Section J
Planning and Scheduling
People don't like to plan it's much more fun just to do and the nice thing about just doing, is that failure comes as a complete surprise. Whereas, if you have planned, failure is preceded by a long period of despondency and worry!
John Harvey‐Jones
The WBS provides the building blocks for planning the project. Planning is a group process wherein the team thrashes out the relationships between the work elements in order to determine How the project is to be executed. The addition of the inputs required by the work packages/activities and the outputs produced relates the work elements to each other for integration into a detailed network. With the addition of time estimates (using the best available data), the network can be analysed to determine When activities need to be performed. The sequence of activities with no spare time is the critical path.
Scheduling, on the other hand, is the mechanics of creating individual tabulations. Schedules are derived from an analysis of the network to produce lists of work/tasks for the various disciplines.
1 Getting Organized
1.1
As project manager you must be familiar and reasonably competent with the planning/scheduling system being used.
1.2
Given enough guidance, a better‐than‐average planner can rough out a first pass plan from an equipment list, a plot plan, and some flowsheets and come up with an end date. It won't be the date everyone wants, but it's a start.
1.3
Prepare any necessary networks. Keep the complexity to a minimum. A project must be planned to Level 3 – bar charts are just what their name says – papers to be used in bars!
2 Planning
2.1
The project manager must then sit down with the planner at the computer and key members of the project team for as long as it takes to crawl through every single activity and duration and interconnection. (Use this as a team‐building exercise; see Part V, Section Q, Subsection 2 Building the Team.) Working informally together, anomalies will tumble out like leaves from a tree. Misunderstandings: (“Wow, I didn't realise that piece of equipment was that heavy”), alternatives (“We don't have to finish that before starting that”), and omissions (“We forgot about vendor data”), will be flushed out.
2.2
As indicated in Part I, Section G, paragraph 6.5, the tricky bit is how to practically amend the plan to what everyone wants, for example, pre‐order critical equipment, reduce shipping time by having dedicated ships. Alternatively, bulk‐order materials from hand‐drawn sketches at a high risk of overages, and so on. However, always keep attacking the critical and subcritical items.
2.3
Review the proposed plan or schedule for realism. Inform senior management if the contractual end date is not possible. Never underestimate the value of a deadline, but if you give people a target that is unattainable, they will probably switch off.
2.3.1
In high‐risk environments, allow for some pessimistic planning. However, it is usually possible to find alternative ways of doing things so as to be able to work around risks.
2.4
In the United States, a mutually agreed critical path network is a contractual legal requirement, intended to ensure that an owner delay or variation/change is indisputably compensated to the contractor and also to prevent the contractor's spurious claims for delay. Interestingly, a court judgement also said that float belongs to the first person to use it! See the following paragraph 2.5 below.
2.5
Make sure that people understand that they may not use up the float without your permission.
2.6
See Part I, Section F The Owner and Client, paragraph 2.3
3 Scheduling
3.1
Prepare a ninety‐day kick‐off schedule, gathering input from the engineering, procurement, and construction managers. Get the initial schedule, developed by the project controls function and reviewed by the same people, before it is reviewed jointly by the project controls manager and project manager.
3.2
Prepare a critical items list. Make sure it includes all critical items.
3.3
Get procurement lead times for incorporation into the schedule.
3.4
Prepare detailed lists of deliverables for all departments. Schedule dates for each deliverable. Ensure the lists are realistic. If all deliverables cannot be identified, estimate the total number. Also ensure that all the lists are comprehensive. Do not forget items such as procedures, design manuals, commissioning manuals, operating and maintenance manuals, and so on.
3.5
Issue exception reports on a regular basis. You need to know where things are not going right.
3.6
Carry holidays forward if you can.