Hi Pranab,

few myths

1) Planner is the owner of the Program.

2) Planner can predict all issues.

3) If you lose an EOT claim, it was a wrong Baseline. (Most EOT claims are lost because preemptive mitigation appears less promising than a claim situation; truth is that preemptive mitigation by resequencing saves a lot of bother and buys you credibility)

4) Everything should be planned into the Baseline. (most procurement / method statements / shop drawings etc.. cannot be modelled at the start of a project, especially when the contract conditions require quick delivery of the program).

5) Planners are claim engines.

Hi Pranab

Don't forget when you deliver your list of myths to explain the truths behind them.

and you might want to add one more:

Don't bother with keeping records - no one will need them anyway.

Best regards

Mike Testro.

Planners and Schedulers need to know nothing about the work they are making a schedule for.

•Unfortunately, some managers assign the schedule to the less capable person to latter find themselves into chaos.

•Companies shall make sure their schedulers understand what they are scheduling, on the job training shall be encouraged.

A schedule by a single person cost less and will be better as the others know nothing about planning.

•One of the most useful management tools is brainstorming, is free and you can use it without even knowing the term.

•By getting involved into the planning those who eventually will manage the job will make them commit, group planning is a team-maker.

Float is real and absolute.

• www.mosaicprojects.com.au/Resources_Papers_043.html

Resources do not matter.

• It is a fallacy there will be unlimited resources to solve any issue.

If you duplicate resources activity duration will be reduced to half.

• Productivity and crew composition are not linear.

Buffers are not needed better plan without any contingency.

• Unfortunately at times the unexpected happens or maybe some productivity assumptions were wrong.

Buffers shall be defined as activities. Perhaps my personal opinion about it being a Myth, the more the people believe in the statement the more of a Myth it is, if no one agrees then I would call it the mother of all myths.

• Buffer shall be interpreted as the difference in time between the optimistic schedule finish and your target job and target milestones not an activity itself.

• As the job progress the activities projections do move, therefore the effect of rain or seasonal changes will vary. Delaying events can be seasonal, so your buffer protection. Statistical methods will give you a better understanding on buffer protection.

• For the management of the job you need and unobstructed view, without buffers that will allow you to target to early dates. You cannot plan for a start of an activity for 2 days later because it might rain, what if not?

The schedule performance is the responsibility of a single person, usually one who has no control on the actual performance.

It is on the best interest of all that schedule logic not be changed.

• We are humans and schedule errors can occur, at times by a typo.

• Methods improvements can surface as the work progress.

Hi David

I would suggest that if anyone can work Primavera they must be an IT expert with more interest in accounting than building.

No sensible planner would bother with the thing.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi Pranab,

7. Planning engineer is responsible for the programme and if the dates are not met it is the fault of planning engineer.

8. No change in logical linking in the programme is allowed while programme is updated

9.The planning engineer is expected to precisely predict the sequence of works for the (3/4 year) project.

In fact i would be interested in presenting the idea that planning and scheduling are two seperate aspects. The planning details such as how much time is required for an activity, what methodology is to be adopted, how much resources would be required etc is better to be given by the  team who is gonig to execute the work. The ownership of the logics and sequencing of works should be with the guys who are going to execute it. The planning engieer is responsible for coordinating between the various teams. The planning engineer is required to do more in terms of scheduling the programme, de-bottlenecking, putting toegether the plans from various trades, compliling all that into an overall project programme, etc etc. Finally, the ownership of the programe must be withthe project manager, not the planning engineer.