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Keeping Your Electrical Project On Track

Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By David Brown, D. Brown Management

Work out project kinks by using systematic weekly and daily processes

All electrical projects start with a schedule or, at the very least, some basic milestone dates. Meeting these dates is the simple, strategic goal of any project. Keeping the project on that schedule and hitting each and every milestone along the way is the hard part. Keeping your job on track is not that difficult; however, you must make certain weekly and daily processes second nature in order to consistently achieve success.

Sounds simple, right? If this process is so straightforward, then why do so many electrical projects run into problems? This is a great question, and the answer might surprise you. One problem is most training courses on scheduling typically focus on strategy. Because it's difficult for a college to charge large fees for a class to teach you how to manage details, it's far flashier for them to make a course, give a speech, or write a book about big-picture, strategic issues. Although strategy is obviously important, the devil really is in the details when it comes to electrical project management. If you pay closer attention to details, you can almost guarantee improved performance on future projects. Because even the grandest project can depend on the smallest of components for success, it's important to visualize a systematic approach, outlined on the following pages.

Communication, feedback, and detail management

The critical path method (CPM) schedule or general project milestones are where the entire process begins. Taking a look at the activities shown on the CPM schedule over a three-week period on a typical project, you should break these activities down into details, making note of specific responsibilities, manpower needs, etc.

For starters, meet with the entire project team on a weekly basis to review the three-week schedule, make any adjustments, and get everyone to agree to deliverables. Every day, walk the job with a notepad, jotting down every little detail you can think of that might be necessary to meet or beat the three-week schedule. Consolidate your notes into one detailed list with responsibilities and a notes column. From this list, create material and equipment lists and installation detail drawings that are missing, etc. Distribute this information to everyone on the project, and get their feedback daily.

Based on this feedback, summarize completed tasks as well as those items that did not get finished. Ask yourself key questions, such as: Why didn't they get completed? What effect will this have on the project? How will you get things back on track? Once all of this is done, it's time to start over.

Unfortunately, this is where the process usually breaks down for most people. Anyone can get off to a good start, but then reality sets in. Project challenges inevitably take over, causing you to miss one day — or maybe two. Then there's no time to update the three-week schedule, resulting in the project getting off track. Although the process seems tedious, the best advice is to never miss a day of documentation (click here to see Fig. 1) — ever! Now that you have a grasp of the overall theory behind this approach, let's walk through the specific key steps that will help get your project back on track.

The CPM project schedule

There are dozens of books you can buy and classes you can take related to building a schedule. For more details on how an electrical contractor can work with the project schedule, see “Top 10 Steps to Schedule Management” on page C22 of EC&M's March 2008 issue.

Although the details of creating a project schedule using the CPM is beyond the scope of this article, what is important to note is how to read through the schedule and pick out activities that are critical for your work. Activities shown with red bars fall on the critical path for the project. These activities must be started and finished on time. Otherwise, you'll miss the project completion date.

It's also important to look at the schedule and pull out start dates for all activities that require long lead-time materials or equipment. With the start dates in hand, work your way backward, adding in submittal time, lead (fabrication) time, shipping time, and staging time. Make sure you manage the heck out of this list.

The three-week schedule

After construction begins, there are literally thousands of little changes you need to manage on a weekly basis. These changes are not reflected on the overall project schedule unless it becomes apparent that there is a significant difference between what the schedule says and what is actually happening in the field.

The three-week schedule is a valuable planning tool the foreman or superintendent uses onsite to plan out the details of the next few weeks worth of work in more detail than the project schedule, including manpower levels, work area details, and even task-specific information. Make the three-week schedule a key component of the discussions during your weekly production meetings that everyone understands.

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