project scheduling

Having a well thought out, and properly documented schedule is instrumental to the successful execution of a project. Furthermore, the same schedule can be presented in a multitude of ways, depending on the intended use of the report, without affecting the interdependencies of the activities in the schedule. During the planning phase of any project, attention needs to be paid to detail such that all activities are defined at the lowest manageable level, and that they are organized in such a fashion as to allow for flexibility in conveying the essence of the project to different audiences from executive management down to subcontractors and field forces so that everyone understands how all the pieces fit together. As the project progresses, even more reporting flexibility will be required to convey the impact of potential changes, the status of project progress, and the criticality of upcoming work.

However, as the saying goes, "even the best laid plans…" The key to a successful project is to establish a quality plan, execute that plan, and be flexible enough to adjust the plan when circumstances warrant a change. Flexibility does come at a price, and part of being prepared is knowing how much the change will impact the original plan, quantifying the additional effort, and discretely associating a particular cost with the change

The point where a well documented schedule demonstrates its true Return On Investment (ROI) is in the event that things go haywire. Should a situation ever arise where legal action needs to be taken due to additional costs and time associated with a change to the original plan, having clearly documented the original plan, and being able to quickly quantify impacts will save substantial money that would otherwise have to be paid to legal experts to establish the original plan, then extensively research project documents to determine issues, and finally create an analysis of the potential impact of a change. The question you must ask yourself is, "Do I spend some money now and have a tool I can use to proactively manage my project, or do I risk having to spend ten (or more) times the money later to assess impacts, assign responsibility, and try to recoup losses?"

NAES offers you the benefit of our years of experience in creating, maintaining, evaluating, and adjusting project schedules.

Our services include:

• Establishing a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Establishing major project milestones
• Establishing project activities
• Establishing project resource pools
• Establishing project and resource calendars (when will work and resources be available)
• Establishing activity interdependencies
• Creating a cost and resource loaded Critical Path Method (CPM) schedule
• Establishing the schedule baseline and obtaining stakeholder buy-in
• Generating “what-if” scenarios
• Issue identification and resolution
• Regular project reporting
• Project close-out