#22: What I’m Seeing On-site…

I have been working the construction industry for 23 years. I spent 10 years as a lead superintendent and 3 as a senior project manager building vertical structures, prior to becoming a CPM scheduling consultant. I built my own schedules as a super and PM.

What is happening now in the industry is hard for me to explain:

Top State/National/International General Contractors producing underdeveloped level 3 baseline schedules with limited subcontractor input. This is what I am seeing:

1. CPM schedules being used to foster pay applications
2. CPM schedules built only to satisfy contract specs
3. CPM schedules updated monthly only to the degree required to process pay applications
4. CPM Schedules not designed/developed/updated enough to utilize for day-to-day PM/CM
5. Day-to-day PM/CM is being facilitated by to-do lists (even on nuclear outages)
6. Labor is being mismanaged by GC PM/CM/CPM teams
7. Roller coaster labor demands are eating into subcontractor profit
8. Rising owners contingency funds that are unnecessarily consumed
9. Root causes are hidden from top GC/owner executives and controlled by senior PM/CM forces

10.  Owner-side PM/CM forces are approving creative CO’s to cover incompetent PM/CM

11.  More and more construction acceleration in the 3^rd and 4^th project quarters

12.  Profit evaporation for all stakeholders directly proportional to constructive acceleration

13.  Project teams that have never been exposed to a valid baselines

14.  Project teams that have never had the luxury of valid weekly CPM updates and archives

15.  Project teams that have never experienced the power of a CPM schedule that accurately modeled and mirrored the project/could be used to support day-to-day PM/CM efforts onsite

At the heart of every successful construction project outcome lays the building and sustaining of trade momentum. The 15 items above are momentum busters and undermine the very possibility of a successful project outcome.