Schedule Management – Construction and Schedule Management Services

Construction Scheduling. Managing the Project with the Schedule.

You’ve put the time and effort into developing a CPM schedule for the project. You have the Baseline Schedule approved. What do you do with it now?

Do you use it to create your monthly invoicing? Do you use it to document delays? Did you really only develop it to satisfy the contract requirements?

Do you use it to help you manage the project?

The project schedule is a great tool for managing the project. Oh, it’s also good for invoicing, delay documentation, and satisfying a specification requirement…. But, if a PM will use the schedule to help manage the project workflow, life will be a little bit easier…

If you manage the schedule updates properly, your schedule will show you which work is critical, which is near critical, and which work can slide a little. This is itself frees you from worrying too much about what should be your focus. Get the critical work done now or sooner, don’t lose track of the near-critical work, and try not to let the other work slip.

If I have anything negative to say about using the project schedule, it is the tendency to let non-critical work slip. This will result in stacking and trade congestion which is extremely difficult to recover from. Always push all work all the time. But, critical and near critical work comes first.

Keeping the schedule current and properly updated will really help in resource projection and your subcontractors will be much happier when they see that you actually follow a schedule. For example, if you have progressed better than planned on the structure, you can see from the updated schedule that the subsequent work will be ready sooner allowing you to provide a date for follow-on subcontractors to mobilize and get work started, well ahead of time so they can better manage their workforce and delivery.

When delays do occur, having a good schedule helps in mitigating and measuring the impact. You can see potential resource shortage issues early and take action.

There are so many reasons a good CPM schedule will help the PM. As a CPM Schedule Consultant, it’s hard to see why many contractors have so much resistance to putting in the effort and time to develop a good schedule in the first place.

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. You Need a Process for Managing Your Project Schedules.

Do you have a process for managing the schedules for your projects?

Perhaps you keep them in a file? Maybe you compare the updates with the baseline schedule from time to time?

There are many methods available to us for managing project documentation. Managing the project schedules requires a little more than just a filing system. The use of a schedule log for tracking the baseline and each update for project-level schedule IDs, data dates, milestone dates, cost performance, or any other info you may choose to track is a good practice.

The Schedule Log is simple to set up and use and will save time when referring back to previous schedules and the status of the project at a given time.

As a CPM Schedule Consultant, I use an MS Excel workbook with multiple worksheets, but a more simple schedule log could be managed on a single worksheet. Starting with the baseline schedule, you simply enter data from the schedule such as the P6 Project ID, data date, substantial completion date, milestone dates, contract completion date, number of activities, project total float value, description of the critical path, total actual cost, or other metrics. These can then be easily retrieved for quick analysis or used as a data set for creating curves or histograms for date slippage, float erosion, cost curves…

Using the schedule log is quick and easy and provides a ready reference point for schedule metrics.

Need to know the status of the project at the update previous to the current update? Maybe there is someone from higher management requesting the status of cost performance or float erosion over the past three periods? If you’ve set up your schedule log and kept it current, this information is easy to locate, and you can even provide a report from the schedule log.

How we file the schedules is important too. Keeping a set of folders for the baseline and schedule updates is something everyone does. What about adding delay issues and change orders that occur in a specific update period? Would a copy of those added to the update folder be handy for future reference? How about copies of photos and field reports for the update period? RFI’s?

Document control is a profession of its own and there are tried and true methodologies for this. Adding references to the schedule files for other supporting documentation or copies of the documents can be part of the process.

Managing the project schedule process is more involved than simply filing the updates. The schedule log can be used as another tool to help you better manage your projects.

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. The Reality of a Project Schedule, (For Owners).

Do contractors and project owners view the project schedule differently?

Most of the time? You bet!

The contractor develops the schedule because the contract specifications require a project schedule or because they need a plan to manage the project execution or both. Does the contractor need the same degree of detail or planning as the project owner? Probably more.

