SEATTLE -- This tip presents helpful construction schedule methods that aim to avoid common scheduling mistakes, as presented by Joseph Lukas, the vice president of PM Centers USA, at this year's AACE International Annual Meeting.

Numbers in parentheses refer to the 10 common mistakes of construction scheduling, listed in the first half of this tip, which these construction schedule methods address. All are represented except mistakes #1 (inadequate knowledge of the Critical Path Method) and #4 (the lack of a meaningful construction schedule contingency), which tend to stand alone as it is.

First among the key construction schedule methods is to set up the Project Start Milestone and Project Summary Task. From there, take care of the following:

• Set the task type to Fixed Duration. (7)
• Input the Project Start date. (9)
• Add the project summary task to your schedule. (10)
• On line 0 of your schedule, which is now the Project Summary Task, add your project name in the Task Name column. (10)
• Add the header, footer and legend information. With using these construction schedule methods, the header should contain the project title and company logo; the footer should display the date of the update, the page number, the number of total pages and the name of the person who issued the update, and the legend should show the file name and the version number, Lukas said.(10)

Next, go to the Gantt chart view. Enter tasks and establish the following relationships:

• Enter the Project Start and Project Complete milestones. (9)
• Enter the list of tasks for your project. (2)
• Establish the task relationships. (5, 8)
• Enter the work for each task. (7)
• Enter a first guess of duration for each task. (6, 7)

Next, go to the Resource Sheet. Add each resource by name or work group, along with availability.

Now go back to the Gantt chart view. First, split the screen and assign resources to tasks. (7) Then, review the schedule and critical path and check for tasks that are missing predecessors or successors. (5)

At that, plot the construction schedule and perform a final check for logic. Update the schedule based on this review. (3)

The next of the construction schedule methods is to use the Resource Graph to conduct a final check for resource overload. Then, if desired, change the task type to Fixed Work. (7)

Once the schedule is finalized, set this as your project baseline. At this point, neither Gantt views nor network diagrams will display schedule logic in its entirety -- better, Lucas said, to print the schedule on a large sheet of paper. (3)

As indicated in a previous article, Some thoughts on construction schedule methods and designs, the big print-out is not without its detractors. Make sure that the  document serves as a general reference only. Architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, owners and all other project stakeholders should consult the software-driven construction schedule, and any associated BIM data, for specifics.