course | Scheduling & Cost Control

Project Planning & Scheduling Fundamentals

Understanding Project Controls

• The role of planning, scheduling and cost control
• Project controls throughout the project lifecycle
• Relationship between scope, time, cost and resources
• Project controls in construction and operational environments
• Roles and responsibilities within the project controls function
• Establishing reliable project information

From Project Scope to Work Breakdown Structure

• Understanding project scope and deliverables
• Developing a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Work packages and control accounts
• WBS coding and project organization
• Linking scope with schedule and cost
• Establishing responsibility and ownership

Activity Planning

• Defining project activities
• Activity attributes
• Establishing milestones
• Determining activity durations
• Identifying activity dependencies
• Mandatory and discretionary dependencies
• Internal and external dependencies
• Understanding leads and lags

Practical Exercise

Participants develop a simplified WBS and activity list for a construction/project scenario and identify key milestones and dependencies.

Developing & Optimizing the Project Schedule

Schedule Development

• Developing the project network
• Activity sequencing
• Network diagrams
• Forward and backward pass concepts
• Early Start and Early Finish
• Late Start and Late Finish
• Total Float and Free Float

Critical Path Method (CPM)

• Understanding the Critical Path
• Identifying critical and near-critical activities
• How critical activities affect project completion
• Monitoring changes to the Critical Path
• Multiple and changing critical paths
• Schedule constraints and their implications

Schedule Optimization

• Schedule compression techniques
• Crashing
• Fast tracking
• Evaluating schedule compression risks
• Resource constraints
• Resource allocation
• Resource leveling and smoothing
• Calendar considerations
• Developing a realistic schedule baseline

Schedule Quality

• Common scheduling errors
• Unrealistic durations
• Excessive constraints
• Missing dependencies
• Open-ended activities
• Maintaining schedule integrity
• Schedule review and validation

Practical Exercise

Participants analyze a project network, identify the Critical Path and float, and recommend actions for recovering a delayed schedule.

Project Cost Estimating, Budgeting & Cost Baselines

Fundamentals of Project Cost Management

• Cost management throughout the project lifecycle
• Direct and indirect costs
• Fixed and variable costs
• Labor, materials, equipment and subcontractor costs
• Contingency and management reserves
• Understanding committed, actual and forecast costs

Cost Estimating

• Principles of reliable cost estimation
• Analogous estimating
• Parametric estimating
• Bottom-up estimating
• Three-point estimating
• Basis of Estimate (BOE)
• Assumptions and estimating uncertainty
• Improving estimate reliability

Developing the Project Budget

• From estimates to project budget
• Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS)
• Linking WBS and CBS
• Time-phased budgets
• Cost accounts and control accounts
• Establishing the Cost Baseline
• Cash flow and expenditure profiles
• S-curves

Integrating Schedule and Cost

• Linking activities to project costs
• Time-phasing project expenditure
• Integrating schedule and cost baselines
• Establishing the Performance Measurement Baseline
• Importance of baseline integrity

Practical Exercise

Participants develop a simplified cost estimate and time-phased budget and construct a basic project cost baseline.

Performance Measurement, Earned Value & Forecasting

Monitoring Project Performance

• Establishing progress measurement methods
• Measuring physical progress
• Planned versus actual progress
• Updating the project schedule
• Collecting reliable progress data
• Understanding schedule and cost status dates
• Identifying emerging trends

Earned Value Management (EVM)

• Purpose of Earned Value Management
• Planned Value (PV)
• Earned Value (EV)
• Actual Cost (AC)
• Budget at Completion (BAC)

Schedule Performance

• Schedule Variance (SV)
• Schedule Performance Index (SPI)
• Interpreting schedule performance
• Understanding limitations of EVM schedule indicators

Cost Performance

• Cost Variance (CV)
• Cost Performance Index (CPI)
• Identifying cost overruns and underruns
• Interpreting performance trends

Forecasting

• Estimate at Completion (EAC)
• Estimate to Complete (ETC)
• Variance at Completion (VAC)
• To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI)
• Forecasting final project cost
• Forecasting completion performance
• Using trends to anticipate future problems

Practical Exercise | Project Health Check

Participants receive project performance data and calculate:

• PV
• EV
• AC
• SV
• CV
• SPI
• CPI
• EAC
• ETC
• VAC

They then interpret the results and prepare a brief management assessment of the project's current position.

Integrated Schedule & Cost Control, Recovery and Reporting

Variance & Trend Analysis

• Identifying schedule deviations
• Identifying cost deviations
• Root cause analysis
• Distinguishing symptoms from root causes
• Trend analysis
• Identifying early warning indicators
• Prioritizing corrective action

Managing Delays

• Understanding causes of project delays
• Internal versus external delays
• Assessing schedule impact
• Delay mitigation
• Schedule recovery planning
• Re-sequencing activities
• Acceleration considerations
• Developing realistic recovery plans

Change Control

• Relationship between change and project controls
• Identifying project changes
• Evaluating schedule impact
• Evaluating cost impact
• Change requests and approvals
• Updating forecasts
• Baseline changes and re-baselining
• Maintaining traceability and control

Cost Control & Corrective Action

• Controlling project expenditure
• Managing commitments and actual costs
• Cost-saving versus cost-reduction decisions
• Corrective and preventive actions
• Managing contingency
• Avoiding uncontrolled scope and cost growth

Project Controls Reporting

• What management needs to know
• Developing effective project control reports
• Schedule status reporting
• Cost performance reporting
• Milestone reporting
• Variance reporting
• Forecast reporting
• S-curves and performance trends
• Project dashboards
• Exception-based reporting
• Communicating bad news early and professionally

Integrated Case Study

Participants work through an integrated project scenario involving:

• Schedule delays
• Cost overruns
• Resource constraints
• Scope changes
• Performance variances
• Forecast completion challenges

Participants will analyze the available data, identify the major schedule and cost issues, determine root causes, recommend corrective and recovery actions, and prepare a concise management performance report.