A bar-chart schedule for a small job in one hour
At the kitchen table of a semi-detached house, the owners sign for a new kitchen and main bathroom, and want to know when they can cook again and how long they will be without a shower. You know your trades and roughly how long each takes. Nothing is written down, and the cabinets are not ordered.
Draw a bar chart: the work in the order it happens, each piece a bar as long as the working days its trade quotes, and the inspections, deliveries and client decisions as dated points; then update it every Friday. On a small job, the waits for a delivery, an inspection or a decision usually set the finish more than the work does, and a chart puts them in front of the client and the trades. A university construction text notes the format's weakness: bar charts do not show which work depends on which, so the planner must record separately that moving one bar can move the bars after it.
- List the work in order, one line per trade visit: a plumber who comes three times gets three lines. Fifteen to twenty-five lines is plenty.
- Add a "waits for" column naming the line, inspection, delivery or decision each line needs first; it does what the bars cannot.
- Get durations and lead times in writing, in working days, from each trade and supplier.
- Draw the grid: one column per working day, a bar per line, and a symbol for each inspection, delivery and decision.
- Make required inspections hold points before the next trade covers the work. Confirm the required stages and booking lead time with the local authority, and put each booking date on the chart.
- Work back from each lead time to the dates the client must decide and you must order; some fall before demolition.
- Send it to the client and every trade, and every Friday shade what is done, move what slipped and call whoever's date moved.
Common mistakes
- Counting calendar days, so weekends and holidays vanish.
- One bar per trade: "plumbing, weeks 1 to 5".
- Leaving the client's decisions off the chart.
- Never updating it.
Checklist
Your one-hour schedule
- Lines in order, one per trade visit
- A "waits for" on every line
- Working-day durations and lead times, in writing
- Inspections as hold points, with booking dates
- Order and decision dates worked back
- Sent to the client and every trade
- Redrawn every Friday
Check your understanding
Your tiler can start the bathroom two days early. Does the job finish two days early?
