I totally agree with what you say. I almost always link the different levels of my programmes / schedules. I was however acknowledging that not everybody does this.
Regards,
Gary
Member for
22 years 8 months
Member for22 years8 months
Submitted by Brennan Westworth on Thu, 2006-02-02 07:18
I think it could be either way. For a project there could be many levels of programme that are all within one database, so all of the levels are electronically linked, or the different levels for that project could indeed be different databases.
Some people would prefer one way, whilst other people would prefer another. In my experience, the top levels which are normally produced by a contractor are all linked and in one database, but the lower levels are often produced by sub-contractors and in most cases are in different databases (and even sometimes in different software).
I don’t think there is a right or a wrong way.
Andy, glad you like the idea. Let us know what you think when you have read the paper.
Gary
Member for
24 years 9 months
Member for24 years9 months
Submitted by Vladimir Liberzon on Thu, 2006-01-26 02:52
I am afraid that there may be some misunderstanding.
Do you mean that the schedules of different levels are DIFFERENT, or that different levels represent just level of details reported using one SINGLE schedule?
Can I just say that I am overjoyed that this topic is being discussed and even more so that there is a concious effort to try to standardise. I have just left a company in shear frustration as they just couldnt/wouldnt grasp the concept of the levels (amongst a few other gripes).
One main frustration for me was countless times I would see low-level Milestones/tasks included in what was labelled as level 1 when the only purpose they served was people perceived them to be very important to the project. I argued that they may well be important but they still belong at the lower level where they fit in with the logic. They would often have no predecessors/successors because there was nothing else of the lower level to link with so would just hang there. My real argument was that these activities were not included in lower-levels at all anyway where they should have actually been managed.
Another difficulty I came across is that Level 1 was also used as the Integrated plan. Now because it was integrated the tendancy was to produce a plan that identified all of the dependancies between the different organisations involved. Therefore, I have actually seen the level 1 grow to more than 500 activities! Surely not right!
They suffered greatly from this problem in my opinion and it was a very large/complex project too!
As part of a Post-Grad course I took with the Open University, there was a superb diagram illustrating the hierarchy of schedules. This showed level 1 and each level 1 activity had an associated level 2 network and then each level 2 activity had an associated level 3 network etc to level 4. Have you come across this kind of arrangement when considering your standardisation document?
I have often thought that it may be a good discipline to call Level 1 the Integrated schedule and Level 2 the Integration schedule. This in my opinion would show activities in level 1 that are effectively a shared measure of progress across stakeholders and even organisations. Then the Level 2 would hold Key dependancies across stakeholders/organisations along with the Work Package type activities. Just a thought really, what do you think?
I have yet to read the document but will do so with great interest and will also try to comment.
In an earlier post in this thread, I said I was working on a paper that specifically discusses the subject of this thread – Plan Levels.
The paper is called “Standards for the Levels of a Programme or Schedule.”
A few years ago, planners and schedulers began to describe the various types of programmes / schedules we were producing as being of different levels. Each individual person or organisation would set up and use their own system for describing these various levels of programme / schedule and this has lead to confusion caused by inconsistency.
It is time that the system for describing this hierarchy is standardised in order that some consistency is achieved, so that people can understand what is being referred to by, say a level 2 programme.
The purpose of this paper is therefore to set out the standards of description that all planners and schedulers can use, should they wish.
That paper is now complete and can be found here. Go to this page and scroll down until you find the paper under the General Planning & Scheduling heading. Alternatively, there is a link on the home page of the PEO website to the paper.
Interesting question, I would begin by saying that there is no one correct answer.
Project schedules are a report. When preparing reports you need to consider who the target reader is going to be, and what do they need/want to see.
The only level of detail that is standard for all projects is level 1, where the project delivery appears as one line. This is useful for showing preceding activities such as feasibility studies and engineering investigations as well as succeeding activities such as production ramp up and decommissioning of facilities made redundant by the project deliverables.
Further breakdown of the project will be governed by the type of project, goals of the project (stages), the size and complexity, cost, risk etc.
one point to remember tho is that when people refer to schedule levels they are usually refering to level of detail not organisation levels.
Level 3 may have activity duration in weeks where as level 5 in hours, but again this will be goverened by the project.
This is a very interesting subject and one that is very dear to my heart.
I am currently going through the process of completing a paper on this subject. The paper has been written and is currently going through a staged consultation process and we are at the end of the stage 1 consultations. Stage 2 will commence shortly and stage 3 will involve obtaining comments from planners and schedulers from across the world.
