“I Have A Cunning Plan” 

by Roger Gibson

Many of you may also be aware of the Society of Construction Law’s ‘Delay and Disruption Protocol’.  The protocol goes on to explain how this programme is used to quantify extensions of time for which the contractor may be entitled as a result of delaying events.  The measuring tool for this is the approved programme.

The focal point of this article is the approved programme, or ‘baseline’ programme as it is often called.

First of all, a few basics.

What is Planning and Why Have a Programme?

Before you prepare a programme, you must have a plan.  On a construction project, ‘planning’ covers all aspects from overall planning, such as building ‘A’ must be completed before building ‘B’ can start, down to detailed planning, such as the activity ‘excavate for foundations’ has to be completed before is successor, ‘pour concrete in foundations’ can start.

By planning the works in detail, and linking activities in a logical manner, a contractor creates a network of activities and their dependencies or inter-relationships as shown above.  If this is done in a proper manner encompassing all works and all restraints on the project, then this is the basis for a critical path network (CPN).

The next stage is to calculate the time each activity will take.   Read more....