The project owner wants the project schedule as assurance from the contractor that they have a plan and can execute the project. They also need the schedule to plan their own activities for the project and plan internal activities which may be separate from the project.

Most projects now require a CPM schedule. This forces the contractor to develop more detailed logic, with specific calendars. They cannot get by with a simple bar (Gantt) chart type of a schedule which simply lists the activities in the planned sequence. The contractor must develop a complex organization of finite activities with associated logic, calendars, constraints and best practices.

The project owner benefits from this, they can have a higher level of confidence in the schedule!

Or can they?

When you plan the project by breaking down the deliverables, verifying resources availability, acknowledging internal and external constraints, and planning the basic phasing and sequencing if the work, the required project completion date is a facet of the planning, but not the driver. We simply plan how we will schedule the project.

When we sequence the deliverables and add the supporting activities, based on our planning effort, we often find we will not finish the project by the contract completion date, as required.

We then consider adding resources to shorten activity durations and/or sequencing some work to run concurrently. We do this by attacking the current Longest Path, iteratively as the Longest Path keeps shifting until we have a schedule that meets the contract completion requirements.

As the project owner, you generally do not know about this exercise. You do not realize how much schedule risk has been added to the project. For larger and more sophisticated projects or owners, the use of risk management for cost, scope, and schedule is common. But, for many medium and some larger projects, there are not resources available for risk assessment and management.

For these projects, the owner believes the contractor can execute the project as planned. Often, the contractor is anxious and understands there is the additional risk and has analyzed the risk and provided a mitigation plan. However, the risk remains.

Any impact to the project schedule Critical or Near Critical Path can derail the project. There simply isn’t schedule contingency available to absorb any impact. Many owners believe the contractor has built-in contingency, just as they believe the contractor has a cost contingency. Usually, they have a cost contingency, but often it is negligible. They bid the project to win the project and keeping the contingency slim is part of winning….

Seldom is there any real schedule contingency. Contractors must address even slight impacts to the execution or sequencing of work. Owners believe the contractor should anticipate these and absorb them. It is all contractors can do to mitigate their own impact issues, much less absorb owner impacts.

How can we, as Planning and Schedule Professionals help?

I can only speak for myself…

When providing owner’s schedule oversight and management support, I try to identify the types of items in the schedule which would prevent the project team from using the schedule to accurately forecast and manage the work. It is in the best interest of all parties if the schedule is valid for use. Often, the contractors disagree and push back, but for the benefit of the project as a whole, we have to force the use of solid, valid CPM schedules.

Unfortunately, and far too often, the contract schedule requirements do not provide the support necessary to force the quality of schedule we need…. So, we do the best we can…

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. Critical and Near Critical Progress Update Information for Owners.

As a continuation of my previous posts, I will continue to discuss some of the important progress update items we review and analyze.

I will now discuss the process of analyzing the actual performance of work on the Critical and Near Critical Path(s).

When the contractor adds the actual Start and Finish Date and expected Finish Date data to the schedule update, the new scheduled completion date if most often not what any of us want. Usually, there has been slippage in work progress in an area that must be addressed.

This is most often caused by a lack of adequate progress for work on the Critical Path and/or the Near Critical Path(s).

Quite simply, the planned productivity for the work scheduled is not achieved.

To analyze this, we compare the previous period update Critical Path work to the actual progress reported in the current period update schedule. We simply compare Original Duration and scheduled dates to the actuals. This tells us where the slippage occurred. It does not explain the why. This should be included in the schedule update narrative the contractor provides.

We do the same for the Near Critical Path(s).

Why do we do this?.

The contractor typically knows what is driving the project and what measures need to be taken to correct work slippage. The owner usually does not have this intimate knowledge of the background operations of the contractor. However, the owner is entitled to know as much as possible about the actual and planned performance of the project. They need that information to make internal business decisions which may impact the project, such as potential change orders and work integration by others, or to react to deviations from the planned contract milestone dates.

