What Naveed was citing was a case for Client engaging a 3rd Party Consultant during the documentation stage of the project, after the design has taken shape and cost largely estimated.

In the case of Contractor winning the tender, it might be prudent for him to have the oversight of the 3rd Party Planner who can probably render insights into the structuring of the more detailed programme developed from the sketchy one submitted during tender. This is especially so after reality checks in the market reveal the divergence from the assumptions made earlier.

The consultant if he is one with significant experience with the typical requirement of the programme specified under international contracts, could prepare them in such format to meet the scrutiny of the time impact analysis without major reworking. A well structured WBS and level of activity breakdown suitable for the potential demands of the progress and delay circumstances expected in the project, may only be possible with input from a consultant with such depth of past experience.


best regards


Andrew Huang, Taiwan
www.project-resources.com

Naveed,

That is a difficult question to answer properly without knowing the background to the project, but I would say that a 3rd party planner is able to give independent advice in a way that nobody else on the project is able to. If the engineer does it, then that does has an advantage that he / she already knows the detail of the project, but as you say, that engineer might actually be the cause of a delay who didn’t want to disclose that he / she might actually be the cause of problems. Therefore your main sales pitch must be the independency of a 3rd party planner / scheduler.

In addition, a 3rd party can act with independent eyes, in other words, can sometimes see things (ideas, ways of saving time) that others already involved in the project cannot see. This is because they are coming at it from a different point of view.

I hope this helps.

Gary France

Naveed,

I have performed the role of a third party scheduling consultant on many occasions. This is done in two main ways.

Firstly, to advise a client and / or design team how long a project should take and how it should be constructed. Very often this helps to inform the development appraisal process and / or when a business might need to change properties and / or what to write in tender documents, especially when a contract period is stipulated. I have done this perhaps 100+ times.

Secondly, where a project is very complicated, often a client wants a 3rd party planner / scheduler to independently check the progress position. Depending on the contractual arrangements, very often it is left to the contractor to report progress, but there is a danger here for the contractor could / does be economical with the truth regarding the true progress situation, if commercially that is to his / her advantage. As a 3rd party planner, I am often asked to independently audit the project and it’s true progress situation.

Gary France