When we are at stage 3 (hopefully in 2 weeks time), I will provide a link in this forum to the paper, so that any PP’ers can comment.
This will be a single page (A4 or A3) bar chart schedule rolled up from the Level 2 schedule. It will show Contract milestones, key milestones and summary bars based on the WBS to the agreed level of details. The schedule will reflect the critical path.
Level 2 – Overall Contract Schedule:
Level 2 schedule, in bar chart format, will show the relationship between all the activities in major work areas. This will also cover important elements like mobilisation, sub-subcontracts, LLIs, critical activities and high risk activities. At initial stage this schedule will set up the framework for detailed Level 3 schedules. During the updates this schedule will rollup the progress and the forecasts from the Level 3 schedule.
Level 3 – Detailed Contract schedule:
Level 3 schedule will be a bar chart based on a Critical Path Method (CPM) network. The activities will be broken to the small level so that these can be clearly identified, measured, resourced and linked in ‘start-to-finish’ relationship. Start-to-start and finish-to-finish relations will be omitted (or kept to absolute minimum) to ensure meaningful time analysis.
Level 3 schedule will be the ‘live’ model of the contract and will be the tool for schedule analysis for identification of critical path and resource bottlenecks. This schedule will include activities of subcontractors as well.
Level 3 schedule will provide the schedule windows for the Level 4 schedules. Level 3 schedule updates will reflect level 4 status.
Level 4 – Detailed schedules and control documents:
Requirement of the Level 4 schedules will be covered in the ITBs and will be finalised upon award of the contracts.
These schedules identify each deliverable and show the schedule (plan, actual, forecast) for every step for completing the deliverable. The schedules provide the basis for day to day implementation of the work as well for progress calculation.
Common Level 4 schedules are Engineering document register, Procurement Log, Piling status, Equipment foundation status, Spool fabrication status, Testing schedule etc.
Member for
20 years 5 months
Member for20 years5 months
Submitted by Raja Izat Raja… on Sat, 2005-10-15 09:31
Actually my basis is from my prvious company, they are very particular with procedure. So, talking about planning we have panning package procedure where we have to include the working method, WBS, working flow chart, schedule, histograme, CPN but not so many company will do that. Its seems very easy to use. With this we are not intrude sombody scope and we have guide line for our Department. This procedure being approved by Client and ISO 9001.
Its based on common sense something that planners should use
Forget the package software
Planning is getting a concept across to the person who is receiving it in the time available
A programme manages a project not satisfies a contract
And yes thats my experience however i will stand corrected by somebody with a PRACTICAL solution ie not from a text book written by a person who the closest he got to a site was visiting his sandwich training students.
Oscar
Member for
20 years 5 months
Member for20 years5 months
Submitted by Raja Izat Raja… on Sat, 2005-10-15 08:36
Simplisticly level 1 no more than 50 activities all hammocks except milestones or key dates should provide an executive summary of the project
level 2 the sort of detail you would review at monthly site meetings about 250 activities again all hammocks
Level 3 a programme of about 500 activities which ends up at the end of the Project as a hammock programme as you develop the level 4 and 5 programmes.
Often used as the basis of 2 monthly rolling programmes
If you want to add a WBS or other codeing to sort the levels thats an entirely different matter
The level of a programme should be a reflection for the target receipient
Hope this helps.
Member for
20 years 5 months
Member for20 years5 months
Submitted by Raja Izat Raja… on Fri, 2005-10-14 05:31
Member for
20 years 3 monthsRE: Plan levels
How can you link different levels of a progam, if it is not done at the same time? Is it possible to insert levels without altering the weightings?
Member for
22 years 4 monthsRE: Plan levels
Dear France,
your website is good for any planner.
Level of planning depend of organisation & project size.
for normal case planning level is following items.
1- Strategic Planning
2- Business Planning
3- Budgeting
4- Action
Best Regards
Mehdi
Member for
21 years 11 monthsRE: Plan levels
Vladimir,
I totally agree with what you say. I almost always link the different levels of my programmes / schedules. I was however acknowledging that not everybody does this.
Regards,
Gary
Member for
22 years 8 monthsRE: Plan levels
the lower levels should support the higher levels
they are just a more detailed breakdown of the same element
Member for
24 years 9 monthsRE: Plan levels
Gary,
if the schedules of different levels are not linked then implementing changes is a difficult task and information consistency is not reliable.
