Smooth project execution with a solid progress plan
What is a progress plan?
A progress plan is an overview of the work to be carried out in a project. It is an essential tool for those involved in building and construction. A progress plan is also known as an activity plan, project plan, etc. The progress plan gives you the opportunity to plan all the work to be carried out and ensures that you have a good overview. This means that there are fewer challenges along the way as a result of a poor overview. Creating such a plan for your construction project will also help to simplify the division of responsibilities, create a good flow and focus on the activities that are most important.
Why create a project plan/progress plan?
If you create a progress plan, the management of the project will be more efficient as you will always have control over which activities are being carried out, how far the project has progressed and what adjustments need to be made along the way. A progress plan also provides good insight into time and resource consumption so that you can see planned time against actual time spent.
Of course, having a plan will also help to improve the flow of work. This means that the project can be completed at the right time with good quality, without extra costs.
Project methodologies, what is a project methodology?
When planning a project, you set out what needs to be done and in what order. Some of the tasks may be dependent on others before you start. You may also want to decide which project method will be used in the project, of which there are several. In the waterfall method (waterfall) for engineering, a linear plan is set up where one project phase must be completed before the next starts. Such a set-up of activities is rigid, but often the only thing you can plan before you start.
Most projects now involve changes in requirements during construction. The rigid design you started with as a result of the waterfall method starts to crack. You discover that the organization needs to be able to respond to the challenges the changes bring.
The need for a more flexible, or agile if you will, approach to project management is emerging. The agile methodology is about enabling the organization to respond to changing conditions quickly and efficiently. If an activity takes more or less time than planned, or new needs arise, you need to be able to easily reallocate your resources to deal with what that entails. The planning and organization must be agile in its approach to project execution.
In projects with agile project management, you can get to the goal faster than with the waterfall method. This allows the project team to quickly test whether an idea or concept works, but it can also mean that the project ends up more fragmented and less coherent. Therefore, a combination can be an exciting option.
How to set up a progress plan and what should a plan contain?
With a Gantt chart or Kanban board, you can typically set up activities and milestones to be completed for the project. You can then link the duration of the work and the resources that will carry out the work in the plan. Furthermore, it is important to see which activities are dependent on each other in order for the project to be carried out or completed.
Example of Gannt diagram in myplanner.
Important to remember in a progress plan:
A project always has a start and end date
Activities are the actual work to be performed, and it is important that there is a good description associated with this so that you understand what needs to be done.
Milestones are milestones that mark important steps in the completion process. For example, it could be "tight building" or "finished exterior" etc.
Linkages/dependencies are connections between activities that mean that, for example, you cannot start a new activity until another activity is completed.
The front line shows the progress of the project. Are you ahead or behind schedule based on today's date?
Resource planning , you have put the right resource to the right work.
Resource allocation, do you have an overuse of the resource, can one employee complete the work or do multiple activities at the same time?
Work and public holidays. Plan the project according to a calendar that takes into account public holidays and days off for the company.
How to make progress planning more efficient
When implementing a project in construction, there can be a lot of balls in the air at the same time. One of the challenges most people encounter throughout a project is:
Knowing the order in which construction activities should be done.
How effective the project work is along the way.
To allocate activities efficiently.
Not completing the project on time.
The most important thing you can do to create a stress-free and efficient project implementation is to have a project progress plan.
How do you create a progress plan?
When you create a progress plan, you are essentially doing simple planning for the future. Your project requires you to know what tasks need to be done at any given point in time and what goal you want to achieve.
To draw up a good progress plan, you need to keep track of all the different activities to be carried out throughout the project. The bigger the project, the more important it is to have a good and clear plan for what needs to be done.
It is always possible to use a template when creating a progress plan, but a template will probably not give you the best result, as it is not adapted to your project. Every project is unique, with its own challenges. When you use ready-made templates in Excel or similar programs, the likelihood of success is reduced, precisely because the template may not be adapted to the challenges of the project you are undertaking.
Using a progress tool is the best way to create a good progress plan for your project. Such a tool can give you the opportunity to streamline your progress planning and ensure that you have full control from start to finish.
Over several years in the industry, we at buildit have developed myplannerour own progress tool for successful project execution.
myplanner gives all project stakeholders the ability to manage resources, plan activities, decide which activities need to be done first, track progress throughout the project period, integrate estimates and set up their own project calendar.
*Did you know that myplanner is based on a Gantt chart, which means that the tool gives you a good overview of the relationship between deadlines and related tasks. This gives you a very user-friendly representation of your project work.
How can you become more profitable and efficient through good costing? And how to gain control of your purchasing and supplier offers? You can read more about this in our articles:
Procurement and quotes: Take control of the procurement process
Non-conformance management: Become more profitable with good deviation management
