80% of the delay on a project is decided before the first brick is laid. We look at the planning decisions with the greatest impact on the final schedule.
When works run late, the conversation tends to focus on what happens on site: a supplier who does not arrive, unexpected rain, a detail poorly resolved. But if we analyse delayed projects, the root cause almost always appears before the work starts.
The sequence defines the schedule
On a project some activities share resources. If the programme does not identify those dependencies, the plan looks reasonable on paper and breaks as soon as two work fronts need the same means.
On a recent project, reordering three work items — without changing their duration — cut four weeks from the overall schedule. Nobody worked faster: the work happened in the right order.
Three critical decisions
Define the work fronts
Before starting you have to know which areas can be built without interfering with each other. A poorly defined front creates waits that never show up in the programme.
Fix the supply route
Long lead items — steel structure, lifts, equipment — must be ordered with a firm date. A supplier with no committed date is an open risk.
Allow for float, do not invent it
A schedule with no float is a promise, not a plan. We identify the activities with real float and protect it from the urgent.
Conclusion
Planning is not drawing a nice diagram: it is deciding the order, the resources and the float before the pressure of the site arrives. Once that is settled, the site moves forward and the unexpected is absorbed without moving the delivery date.