More importantly, to me anyway, the owner is always in a position to help the contractor and I’ve met very few owners who would not do so if they understand the problem and are in a position to do so.

Once we identify and quantify the lack of progress, we can determine the root cause and identify a trend, if one is developing. We cannot do this if we simply look at another Gantt Chart pdf and look at the scheduled finish date for the project.

The owner needs to understand what work is slipping and why and this should be discussed with all parties to find a solution to keep the project safe. But this does not happen if the owner is not fully informed of progress slippage for Critical and Near-Critical work.

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. 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. 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. 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. Activity Durations and Unicorns.

When the schedule is developed, (after the project has been broken down and organized into the WBS and the activities have been developed to support the deliverables), how do we determine the duration for each activity?

How do we accurately determine the work period for each activity?

There are several ways this task is approached. Some are better than others….

I believe we can all agree that knowing the required work quantity and production rate per day is the best input we can have to accurately calculate the duration. How often do we actually have that much detail?

More often, the project team determines the durations based on their “feel” for how long the work will take based on similar work from the last few projects. This is not necessarily a bad thing. This is historical data and is very useful.

The problem is that we tend to be optimistic. The larger the piece of work is, the more difficult it is to accurately determine the duration, by “feel”.

Typically, the activities are all developed based on input from the project team, the constrained finish date is applied and then the schedule is “calculated”. Usually, we do not make the required finish date.

Now we start crashing the schedule to pull the finish date back.

We’ve all seen videos of buildings constructed in a week and other supernatural feats. So, it stands to reason that we can build anything within any timeframe, right? If the owner wants the project by the date in the contract, we have to crunch the schedule until it shows we can deliver on time.

As we know, a very high percentage of projects do not finish on time. This often leads to claims and poor performance reviews.

Is it possible that we set our projects up for failure at the very beginning? Do we assume we can provide a finished project within the contract duration just because the owner has specified the period of performance?

If the schedule is constructed using “most likely” durations for all activities with reasonable logic and the project is then constrained to finish on whatever date that produces, there is still a good chance the project will finish late. It could finish early, but that seldom seems to happen.

If the durations are based on pessimistic durations, the project will still tend to use the time allowed leaving little room for problems towards the end of the project.

If we place a contingency activity at the end of the project, we can work towards an early completion hoping we magically finish on or ahead of time.

Or, we can put the effort into building very detailed schedules with solid logic and durations and then execute the projects per the schedules, as well as possible.

Any way you slice it, a poor schedule does not work. An aggressive schedule is not realistic and will soon fall apart, a pessimistic schedule will also fail due to a lack of aggression to complete work.

A detailed schedule, with input from all team members, does not guarantee success, but it does provide a realistic path to get there. It is up to the project team to execute based on the plan. But they can’t do that without a solid 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. Critical Path and Total Float.

Can the Critical Path for a project have different Total Float values?

Does the Total Float value determine the Critical Path?

When the Baseline Schedule is developed, all the activities should have the appropriate calendars, durations and logic applied. This creates the schedule network of activities.

Within this network of activities, there are many paths which run through activities linked by mandatory or “hard” relationships. For example, the structural steel shop drawing development and submission should drive the review of this submittal which will then drive the procurement with lead time to drive the delivery and then the erection. Almost all the trades and materials have these “hard” relationships which form the work sequence for that network path.

There are also discretionary or “soft” relationships. For example, the ACT grid could be installed prior to the wall painting. I prefer to run the grid after the walls are painted, but it may be necessary to install the grid first to allow light fixture and register installation to start earlier. This may be sequenced at the discretion of the Project Manager or Superintendent.

There are external relationships, but these are usually handled within the schedule itself. But it is possible to link activities in one schedule to work in another schedule….

Once all the mandatory and discretionary relationships are assigned, and the calendars and durations are assigned we can “schedule” the project. This is what sets the schedule network up.

