Scheduling myths

We had our project induction meeting today for the house build. A real experience to be briefed on the finer points of health and safety on a building site. We were gutted we didn’t get our own hard hats to wear and that we have to sign a book every time we go and visit our own land.

Also, for some strange reason we are allowed to speak to the electrician, plumber, joiner and project manager but not the builder (unless we want to talk about rugby, fishing, or other non build related things). There was much raising of eyebrows about this rule and we promptly broke it 10 mintues later by talking to Chris (our builder) about building our house. I am sure that there is method in their madness but we can’t work it out yet!

Still, we’ve got a schedule – 25 weeks of planned activity. Mysterious though, they are starting the schedule three weeks later than the actual work started, no wonder they are claiming that they are well ahead of schedule.

I could tell that the schedule (or rather a bar chart) didn’t live up to MT’s standard of project scheduling but I was proud that he didn’t go all busman’s holiday on me and start giving them a lecture on how it should be done.

So starting on 26 March we have 25 weeks of planned activity, subject of course to all the usual caveats about weather, sick builders and usual excuses about why things are running late. But, hey, its a schedule and one that is pinned up in the office so I can check each week off as things progress.