Tracking your progress
- Navaz Chichger
- Mar 5, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 9, 2024
3 key questions to ensure your project stays on course
As simple as it sounds, if you want to deliver a successful project, you’ll need to be confident that there is a realistic plan in place for completing the works by the required end date. And similarly, once the work starts, you’ll want to know that things are progressing to time, and on budget. The project schedule is a key management tool that will help your delivery. There are different types of schedules, one of the most common being a gantt (or bar) chart, but regardless of type, their principal purpose is to:
Aid comprehensive planning – the process of creating and approving the schedule is the principal mechanism used to identify all the activities that need to be undertaken, the optimum order in which to perform the work, and to estimate durations.
Support effective project monitoring and controls – having a comprehensive schedule helps you to compare physical progress of the work against your planned activities. It is important that the project schedule is continuously reviewed and maintained, and that schedule reporting is transparent. This will help you to detect any slippage early.
When reviewing your project schedule here are three key questions to ask yourself:
Is the full project scope included in the schedule and is it up to date? Even a simple regeneration or capital project requires a number of parties to come together to achieve a successful project. It is important that the overarching project schedule brings together the total package of work and is up to date – including any approved changes! Make sure you have an integrated view of what’s needed to successfully deliver the project and check that any 3rd party / key stakeholder activities are accurately represented?
Is the critical path clear in the schedule and does it make sense to me? The critical path consists of those activities which, if any one of them is delayed, will mean the project’s completion date will be missed. It is the longest path through the schedule and therefore represents the shortest overall time to complete the project. Understanding and analysing the critical path, will help you to gain insight on the most essential activities, and explore ways to optimise and improve the timelines for delivery. Anything you can do to make the critical path more efficient should improve the schedule overall.
Is my schedule and cost information accurate and aligned? We all know that schedule is a major driver of cost. Costs can be driven up if activities are delayed or prolonged or, where necessary, to speed up delivery and get back on track. Test whether your project is set up to control schedule management and cost management with equal rigour. Simple practical steps will help, such as ensuring leads for project budgeting and cost management are present at your schedule review sessions – along with your risk manager! As a ready reckoner, check that the percentage of your budget spent vs. the percentage of the work completed feels right?
These three things can be a simple way to sense-check your confidence in delivery – consider adding them to the agenda the next time you take a step back and review your project schedule.
Navaz is a Chartered Project Manager at Arup with extensive advisory and project delivery experience at both project and major programme level. Navaz is skilled at planning and managing projects and programmes for client organisations.
If you have any questions on this topic, or would like support, please contact your Delivery Associate, or email DeliveryAssociatesNetwork@Arup.com
