Why Your Project Needs a Professional Project Scheduler
March 3, 2021 |
Whether your agency’s upcoming project is a $100M ground-up new construction project or a $1M office renovation, completing a project on-time is a key determinant of a project’s success.
The project schedule is the guide for planning, monitoring, and controlling all construction activities. When properly developed it shows the optimal path to a project completion that is on-time, within budget, and outfitted with the best affordable quality.
Can I schedule my own project?
Of course, but do you have the time?
As the project manager you will need to balance the use of time, cost, and quality. Spending excessive time on often-complex schedule negotiations and development can put the other objectives at risk. You want to complete your project on time, at a high quality, and without paying more money than you should.
You are the only one to decide if you can take the role of project scheduler. Alternatively, you can bring on a professional to provide scheduling support. Either way, your project needs a project scheduler who can guide the project safely and affordably, from pre-design to post-occupancy.
Charting a Path that Adapts to Project Challenges
Consider your daily commute. Imagine there is a traffic jam ahead while you are driving on your favorite route, but you don’t have a traffic app to warn you of the hazard ahead and help you adjust course before it’s too late. You will be left with few options, a) sit in traffic and hope it clears up, b) take side roads that might or might-not help you bypass the problem, or c) call a friend with access to a traffic app who can direct you on the fastest, most direct path around the traffic jam and get you to work relatively on time.
Throughout your project, you may find unexpected problems can result in delays. Regardless of the means and methods used to recover the wasted time, the fact is the same – you have lost time. On a large project, that lost time could be significant enough to delay the entire project.
Imagine having a partner in the passenger seat in that scenario, filling the project scheduler role. Having someone focused on scheduling activities using a critical path method, would give you an extra hand while you navigate around the road blockage. Assigning a dedicated project scheduler helps in recovering lost time upon the occurrence of a change during your project’s lifecycle and helps in maintaining the scope of the project during and after the change condition.
A good project scheduler not only understands the goals of your project, but also has the right experience and tools to collaboratively develop a defined roadmap to achieving those goals. Project schedulers free up valuable management time for you to focus on the balance between the project’s time, cost, and job quality.
About the Authors
About AFG Group, Inc.
AFG Group, Inc. is a woman-owned firm focused on multi-disciplined program, construction, and relocation management, with a national portfolio of work in healthcare, laboratories, courthouses, educational facilities, and government buildings. With 30 years of business acumen, AFG has earned a reputation for providing strong expertise, responsiveness, and project execution that helps owners navigate through complex design, procurement, construction, and activation processes.