This is what also determines the Longest Path and Total Float values.

If there is not a finish constraint applied to the project, the end date will float dependent on the network. The Total Float value will be 0. If you sort the activities by Total Float value and look for the next continual sequence of work activities with a Total Float value close to 0, you will most likely find the Near Critical Path. Just be aware that this Near Critical Path is based on the Total Float values only and will not necessarily be the logical Near Critical Path.

If you have a constrained finish date for the project, the Baseline Schedule should have a Total Float value of 0. But as soon as you start updating actual progress, the work will force the various network paths to push or pull and this will change the Total Float values. The Longest Path will still be the Critical Path, but the Total Float values may be positive or negative values. Again, the next continual sequence of work activities with a Total Float value close to that of the activities on the Critical Path should be the Near Critical Path, based on Total Float values only.

Recognizing the Critical path is the Longest Path is the basis for properly managing the work. Recognizing the usefulness of the Total Float values for identifying Near Critical Path work is also valuable.

This is a fairly simple concept. But, there are many discussions about what determines the Critical Path.

Not using Longest Path as the definition to use Total Float values is a tool we use for analysis. Much as we use Progress Override instead of Retained Logic for analysis.

Interim Constraints play into the schedule network and affect the Longest Path and Total Float values. But this is another subject for the future….

I’m sure many of you have additional insight into this subject and can help explain the concept. 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. Why Work When We Can Wait?

When the baseline schedule is developed correctly, the schedule logic is complete, activity durations and activity calendars are assigned, resources with cost may have been assigned, and activity coding is developed and assigned.

All of this creates the schedule network. This schedule network is made up of many sequences (logic paths) of activities.

Once the schedule is calculated (forward and backward pass), the schedule network will provide scheduled dates for activities not yet complete. At any given time, a small percentage of activities will have scheduled dates which show they should be starting and completing within a defined period of time, (say this week or this month…).

Some of these activities will be on the Critical Path. Some will be on the Near Critical Path(s). Some will have Total Float values which allow them to remain unstarted or incomplete for a period of time dependent on the Total Float value.

We all understand that the work on the Critical Path needs to be driven at all times. We understand that work on the Near Critical Path(s) also needs to be driven so it does not lag and shift to the Critical Path.

What about the activities with Total Float values which allow the work for these activities to lag without affecting the Project Completion Date?

Should this work be executed when it is convenient? Should this work be pushed out until it is on the Near Critical path(s)?

Part of the CPM Schedule development process was the analysis of the resources for activities to verify a specific resource did not have more activities scheduled to be underway than the resource could support. This can be done manually or using software programs that run Monte Carlo analysis for resource leveling.

That said, why would we want to allow work to slip? It is my opinion that any work which can logically be executed should be executed as long as the resources required do not exceed the planned resources for that time period. But, sometimes it is better to add resources to execute the work for a variety of reasons.

By allowing work to slip, only because there is no schedule driven reason to execute the work at that time, the work will eventually push out until the activities with a specific resource assignment are stacked resulting in an overallocation condition which forces some of this work to push out due to lack of resources. Whether the schedule is resource loaded or not, we all know that a subcontractor can only do so much with the forces they have on the project at any given time.

Allowing the work to slip also increases the risk of a late completion due to the potential of shifting of the Critical and Near Critical Path(s).

Finally, allowing work to slip has a negative impact on the schedule cost curve and distribution plan. The project may be reporting an on-time completion and the Critical Path may have an acceptable Total Float value, but if work is pushing out, the completed values will produce an unacceptable Cost Variance (CV), Cost Performance Index (CPI), Schedule Variance (SV), and Schedule Performance Index (SPI).

Projects with poor Earned Value metrics seldom recover.

I say, if the work is available to be executed, the resources are available, and executing the work will not lessen the focus on the Critical and Near Critical Path(s), it is wise to work in where you can, when you can.

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