WHY USE MS PROJECT FOR SCHEDULING AND MONITORING CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS?

To begin with the single most important reason to adopt the MS Project is that activity sequencing with it is very easy. It is here assumed that your team is already using other MS office applications (2007 or later). The initiation of schedule preparation with MS Project would give rich dividends and justify additional cost and effort on this account only.

In Indian scenario especially at locations where construction projects have suddenly grown both in size and complexities, gaining maturity in professional scheduling/work sequencing can be a boon. The construction projects scenario here can be summed up as below.

1.       Projects are getting more complex.

2.       Numerous sub consultants and subject matter experts are involved.

3.  Construction Industry has a tradition of consultants working in silos.

4.       Works have to be got done through subcontracting.

if you have been in a complex building construction team, it is obvious to you that inadequate or not formally sequencing of the tasks is the main reason for rework and consequential:

·          Cost Escalation

·         Time Overruns

·         Poor Quality and

·         Poor Morale of the Project Team

Building construction projects unlike infrastructure constructions involve too many interdependent tasks. While structure is coming, visible progress makes clients and other important stakeholders expect early handing over. With the help of interdependent services and finishing activities, the Project Manager can keep the key stakeholders well informed.

Say, you hire best consultants who provide you work methods, work sequencing and quality checks. You even got those briefs on their drawings. However, with best of the intentions, if your team don’t create detailed activity sequencing on Project Management software much of the advice and hard work by consultants is likely to get a slip.

Now coming back to the topic, with most of the construction billing work being done on Excel 2007 or later, probably your team is already comfortable with its ribbon interface and contextual help. MSP 2010 or later provides the similar contextual help. It is therefore very easy for your team to list and then sequence these actives using sorting and filtering features which are similar to Excel. The team members can also make their task lists in MS Word or Excel and Copy Paste the data with ease.

Once the team is comfortable with the software and a schedule acceptable to important stakeholders, it can be base lined and use contextual reports can be shared. Ensuring work sequencing is vital to all complex building projects and as experience shows is the main reason for poor quality and cost and time overruns. Using MS Project for schedule preparation, monitoring and controlling effectively for any complex building Project can therefore be most rewarding.