Schedule Management

The Schedule Management Plan describes the processes used to ensure the timely completion of the project. The Schedule Management Plan describes the process for developing and managing the project schedule, including:

• Roles and responsibilities for updating, and monitoring and controlling the schedule.
• The timing of schedule reviews and updates.

The Schedule Management Plan consists of:

• A narrative or table that describes the development and management of the Schedule and assigns responsibilities to the project team for reporting project status.
• A critical path method (CPM) project schedule that uses a standardized schedule template.

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The Preconstruction Project Schedule

Developing the Project Schedule

The PM uses the CDOT standard Preconstruction Schedule Template to develop the project schedule.   There is also a “Simple” version of the schedule available in the Tools section.   In this version, nearly half of the activities have been deactivated and hidden.  The Preconstruction Schedule template is:

• A CPM schedule created using MS Project
• Includes the preconstruction activities common to most projects with logic ties and typical durations
• Includes milestones for construction start and end
• Needs to be customized with project specific information

To use the Schedule Template, the PM will:

• Need MS Project
• Determine which groups and Specialty Units have a role in the project
• Use the Master Deliverables Matrix and project team members to determine the work required to complete the project:
  • Determine applicable activities and use the “inactivate” feature in MS Project to indicate activities that are not relevant to the project
  • Estimate activity durations
  • Enter activity durations and filter to show active tasks

When the PM finalizes the project schedule and the Resident Engineer approves it, it becomes the baseline schedule. Subsequent changes are subject to the change process as described in PDP Section 6, Change Management.

Schedule Milestone Date

The Project Schedule provides estimated completion dates for the seven project milestones that the PM will need to enter in SAP via the PM Portal.  The PM will need to update milestone dates in SAP, in the event that schedule changes are approved.  Project progress is reported to Resident Engineers, Program Engineers, and RTDs, etc., based on these milestone dates.

Once the schedule is completed and endorsed, it becomes the baseline or plan and changes after this point may require formal change control.  Keeping the schedule up to date provides a valuable tool that provides:

• Capability to analyze the critical path and the completion date to determine if a project is on track to be advertised as planned.
• Capability to analyze potential schedule impacts of proposed changes. “What if” analyses facilitate the analysis of options that support decision-making.

 

Schedule Maintenance: Update the schedule to reflect changes, progress, and/or actual completion dates.

• Enter actual completion dates
  • Selectively update the last date in a sequence of activities to make maintenance easier
  • Make sure “auto schedule” is the default
• Update estimated durations as needed