The critical path in plain language
Find the chain of activities that sets your finish date, confirm it with float, and explain to crews why a slip on that chain moves the whole job.
Scheduling, look-ahead planning and finishing on time
A schedule only helps if the crews can follow it and the office can trust it. These lessons cover the critical path, short-interval planning with the trades, and what to do when the dates slip.
Building a three-week look-ahead crews will follow
Turn master-schedule bars into a three-week look-ahead of crew-sized tasks, each with a foreman's name, a sequence by area and a check that it is ready.
Float: what it is, who uses it and how to protect it
Tell total float from free float, see how using float early shrinks it for everyone after, and check what your contract says about who may use it.
Updating the schedule every week in thirty minutes
Set a data date, enter actual starts and finishes, get remaining durations from the foremen and read what moved, so the schedule stays a true forecast.
Recovering a late schedule: crashing, fast-tracking and resequencing
Compare crashing, fast-tracking and resequencing, price each against the critical path, and choose the recovery your job's cost and risk can carry.
Recording weather days so a delay claim holds up
Record weather that stops work as it happens — conditions, the critical work it stopped, the hours lost and the notice given — the way your contract asks.
Milestones that matter: intermediate dates a team can hit
Pick a handful of milestones that mark real handoffs, define what done means for each, give each an owner and steer the job by their forecast dates.
Pull planning with trade foremen: a practical first session
Run a first pull-planning session: pick a milestone, invite the foremen who run the work, plan backwards through requests and promises, and capture it.
A constraints log: clearing what blocks next week's work
Screen each look-ahead task for what could stop it, log every constraint with a person's name and a date, and release only ready work into next week.
Planning the last ten percent of a project
Break the closeout bar into commissioning, inspection, deficiency and turnover activities with owners, lead times and logic, so the finish has a real plan.