Regards,
Vladimir
Member for
21 years 11 monthsRE: Plan levels
Vladimir,
I think it could be either way. For a project there could be many levels of programme that are all within one database, so all of the levels are electronically linked, or the different levels for that project could indeed be different databases.
Some people would prefer one way, whilst other people would prefer another. In my experience, the top levels which are normally produced by a contractor are all linked and in one database, but the lower levels are often produced by sub-contractors and in most cases are in different databases (and even sometimes in different software).
I don’t think there is a right or a wrong way.
Andy, glad you like the idea. Let us know what you think when you have read the paper.
Gary
Member for
24 years 9 monthsRE: Plan levels
I am afraid that there may be some misunderstanding.
Do you mean that the schedules of different levels are DIFFERENT, or that different levels represent just level of details reported using one SINGLE schedule?
Member for
19 years 9 monthsRE: Plan levels
Gary,
Can I just say that I am overjoyed that this topic is being discussed and even more so that there is a concious effort to try to standardise. I have just left a company in shear frustration as they just couldnt/wouldnt grasp the concept of the levels (amongst a few other gripes).
One main frustration for me was countless times I would see low-level Milestones/tasks included in what was labelled as level 1 when the only purpose they served was people perceived them to be very important to the project. I argued that they may well be important but they still belong at the lower level where they fit in with the logic. They would often have no predecessors/successors because there was nothing else of the lower level to link with so would just hang there. My real argument was that these activities were not included in lower-levels at all anyway where they should have actually been managed.
Another difficulty I came across is that Level 1 was also used as the Integrated plan. Now because it was integrated the tendancy was to produce a plan that identified all of the dependancies between the different organisations involved. Therefore, I have actually seen the level 1 grow to more than 500 activities! Surely not right!
They suffered greatly from this problem in my opinion and it was a very large/complex project too!
As part of a Post-Grad course I took with the Open University, there was a superb diagram illustrating the hierarchy of schedules. This showed level 1 and each level 1 activity had an associated level 2 network and then each level 2 activity had an associated level 3 network etc to level 4. Have you come across this kind of arrangement when considering your standardisation document?
I have often thought that it may be a good discipline to call Level 1 the Integrated schedule and Level 2 the Integration schedule. This in my opinion would show activities in level 1 that are effectively a shared measure of progress across stakeholders and even organisations. Then the Level 2 would hold Key dependancies across stakeholders/organisations along with the Work Package type activities. Just a thought really, what do you think?
I have yet to read the document but will do so with great interest and will also try to comment.
Sorry to ramble.
Regards
Andy Cadman
Member for
21 years 11 monthsRE: Plan levels
In an earlier post in this thread, I said I was working on a paper that specifically discusses the subject of this thread – Plan Levels.
The paper is called “Standards for the Levels of a Programme or Schedule.”
A few years ago, planners and schedulers began to describe the various types of programmes / schedules we were producing as being of different levels. Each individual person or organisation would set up and use their own system for describing these various levels of programme / schedule and this has lead to confusion caused by inconsistency.
It is time that the system for describing this hierarchy is standardised in order that some consistency is achieved, so that people can understand what is being referred to by, say a level 2 programme.
The purpose of this paper is therefore to set out the standards of description that all planners and schedulers can use, should they wish.
That paper is now complete and can be found here. Go to this page and scroll down until you find the paper under the General Planning & Scheduling heading. Alternatively, there is a link on the home page of the PEO website to the paper.
Regards,
Gary France
Chairman
Planning Engineers Organisation
Member for
22 years 8 monthsRE: Plan levels
Interesting question, I would begin by saying that there is no one correct answer.
Project schedules are a report. When preparing reports you need to consider who the target reader is going to be, and what do they need/want to see.
The only level of detail that is standard for all projects is level 1, where the project delivery appears as one line. This is useful for showing preceding activities such as feasibility studies and engineering investigations as well as succeeding activities such as production ramp up and decommissioning of facilities made redundant by the project deliverables.
Further breakdown of the project will be governed by the type of project, goals of the project (stages), the size and complexity, cost, risk etc.
one point to remember tho is that when people refer to schedule levels they are usually refering to level of detail not organisation levels.
Level 3 may have activity duration in weeks where as level 5 in hours, but again this will be goverened by the project.
