Planning, Scheduling, and Execution

Why you should care about this

Construction is filled with commodities. Materials, equipment, and even labor costs are about the same no matter who you get it from. Quality and risk may push the price up or down, but it's generally the same for everyone bidding on a job.

If everyone bidding on a project has the same inputs, then the only thing that differentiates them is their Planning, Scheduling, and Execution. This not only determines if you get the project, but if you make money in the process.

Let's dive into what these 3 items mean.

What is planning?

Planning is the big picture, the vision, the objective, and the strategic direction. For example, if you recently won a shiny new project there are some things you’ll need to decide before you start listing tasks.

Some things you’ll need to identify in your plan: How fast do we want to go? Where is our biggest risk and how do we mitigate it? How will weather affect different phases of the job? Do we go North to South? How do we break up the project into smaller, more manageable chunks? How will we track potential roadblocks?

You’ll see that some of these questions need answering before you can even start scheduling, and some can’t be answered until you have a first draft.

What is scheduling?

Scheduling is the act of mapping out all the things that need to get done and the resources needed to execute on the plan. In construction specifically, scheduling is used to figure out who is doing what and when.

Unlike other industries, construction has predictable inputs. The design is generally done when construction starts. Materials, labor, and equipment costs are locked in, and productivity is only slightly variable.

The construction industry leverages scheduling techniques like the Critical Path Method (used in software like P6 and Microsoft Project) to create schedules with every activity that will take place during the course of construction. Since we know all the scope, and how long each thing will take, we can schedule a 2, 3, or 4-year or longer project with a relatively high degree of accuracy.

What is execution?

Execution is what the Superintendent does everyday: making sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing, based on the plan and schedule. This includes making sure materials, equipment, space and designs are ready, removing roadblocks, coordinating between trades, and remembering to make money while reducing risk.

Part of execution is monitoring and recording progress and identifying potential future issues.

The Cycle

Like Mike Tyson said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". In construction, it feels like we get punched in the mouth daily, sometimes before coffee. Things can go sideways fast, which is why projects that are constantly monitoring progress can make adjustments as necessary.

Many jobs get in trouble because they stick with their plan even if its not working, swinging harder as most of the punches don't land.

Most projects will have a 2-week or 1-month cycle, where they'll review the progress and then update the schedule. The plan is almost never revisited unless the project get's into trouble.

We'll take a deeper dive into the Update Cycle soon.

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