The Construction Contractor's Blog

This scheduling process was created with practicality in mind. The process includes field, office and subcontractor management(in some cases supplier management)- the group who builds the project. This method results in higher buy-in from the stakeholders of the project and better communication. It produces more detailed and “work smart” thinking. The end product is that your project is “built on paper”, before it is built in the field.

Planning must occur before Scheduling. In recent times, contractors have tended to perform little or no planning before the schedule was produced. Getting the schedule created and printed has been a checklist item to be crossed off. Instead as opportunity to better plan, coordinate and therefore beat the contract deadline. Some young, certified smart project manager has been tasked with producing the "pretty picture" of the CPM schedule. Production of this satisfies the owner's requirements. The planning is done later by the superintendent. We are essentially building the project with "two sets of books". There is the CPM schedule for the owner and the "mud on the boots" process the superintendent uses. Never the twain shall meet.

This process forces that planning is done then the schedule is built. Additionally, it forces communication between the field and the scheduler. As a result, the project is better coordinated, produces less conflict and therefore higher satisfaction all around.

Here are the steps to Interective CPM Scheduling.
Step 1: Determine time, date, place and participants of scheduling process. You will need a room with a large wall (s), an ample supply of 5x8 index cards, colored markers, and tape.

Step 2: Have your assistant lay out preliminary cards on the blank wall containing the project milestones on the large blank wall before the meeting. Remember to establish short hand labels for the schedule components, if this has not already been done. Both of these things will save time

Make sure everyone involved in this scheduling meeting has a complete and detailed understanding of the project demands and resources available (the 5 M’s + T) must be accomplished before the project schedule is started.

The preliminary project milestones could contain up to 25% of your project schedule in place on the wall before you start. Again, this saves time for the meeting and lets the group focus on the details of the job. Items such as:

• Mobilization
• Set forms for foundation
• Top out
• Dry in
• Start drywall
• Completion etc

Require that each person attending has made up cards that contain activities (1 activity per card.) with estimated time. Make a minimum number for them to bring, say 25 with no one activity spanning more than 10 working days. This will keep the schedule specific thus, measurable.

Step 3: Hold scheduling meeting. Complete the posting of cards noting activities on a wall. Items such as submittal and material lead-times should be included.

Step 4: With the group assembled, establish logic – predecessors, successors and constraints – such as excavate building pad, dig footings, form footings, run in electrical, run in plumbing systems, owner furnished equipment etc.

Step 5: Set durations of each work activity. Use normal crew sizes and normal production rates.

Step 6: Review to insure the same time units are used throughout – shift, hours, days, weeks etc.

Step 7: Add time durations, crew sizes, and hours to schedule activities.

Add the days to find the project duration of the job that you have just created. If days need to be trimmed from the schedule, start the subroutine of schedule compression in this order:
1. Overlap activities with others
2. Run activities in parallel with others.
3. Shorten activity durations.
4. Increase the amount of equipment used
5. Increase the size / number of crews
6. Increase the number of hours worked.

As you can see, number one and have a limited negative impact on safety, quality and cost. As the numbers increase, there is a higher chance of lost time accidents, quality deficiencies and cost overruns.

Step 9: Agree on the schedule, the logic, duration, milestones etc. Number those cards so that you can reconstruct them while inputting them into the computer. Then, input them into your software. .

A couple of tips from the school of hard knocks.

• Number the schedule activities by increments of 100 (and not 10). This will allow you to accommodate changes to the project and thus reflect them in detail in your schedule.

• Save your original schedule under its project name and then save it again as under “what if”. The “what if” is for trying different scenarios. This will keep your experimentation from corrupting the original work and possibly losing it.

Step 10: Run forward and backward pass to uncover “earliest start times”, “earliest finish times”, “latest start times”, and “latest finish times” for each activity. Consider normal rainfall, historical snow days, holidays, general delays etc. Make backward pass to uncover the critical path.

Step 11: Establish calendar dates at bottom of schedule for mobilization, workstarts, milestones and work completion.

Step 12: Load with costs and billings i.e. cash flow.

Step 13: Publish, review and edit. Return to steps 10 - 13 until a satisfactory schedule is created.

Words of caution: do not have multiple schedules. Certainly, the temptation is there, however, you will find yourself better served professionally, personally and legally if you keep only one schedule. The major reason is the administration of such a schedule to be easier and clearer to all parties concerned. Your schedule may have to be demanding and very detailed. So be it.

Remember that scheduling is not about software. Software is just a tool we use to make the publishing and administration of the schedule easier. Schedule creation still is about field experience, market conditions, resource management and project knowledge. A high-level schedule takes into consideration all of these.

Matt Stevens is a management consultant who works only with construction contractors. He can be reached at mstevens@stevensci.com His firm, Stevens Construction Institute is located at stevensci.com