Member for
20 years 1 monthRE: Plan levels
Gary,
Feel free to post a note at the PMKB too when your paper is ready.
Stacy
Participate at the Project Management Knowledge Base!
Member for
21 years 11 monthsRE: Plan levels
This is a very interesting subject and one that is very dear to my heart.
I am currently going through the process of completing a paper on this subject. The paper has been written and is currently going through a staged consultation process and we are at the end of the stage 1 consultations. Stage 2 will commence shortly and stage 3 will involve obtaining comments from planners and schedulers from across the world.
When we are at stage 3 (hopefully in 2 weeks time), I will provide a link in this forum to the paper, so that any PP’ers can comment.
Gary France
Chairman
Planning Engineers Organisation
Member for
20 years 1 monthRE: Plan levels
I write the proceedures for billion dollar projects trust me
Planning is and should be developed by the Contractor it is your duty to educate the client about the programme
Dont aimlessly tow the line
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
Member for
20 years 2 monthsRE: Plan levels
One typical definition of the levels
Level 1 – Management (Summary) Schedule:
This will be a single page (A4 or A3) bar chart schedule rolled up from the Level 2 schedule. It will show Contract milestones, key milestones and summary bars based on the WBS to the agreed level of details. The schedule will reflect the critical path.
Level 2 – Overall Contract Schedule:
Level 2 schedule, in bar chart format, will show the relationship between all the activities in major work areas. This will also cover important elements like mobilisation, sub-subcontracts, LLIs, critical activities and high risk activities. At initial stage this schedule will set up the framework for detailed Level 3 schedules. During the updates this schedule will rollup the progress and the forecasts from the Level 3 schedule.
Level 3 – Detailed Contract schedule:
Level 3 schedule will be a bar chart based on a Critical Path Method (CPM) network. The activities will be broken to the small level so that these can be clearly identified, measured, resourced and linked in ‘start-to-finish’ relationship. Start-to-start and finish-to-finish relations will be omitted (or kept to absolute minimum) to ensure meaningful time analysis.
Level 3 schedule will be the ‘live’ model of the contract and will be the tool for schedule analysis for identification of critical path and resource bottlenecks. This schedule will include activities of subcontractors as well.
Level 3 schedule will provide the schedule windows for the Level 4 schedules. Level 3 schedule updates will reflect level 4 status.
Level 4 – Detailed schedules and control documents:
Requirement of the Level 4 schedules will be covered in the ITBs and will be finalised upon award of the contracts.
These schedules identify each deliverable and show the schedule (plan, actual, forecast) for every step for completing the deliverable. The schedules provide the basis for day to day implementation of the work as well for progress calculation.
Common Level 4 schedules are Engineering document register, Procurement Log, Piling status, Equipment foundation status, Spool fabrication status, Testing schedule etc.
Member for
20 years 5 monthsRE: Plan levels
Hi again,
Actually my basis is from my prvious company, they are very particular with procedure. So, talking about planning we have panning package procedure where we have to include the working method, WBS, working flow chart, schedule, histograme, CPN but not so many company will do that. Its seems very easy to use. With this we are not intrude sombody scope and we have guide line for our Department. This procedure being approved by Client and ISO 9001.
Just that....for now
Member for
20 years 1 monthRE: Plan levels
Its based on common sense something that planners should use
Forget the package software
Planning is getting a concept across to the person who is receiving it in the time available
A programme manages a project not satisfies a contract
And yes thats my experience however i will stand corrected by somebody with a PRACTICAL solution ie not from a text book written by a person who the closest he got to a site was visiting his sandwich training students.
Oscar
Member for
20 years 5 monthsRE: Plan levels
Hi Oscar,
is your Solution is base on Planning package procedure or just simply say..or by your own experience.
Member for
20 years 1 monthRE: Plan levels
Raja
No it does not
Simplisticly level 1 no more than 50 activities all hammocks except milestones or key dates should provide an executive summary of the project
level 2 the sort of detail you would review at monthly site meetings about 250 activities again all hammocks
Level 3 a programme of about 500 activities which ends up at the end of the Project as a hammock programme as you develop the level 4 and 5 programmes.
Often used as the basis of 2 monthly rolling programmes
If you want to add a WBS or other codeing to sort the levels thats an entirely different matter
The level of a programme should be a reflection for the target receipient
Hope this helps.
Member for
20 years 5 monthsRE: Plan levels
Its depends on how u do the hierarcy of the WBS.