity duration reductions and resequencing of work.

If the parties responsible for the activities agree to the duration reductions and commit to supporting the schedule with additional resources or hours, this is usually not a problem. There may be work area size constraints that limit the effectiveness of more resources, or there may be logistical constraints that limit the amount of work which can be placed. But usually, adding resources or hours, in small quantities can work.

The trouble usually comes from resequencing the work. All too often, the recovery is achieved by taking several activities sequences with FS relationships and making the relationships SS with small lags. Basically, this is modeling the work to have each trade on top of the predecessor work’s trade. Rarely is this successful. What ends up happening is the work gets “stacked”. The work that couldn’t be completed when it was scheduled, with the resources available, is now magically supposed to be completed when other work is demanding more resources and there is less time to complete the work for that area.

Don’t get me wrong, limited resequencing of work is normal and can be done successfully. But it is not the cure-all for lack of progress.

So, how do we efficiently recover the lost time?

In reality, the scheduled finish date is only pushed out by lack of progress for work on the Critical (Longest) Path. The key is looking at the activities on the Critical Path and finding a way to work with durations and sequencing to shorten this path. This is an iterative process because the Critical Path will shift to the next Near Critical Path as you shorten the current Critical Path.

The thing to remember is not to let work not on the Critical or Near Critical Path sit. Work where you can when you can. But always make sure you’re making adequate progress for work on the Critical and Near Critical Path(s). If you do this, you won’t have to worry about recovering time!

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. 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’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?

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’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. Don’t let the Near Critical path Sneak up on Your Project!

Surprise Do you diligently keep track of the work on your project’s critical path?

How we define the critical path is a topic for another time. For now, let’s just focus on what we are tracking as critical based on total float values, which do tie into the longest path definition with variances for calendars…..

How often has the critical path for your project shifted during the project duration? Do you show as much diligence with tracking the near critical activities as you do the critical path activities?

You should, and I’m betting that you do. But, sometimes, it still sneaks up on us!

I prefer to keep my eye on both. And then I usually only focus on the nearest couple of near critical paths. 80/20 rule….. By staying aware of the calendars assigned to the activities on my near critical path(s) and looking at the trend for slippage for these activities, I generally find I realize the pending in time to intervene. I like that much better than after the fact, but I’d like to deal with the pending impact sooner, as I’m sure we all would.

I do this by comparing the past near critical path activities to the current activities to look for slippage in my layout and filter. This helps. I also like to track the schedule slippage of the activities with a total float value lower than a specific total float value dependent on the schedule status. I find it easier to spot the start of the trend and make a note to track that activity next update. I then look at the drivers to see what is causing the slippage. Pretty simple. There are more elaborate methods of analysis for determining trends and slippage and identifying potential impacts, but I like to start with the simple methods to get an immediate fix on the schedule status.

There are always “exceptions to the rule”, but this is one I try to follow.

What other methods have you found to successfully identify the near critical path negative trend?

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

Schedule Management. How should a Non-Schedule Savvy PM or Superintendent Develop and Manage a “Recovery Schedule”?

You have a baseline schedule, with a few periodic updates completed, and now you need to make a revision to the schedule to dramatically re-sequence work, add/delete work to/from the project, or provide a required “Recovery Schedule”. What do you do?

This is one of the more difficult schedule management tasks. In some ways, it is almost more difficult than creating the baseline schedule.

Depending on the amount of time you need to “recover”, you will need to find the root causation for the schedule slippage and get that under control. This could mean anything from having the party responsible for the slippage work additional hours to maintain the daily scheduled productivity, adding resources to increase the daily scheduled productivity, or resequencing of work to mitigate the lack of daily scheduled productivity or model concurrent work.

Next you will need to develop the most cost-effective means of accelerating work on the current longest path. This is tricky. Your schedule may have a near critical path which is very close to the scheduled longest path. As you shave days off the longest path, it will shift to the near critical path making that path the longest path. You will need to keep working at accelerating activities on the longest path, as it shifts until you reach the point of “recovery”.

That’s the easy part.

Now you have to obtain support for this plan from the project team. Subcontractors have to agree to provide what is needed to achieve this revised plan. Deliveries must be verified. Resource availability must be verified. There is probably additional cost involved. This must be managed a well.

In summary, any “recovery plan” will most likely involve concurrent work and/or acceleration of work. In any case, submitting a “recovery schedule” without the support of the project team for execution of the revised plan is a disservice to the owner, the project team and the project. You must be able to gain the commitment of the project team.

Schedule management includes many tasks and processes. Developing the “recovery schedule” is one of the more difficult tasks. The Project Manager should always be intimately involved with the planning of the revised work plan and “buy-in” from the project team is necessary for the successful execution of the “recovery plan”.

You may be able to manage the development of the recovery schedule without any problems.

However, when in doubt, seek out the advice of a professional planner and scheduler.

Please visit https://conschmanservices.com to learn more about basic schedule concepts.

Please visit my LinkedIn account to learn more about me.

Paul Epperson CCM, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP

Schedule Management. How should a Non-Schedule Savvy PM or Superintendent Manage their Project Schedule?

Tilt Up You have created your project’s baseline schedule and now you are starting the schedule management phase of the project. What do you do?

If you have not done so already, you need to establish a “schedule log”. I like to start my schedule log when I start development of the baseline schedule. This allows me to track my revisions and reasons for making them. The schedule log provides you with historic data for each revision or update to the schedule. Very handy.

If you have not done so already, set up schedule layouts and filters you plan to use. I also set these up during me schedule development, but often times the owner decides they want to use something other than what the schedule specifications require.

Each periodic update, save your schedule with progress only. This allows you to see what the progress update did to your schedule, save this snapshot. Then make any revisions to correct out-of-sequence, OOS relationships and model the revised plan to finish on schedule. You now have your updated and revised schedule ready for use.

Update the schedule periodically. Compare your progress with the most current previously accepted schedule and the baseline schedule. Look at how you’re tracking, how your actual durations are comparing to your scheduled original durations, and how your work sequence is actually progressing. Identify problem areas and trends and develop corrective action to recover time lost.

After you update the progress for your schedule, revise the schedule update to reflect your actual plan for execution. This doesn’t mean a complete change of sequence or addition of new work. This is simply to model adjustments you are going to need to make to maintain the scheduled completion date.

Major revisions to the schedule to dramatically re-sequence work or add/delete large pieces of work are handled differently. This will be part of a future post.

Managing the simple month to month schedule update process is pretty straightforward. Correcting the OOS is more involved and care should be taken to follow best practices. This is all part of the basic schedule management process.

However, when in doubt, seek out the advice of a professional planner and scheduler.

Please visit https://conschmanservices.com to learn more about basic schedule concepts.

Please visit my LinkedIn account to learn more about me.

Paul Epperson CCM, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP