INEIGHT SCHEDULE
FOR PROFITABLE CONSTRUCTION, RETHINK SCHEDULING
FOR NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS, SCHEDULERS WORKED IN ISOLATION – AND FOR MOST COMPANIES, THAT PRACTICE CONTINUES TODAY. THAT ISOLATION CREATES A SILO, SEPARATING THE SCHEDULER FROM DAY-TO-DAY CONTEXT.
AN ERA OF COLLABORATION
Missing is the compounding knowledge of project experiences, nuances in methods, and hard-won lessons. As a result, the plan they’ve committed so many thoughtful hours to is already out of date and far from realistic the moment it gets distributed.
And yet, the process continues.
Create, attempt, work around, repeat.
Transformational scheduling draws that planning process out of its isolation and incorporates it into the daily operations of real-world construction. When schedules are pulled out of their silos, more hands shape the outcome. As a result, owners, engineers, and field specialists take greater ownership of their overall vision. The plan matters because it’s their plan. The ambition reflects their wisdom and expertise. This approach connects the scheduler’s CMP mathematics with the contractor’s practical in-field knowledge and the owner’s market acumen. Now, those specialized contributors can account for practical challenges that isolated schedules may otherwise overlook. They see a final delivery date and trust that that date has considered every challenge.
This approach pays respect to the scheduler’s skills while complimenting that expertise with in-field experience and historical project data. By incorporating participant feedback and historical data, schedulers can improve their forecasts to create schedules that reflect the structure of similar projects. Likewise, this allows schedulers to templatize the scheduling process, shortening turn-around times as they draw from what’s come before. This process of looking back to move forward enables schedulers to identify potential obstacles in previous work to create a more realistic view of the final outcome. This creation and re-creation can optimize work templates one project at a time, creating a more reliable foundation for future efforts.
Ultimately, transformational scheduling aims to create a living, iterative communication tool that extends through the project’s lifecycle. Without modern tools, this level of real-time integration would require a team of dedicated analysts monitoring and managing inputs and distributing that data across the necessary channels. It would be incredibly resource heavy. The advent of cloud-based architecture allows organizations to maintain a single source of truth in real time. So, as one variable changes, every point adjusts accordingly. Project managers can adjust expectations on the fly, and teams downstream can immediately recognize how that change impacts their work while owners have a realistic view of the current status and long-term outlook.
By elevating scheduling, stakeholders improve the transparency and visibility of any project and improve the trust between owners and contractors. Now, when the contractor says the project will be done on a specific date, owners can see how the schedule came together, why it was sequenced in that way, and how each duration was calculated.
THE COST OF BAD SCHEDULES
Construction firms grind for their 3%. Poor planning, be that a siloed schedule, an unreliable workaround, or an unrealistic timeline, is a key factor in project rework—rework that can cost upwards of 20% of the contract’s value.1 By improving those planning processes, teams can streamline communication, identify obstacles earlier, and reduce performance issues.