Taster

Here’s a selection of free videos you can watch to give you an inkling of what we can teach you here at Menlo Academy, so you can become more proficient with construction programming, especially comprehensive programming!

Writing Your Programme

Here are a selection of videos on how to write an effective construction programme that can be used for all stages of your project, without having to write multiple programmes, saving you precious time and money.

Resourcing Your Programme

Once you have written your programme, you need to consider resourcing it. Otherwise, it isn’t an accurate construction programme and may as well be just another wedding programme. Or worse still, the useless tender/contract programme most of you will have become used to during your career. But we’re about to change that!
If you don’t go through the process of resourcing your programme, it will leave you wide open to all sorts of issues further down the track. And some of them being very expensive, like arbitration! You’re thinking, “I use subcontractors.” Yep, we all do. However, they are still a limited resource and need to be included in your programme…
However, the most important reason you resource your programme is so that you can process accurate Extensions of Time and Variation claims.
So on that note, we invite you to watch the following videos which step you through the process from the Foundation level through Intermediate and on to Advanced. Coming soon, we will be adding how to incorporate financial resources into your programme. We know a lot of people don’t use them in MS Project. However, there is a time and place for this process, e.g., EOTs and Variations. Which helps your QS Team create a far more accurate claim, especially if the works extend over more than one Progress Payment.
If you have any queries, drop us a line at justask@menlo-academy.com

Tracking Change

Why is it important to track contract documents - RFI's, CI's, etc?
Construction is a very risky business for the Contractor. Before the project starts, the Programme is the plan of how it will be built and how long it’s planned to take. However, once the project is underway, many problems can, and often do, arise:

• Actual site conditions are often different to what’s expected.
• Weather events can have major impact on progress.
• Unforeseen events and circumstances happen with amazing regularity.
• Drawings often have discrepancies and mistakes that take time to rectify.
• The flow of information from the client is often lacking or late.

Any and all of the above can have a massive effect on the cost and progress of the project. Consequently, no matter how good your estimates of Cost and Time are, once a project starts on site, everything changes.
The Contractor’s road to salvation is that many of these risks can be managed and offset by changes to the scope of works, or delays caused by the client, which are claimable events for extension of time and/or variations to cover cost.
All events that affect the course of works are the updated story of the project. The events and correspondence need to be identified and tracked to show the true cause and effect on the project’s critical path - the calculation of the time needed to complete the project. The more detailed the story, the easier it is for all key stakeholders to understand.
The videos in this section take you through this very important process, so that you can use your programme as a live site diary, always telling the true story rather than the haphazard memory 12 months down the track…

Tracking Progress

What can you do to prevent your project from failing? If time, money, and scope are the three most common stumbling blocks, what can you do to create successful outcomes in those areas? Track the progress of your project! By tracking your project, you can compare actual to planned progress and identify issues that may prevent the project from staying on schedule and within budget. Project tracking helps project managers and stakeholders know what work has been done and the resources that have been used to execute those tasks. Hence, teams can be aligned along with project objectives and activities. And you don’t have to worry about losing data across a multitude of spreadsheets or spending ages digging for basic information. Everything is fed into the MS Project real-time dashboards, which visualise all project task activity. In this section, we show you the techniques of how to efficiently track the progress of tasks in your project.

Managing Your Project

Here, the focus is on how to use your construction programme as a site management tool, aside from tracking events and change events. This includes how to create and use Look Ahead programmes, manage your subcontractors and resources, and keep your project on track in real time rather than your typical monthly catch for the PCG meeting! Because that’s what often happens!

Reporting & Illustration

Usually, Management will ask you to create a report to help them in determining the status of the job and what type of actions are needed to keep the project on track. Your report is a significant tool in this decision-making process, as you can show specific details about the project's performance. So here, you need to think about:

• Who is going to read the report?
• What level of detail is needed?
• Are you going to present the information in tables, charts, graphs, or other ways to make your report easy to read and understand?

MS Project allows you to create and customize very well-informed graphical reports of whatever project data you want, without having to rely on any other software. Which, believe it or not, can make producing your report fun and interesting!

Quick Tips

Need a speedy hint? Look no further as here are our Quick Tips! Can't find what you're looking for? Email us and we'll get a video out for you as soon as possible!