Schedule quality webinar 7 February 2017 APM Planning, Monitoring and Control SIG presented by Franco Pittoni

1. Schedule Quality
Franco Pittoni
Director FP Opera
BIM & Project Controls
franco.pittoni@fpopera.com
07812737559

2. Summary
 Introduction
 Quality
 Schedule
 SQ Standards & Tools
 SQ Assessments
 Conclusions

3. Introduction
Purpose of this webinar
 Schedule Quality (SQ) matters
 SQ plays an important role in BIM & digitization
 Raise your awareness and appetite in SQ
 Involve you in the SQ improvement process

4. Introduction (Cont’d)
Some facts

5. Introduction (Cont’d)
Some facts
 SQ is still grossly underestimated
 Poor quality Schedules are still being produced
 Projects-Programmes performance is still very poor
 Some PMs-PDs question the need to create a
Schedule
SCHEDULE QUALITY IS A REALLY IMPORTANT MATTER

6. Quality
Definition
 The standard of something as measured against other
things of a similar kind
 The degree of excellence of something
How does it affect us?
 In our private life
 In our work life

7. Quality (cont’d)
Quality in our private life
 Important but not affordable

8. Quality (cont’d)
Quality in our private life
 Variety may be considered more important

9. Quality (cont’d)
Quality in our private life
 Quantity may be considered more important than Q

10. Quality (cont’d)
Quality in our work life
 An Important component of success

11. Quality (cont’d)
Quality in our work life
 It may affect our rate of growth

12. Quality (cont’d)
Quality in our work life
 Q may lead to more realistic commitments
QUALITY IN OUR WORK LIFE IN NOT AN OPTION

13. Schedule
Definition
Schedule is a thing, created by a planner in close co-
operation with the Project team, for the purpose of
providing reliable and timely answers to the typical
questions that PMs/PDs need in order to manage a
Project successfully

14. Schedule (Cont’d)
Key questions
 What does Schedule Quality (SQ) really mean?
 How can it be measured?
 How can the SQ scoring be accepted globally?

15. Schedule (Cont’d)
A definition of a Schedule Quality could be:
 It provides all the main elements of information
required to manage a project
 The information must be reliable and traceable
 All the elements of information must be promptly
available
 Data must be structured according to the audience
that is going to utilize it

16. Schedule (Cont’d)
Examples of answers that a Schedule is supposed to provide:
Question Answer
What is the Project Scope? WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
When should activity xyz start &
finish?
Start & Finish dates (early & late)
Which activity or milestone is critical? Total float (criticality)
How many resources does the Project
need in the next 4 months?
Resource profiles (Human, Material ,
Plant)
When is the project supposed to spend
60% of the budget?
“S” curve associated with the
Baseline Schedule (cost loaded)
Is the project ahead or behind
schedule?
SPI - Earned Schedule Analysis
(Baseline vs Current)

17. SQ Standards & Tools
Standards
 SQ is still a blurred concept in many organisations
 Recently some official SQ standards have been
introduced (DCMA, GAO, NASA)
 Some software houses have invested in dedicated
SQ tools

18. SQ Standards & Tools (Cont’d)
SQ specialised tools
 Acumen Fuse
 XER toolkit
 Primavera
 Excel

19. SQ Standards (Cont’d)
DCMA 14 points Acumen Fuse
1. Logic 1. Missing Logic
2. Leads 2. Logic Density™
3. Lags 3. Critical
4. Relationship Types 4. Hard Constraints
5. Hard Constraints 5. Negative Float
6. High Float 6. Insufficient Detail™
7. Negative Float 7. Number of Lags
8. High Duration 8. Number of Leads
9. Invalid Dates 9. Merge Hotspot
10. Resources
11. Missed Tasks
12. Critical Path Test
13. Critical Path Length Index (CPLI)
14. Baseline Execution Index (BEI)

20. SQ Assessment
All the pre-requisites for a “computer aided SQ
assessment” appear to be there:
 There is a common understanding of why SQ matters
 Standard metrics exist and bespoke ones can be
established
 Powerful tools are available
What is missing? Why are there still many
Projects that perform poorly?

21. SQ Assessment (Cont’d)
Human contribution:
 Language clarity
 Correctness of dependencies
 Adequacy of coding system
 Correct assignment of code values
 Understanding the operating environment
 Definition of Activities that are measurable

22. SQ Assessment (Cont’d)
Some examples (Language clarity)

23. SQ Assessment (Cont’d)
Some examples (dependencies)

24. Conclusions
A realistic assessment of the present situation
 In spite of reliable reports on projects failures there is insufficient
understanding and buy-in by Top Management
 Studies on the reasons of Project failures should be taken in due
consideration
 Middle management should not provide unreliable and distorted
information to Top Management
 Objective difficulties of adopting a consistent approach in large projects
delivered by large players
 Some tools are still considered rather expensive
 Not many good trainers are available

25. Conclusions
An optimistic look into the future
 High quality and credible schedules will acquire more and more visibility
 The above will encourage the development of Quality measurement
methodologies and tools of what I call the “Planning System”
 The Quality of Progress Reporting is receiving some attention and is likely
to raise soon
 In a world where BIM and digitisation are rapidly growing, the quality of
the schedule will play an increasingly important role
 BIM and digitisation (4D, 5D and 6D) will accelerate the migration towards
an inevitable “merge” of disciplines, which have operated in parallel for
too many years, into something more cohesive and integrated
Somebody will find a name (and acronym) for this new and smarter way of
working

26. Conclusions (Cont’d)
Long life to a high quality schedule !

27. Franco Pittoni
franco.pittoni@fpopera.com
07812737559

28. This presentation was delivered
at an APM webinar
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