Project scheduling with limited data

The first thing I would be doing is speaking with your HR as it sounds like you have been assigned the project estimator role rather than the scheduling role.

Schedulers do not estimate the project, they interpret the estimate and translate this into relevant planning software.

I would be speaking with my Project Manager to determine the contractual scope, BOQ, AFC engineering, and when this information will be made available.

If a schedule is of great importance, then I'd be looking at developing something very high level (level 2), top down approach, and a good schedule basis explaining the wide range of accuracy (due to no information).

All the best

Hi SM PUM

I can understand the request for your projectmanager. He would like to have a global  estimate of the labor content of the work. He should obtain this information at the estimating department or as PMI describes "scopemagement". 

If you have the quantities it should not be to difficult to "gestimate" the labor resources . As a rule of thumb use 30% - 40%  of the total value for labor resources .

Start as suggested by SAM top down and in high level. Maybe you can surprise your manager and as any good projectmanager you soon find out that he thinks he  knows better. Then planning and scheduling becomes fun.

Regards

Johannes

Hi Johans,

Thank u for this valuable info

Regards.

Sunil

You were given a Top Down Schedule with not much detail, what they are asking is for a detailed Buttom Up Schedule.

https://blogs.oracle.com/tacticalleadership/entry/top_down_or_bottom_up  

Ask for a detailed Quantity Take off and Estimate Worksheets, if available. If not available then at some point in order to make a responsible schedule some quantyty take offs will have to be done.

Today, many consider easier to make quantity tak-off using digital drawings. I make a living doing quatity take off for at risk bid contractors. I started when it was uncommon to make the drawings available to contractors in electronic format but today it is the norm. I eventually figured it out, same as most draftmen the use of two monitors makes the difference. I use a laptop and a second and larger external monitor that at today prices are cheap, the increase in productivity will pay for it ten times at first job.

There are many on screen estimate software and I use none. For areas and lengh I use Adobe Acrobat measuring tools and transfer these to an Excel Worksheet. Earthwork can be the most tricky, here I use Pizer Earth and within 3 to 6 hours can get my earthwork QTO on most jobs.

For your task on hand I suggest start by grouping your activities under the top level quantities. Use a hammock/WBS activity type and assign the supplied manhours to this activity using a user defined field. Then make the schedule resource assigments as you get enought data such as the volume of work for each activity. Now you will be able to compare what was the original man-hour budget to the schedule resource hours. The following figure might illustrate the idea. Due to space limitations on this post only resource bars for Activity 1 are expanded/displayed.

Good luck, 

Rafael