Introduction - Construction Project Scheduling and Control - page 4

Portfolio Program

Program Project Project Project Project Tasks

Subproject Subproject

Subproject

Figure 1.1 Programs, Portfolios, and Projects

Are Projects Unique?

Some people may think of two construction projects as being identical just because
they have the same design. In project management, we may have similar projects, but
every project is unique. Differences may occur because of location (soil type, weather
conditions, labor market, building codes, unforeseen conditions, etc.), labor skill level,
management type and experience, or for other circumstances (and how much Mur-
phy's Law was involved).

Tip Box 1.2

Just because two projects have exactly the same design and perhaps were built by
the same contractor doesn't make them identical . They are similar but differences
can come from site, location (building code, weather, etc.), workforce, execution con-
ditions, and so on.

Project planning has been defined as “the process of choosing the one method
and order of work to be adopted for a project from all the various ways and sequences
in which it could be done” (Antill andWoodhead, 1990, p. 8; Callahan, Quackenbush,
and Rowings, 1992, p. 2). The PMI defines the Planning Process Group as “those
processes required to establish the scope of the project, refine the objectives, and define
the course of action required to attain the objectives that the project was undertaken
to achieve” (PMI, 2013). Project planning serves as a foundation for several related
functions, such as cost estimating, scheduling, project control, quality control, safety
management, and others.
Scheduling is the determination of the timing and sequence of operations in the
project and their assembly to give the overall completion time. As mentioned previ-
ously, scheduling focuses on one part of the planning effort.
Project planning answers the questions: What is going to be done? How ? How
much ? Where ?By whom ? When? (in general terms, the project's start and end).
Scheduling deals with when on a detailed level. Figure 1.2 graphically demonstrates
this concept. (See Figure 1.2.)
In fact, scholars have generally separated planning from scheduling: “CPM sepa-
rates planning and scheduling, and once project information is collected and expressed