Module 3 · Week 2 · Quick Reference Guide

Pre-work · required · 10 minutes

Bring one schedule overrun example

Review your own current project's schedule, or the most recent one you managed. Find one place where a regulatory agency review, an Owner review, or a subconsultant deliverable ran longer than the schedule allowed for. Note what the schedule assumed, what actually happened, and what the overrun cost in time.

Bring that one observation to the live session. You will use it twice, once in the opening frame and once when you decide where your own buffers go. Nothing gets collected and nobody presents. It is your data, for your build.

Signature lineA schedule with no named buffer will miss its promised dates as soon as an external review runs long.

What happens in the session

You run steps one through five, in order, alone

Twenty of the 45 minutes are allocated to independent work in the Schedule Builder. The session includes no pairs and no breakout rooms. You place the same Heron Pond Connector Path tasks you organized in Module 2's WBS Builder onto a timeline, in dependency order, and then protect the dates the firm does not control.

Step	In the Schedule Builder, that means
1 · Anchor the milestones	The set of milestones is pinned for you, from kickoff through advertisement. These are the dates the Town tracks.
2 · Sequence by dependency	Place each task chip into its schedule window, working backward from the advertisement date. Ask at every chip, which tasks shall be complete before this task can begin.
3 · Set accurate durations	Each chip carries the duration its discipline assigned to it. Respect that duration. The schedule commits actual people's time, not optimistic assumptions.
4 · Place buffers on purpose	Three buffer chips, one for each external review timeline the firm does not control. Place each buffer where your project would actually need it.
5 · Pin the Project Gates	Gates lock at 30, 60, and 90 percent as your schedule fills in. Work does not proceed past a gate whose review has not happened.

Then the close

Step six waits until Week 4. Today ends with one chat prompt instead, asking where you stopped adding detail and why.

What am I supposed to know?

Buffers, named and placed on purpose

Weston & Sampson's Guidelines already identify where schedules lose time. Section 2.3 directs you to ensure adequate time is included for outside stakeholders, and it names three such stakeholders, regulatory agency reviews, Owner reviews, and subconsultant tasks.

A buffer is deliberate time placed in front of a review the firm does not control, added before the project needs it, not after. The discipline is in the placement. A buffer spread evenly across every task protects nothing. A buffer placed directly in front of the Owner review of the 75 percent package protects the exact date on which the Town will judge your performance.

Do this

✓Place a named buffer in front of each external review, sized to that reviewer's historical review duration.
✓Put buffers on the critical path first. That is where a late review changes the finish date.
✓Tell the client the date that already includes the buffer. Under promise and over deliver, the Guidelines' own words.

Do not do that

✗Do not add hidden padding to every task. Hidden padding across every task is inaccurate scheduling, and it disappears the first time someone compresses the schedule.
✗Do not place buffers on tasks that already have slack. Those tasks already have room. Place protection where none exists.
✗Do not wait until mid project to learn the actual review duration. A buffer added after a schedule has already slipped does not prevent the slip. It only acknowledges the slip after the fact.

What am I supposed to know?

Project Gates at 30, 60, and 90 percent

A milestone marks a date. A Project Gate stops work until a required review is complete. Week 2 turns the firm's 30 percent, 60 percent, and 90 percent design milestones into Project Gates, points where the schedule itself forces a checkpoint before work continues.

Each Project Gate exists to catch something specific. The 30 percent gate holds work until a clear design direction exists, so the team does not develop details for a concept the client has not accepted. The 60 percent gate exists because of the Guidelines' own warning, quoted below. The 90 percent gate holds the package until the required reviews are complete, at least two team reviews, one independent QA and QC review, and one Construction Services review, because the work between 90 percent and 100 percent completion commonly includes small revisions that increase project cost if left unchecked.

Direct from the 2022 Weston & Sampson Project Management Guidelines, Section 3.3.2"Scope creep occurs most frequently during this design phase. Ensure the scope of services is adhered to by all team members."

Rendering note. This course's house style presents the Guidelines' original punctuation, a warning label and a dash, as two plain sentences. The wording is the firm's own.

Project Gates also perform client facing work required by the approved scope of services. A Project Gate is the point at which you formally inform the client of a potential change, before that change occurs, while a conversation about it costs less time and money than a change made later. A change identified at the 60 percent gate is a scope conversation. The same change identified at 95 percent is rework, and rework is one of the firm's five named causes of budget overruns.

What am I supposed to do?

When the schedule slips anyway

Buffers and Project Gates reduce surprises. They do not eliminate them. Section 4.2, Controlling the Schedule, describes the firm's required procedure for the day a date changes.

1Actively manage the project. Establish deadlines for subtasks, ensure subconsultants know and follow your schedule, and plan for holidays and vacations before they affect the schedule.
2Recover lost time by overlapping tasks. If the schedule slips, look for opportunities to overlap tasks and recover time, the Guidelines' first recommended step. Overlap only tasks that are truly independent. Never overlap tasks joined by a real dependency.
3Protect the reviews. Plan enough time for necessary reviews and prevent rework by coordinating disciplines early. Compressing a review to save a date usually costs the date twice later.
4Communicate before the deadline. If a delay is coming, tell the client before the date passes, never after. Clients continue to trust a schedule that changes with advance notice. Clients lose trust in a schedule that changes without notice.

Grounded in the 2022 Weston & Sampson Guidelines, Section 4.2Controlling the schedule helps control the budget. The schedule you lock today is the input Module 4 prices.

The Schedule Builder

The tool you will use live. You may open it early to view the board. The build itself happens during the session.

Open the Schedule Builder

After the session

Week 3 returns to self paced learning and covers roles, subconsultants, and the make or buy decision.

Preview Week 3 →