The Importance of the Schedule

by Greg Woleck

For anyone responsible for managing a project, there is probably no better tool than the project schedule.  Routinely illustrated in the popular Gantt chart format (named after its creator Henry Gantt in the early 1910s) it serves as a reality-based view of the project status on any given date.  It serves as a reminder of the critical tasks and interdependent sequences, and the order they need to happen, to allow the project to finish by the estimated end date (the date the keys are handed back over to the client, the movers are scheduled, and the project is celebrated).

The project schedule itself is a crucial step in what really is a trio of processes: 

Step 1: Planning

The initial step is the actual planning of the project.  At this point in the process, the team makes judgments as to the goals, priorities, and essential activities of the project. 

Step 2: Building the Schedule

The next step in the process is building the schedule.  The ideal output is a time-based and detailed graphical representation of the information gathered during the planning process.  

Step 3: Monitoring the Schedule

The last step is monitoring. Unfortunately, monitoring is often neglected or managed without any sense of urgency or understanding of its actual importance. Ideally, there is a regular review of the schedule, not only by the Project Manager but by other key members of the project team as well. This review results in an update to the schedule to account for changes in circumstances, inadequate initial planning, or poor preliminary information. 

This practice is iterative in that one step informs the next. In the beginning, the planning step informs the scheduling step. The scheduling step informs the monitoring step. Anything learned from monitoring will update the planning step and then renew the schedule and so on. This process repeats itself over the life cycle of the project. In a perfect world, this review—if not the actual update—should be happening weekly, especially during some of the most intense and important phases of construction.

Sample schedule detail with Gantt Chart view

The key to building a schedule is to include enough information that is useful but not so much that it is overwhelming and as a result will not be actively used. This is a judgment call. It’s a good idea to have more details included in the schedule when you are working towards a major milestone like an inspection, delivery, or an item that is on the critical path of completion. It is also helpful to build the schedule in such a way that it represents the actual order of events in a typical construction process.  

There are three types of tasks that should be included in your schedule, and they are all equally important and dependent on each other. These tasks are administrative tasks, procurement tasks, and production tasks. The administrative tasks support the construction of the project. These are generally predecessors to production tasks. Good examples of administrative tasks are submitting, reviewing, and approving shop drawings. These are essential steps and time-consuming. Although they may seem to be insignificant tasks, they directly impact construction and should be included as unique items in the schedule. Procurement tasks, or activities that support the purchase of materials and design-driven selections, are equally critical to the success of a project. Without procurement tasks being completed on time as a predecessor to production tasks, the project can come to a standstill.  Third are the production tasks—the activities that include the physical work of the construction process. These include excavation, framing, and painting to name a few. 

A key to the successful monitoring of a project schedule is the use of a look-ahead schedule. Typically, this is a snapshot view of two to six weeks of the schedule. A look-ahead schedule forces the project team to look at a particular span of time in the project’s life cycle with a level of detail that is hard to perceive when looking at a construction schedule (often two or three hundred lines long). This is a great opportunity to confirm progress on key details including procuring long lead-time items, trade partner schedules, inspections, or any other critical tasks.  

Pull planning is another important method that can enhance the usefulness of the project schedule. Pull planning is the process where the people in the field, sometimes referred to as the “last planners”, are included in the scheduling process. The idea is that conversations between team members, often different trade partners, occur openly to create the most efficient sequence of events to deliver the project on time. These conversations are recorded and included in updated schedules, along with new or revised tasks. Pull planning ensures that the right people, the right equipment, and the right materials are onsite when needed, eliminating types of waste commonly associated with construction projects such as damage to goods stored onsite, moving stored materials more than once to get work done, and having the wrong people onsite unnecessarily. Pull planning, with its focus on people, also helps to create an environment that promotes collaboration, safety, and well-being of the team.

The greatest attribute of a well-built and well-monitored schedule is its transparency, especially to the client. It helps the design team understand the necessity of delivering certain details not fully hashed out during the pre-construction phase. Monitoring and then sharing revisions to the schedule frequently keeps the entire team aware of the project status, good or bad. It becomes clear when outstanding decisions will have an impact on the end date, and this includes administrative and procurement tasks. It helps to make obvious the impact adverse weather can have on the outcomes of the project.  

The schedule is an essential tool for communication and collaboration for the duration of a project. Think of the project schedule as the town square—a place where people will gather and discuss complex issues and relationships between tasks or topics. Without a doubt, proper monitoring, revision, and updates of the schedule will lead to successful projects.