Project Management Plan from Planning Engineer’s Point of View

We will discuss in this topic the contents of the project management plan from the planning engineer’s point of view. However, the project management plan could contain other elements that should be done by the project manager or project team, but we will focus in this article on the items that should be done or driven by the planning engineers and planners.

To be able to develop a project management plan, we need the project contract which is a very important document to the planning engineers as it is our authorized reference to all the documents we will prepare, project contract usually contains the following (Examples Project Management Plan):

The Project Management Plan Components

1.     Bill of Quantities (B.O.Q) 

Which identifies the project elements along with quantities, unit rates, and budget costs associated with a brief description of the specified materials used to execute each item.

Sample of the B.O.Q:

Project contractual milestones which will be the core of the scheduled dates and timing. The design drawings and specifications help to identify the activities sequence in our schedule.

The Project Management Plan components from the planning engineer’s point of view:

A project plan, according to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, is: “…a formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions and decisions, facilitate communication among stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost, and schedule baselines”.

A project plan may be summarized or detailed. and from a planning engineer’s point of view, it contains the following elements:

2- Detailed Time Schedule:

The detailed schedule is the core of the project management plan, and it should be done in the following sequence:

A- From the BOQ

we should be able to create the activity list which is simply a list of the activities required to execute the project without any durations or sequence.

B- From the project design drawings

we will be able to understand the project elements, and this will help us create the initial “Work Break Down Structure W.B.S”, W.B.S is “The process of subdividing project deliverables and work into smaller, more manageable components. and each descending level of the WBS represents an increasingly detailed definition of the project work.”

Sample of the WBS:

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C: combine the activity list

Now we should combine the activity list with the WBS i.e. (if we have an activity for the reinforcement concrete slab, and we have in our WBS four floors, it means we need to repeat this activity four times one activity for each floor).

This exercise could be done in Primavera directly. However, I prefer to do it in Excel first because Excel is more flexible and contains a lot of formulas that will help us divide the quantities for each activity and estimate the budget cost and resources that we will need later on.

Therefore, the next step is to create an activity list in WBS order with quantities distribution and budget cost, this is called cost loading.

D: After creating the cost loading

we will go further to create our time frame using Primavera and start filling the WBS we created earlier in item No. B with the activities as per item no. C (This step could be done by importing the activities directly from Excel to Primavera which I will explain in detail later on, check the Primavera section.), activities durations and relationships, run the schedule, and adjust the durations and relationships to achieve the project milestones and completion dates.

3 – Cash Flow

After finalizing the time frame, we will be able to populate the schedule with the budget cost for each activity as per item no. C. Once we run the schedule, the cash flow can be created from the Primavera as per the photo below:

4- Manpower Histogram

To create a manpower histogram, we need to create an Excel sheet similar to the cost loading, but we calculate the manpower instead of the budget cost (Resource Loading) as per the below example: “Resource Loading “.

After the completion of the resource loading sheet, we will upload the primavera with the manpower budgeted units for every activity and this will create the manpower histogram (see sample below):

5 – Shop Drawings tracking log:

The shop drawings tracking log should be coordinated with the technical department to provide the planning engineer with a list of the forecast shop drawings for all trades.

The planning engineer should drive this process by supplying the technical department with the proper form to fill the shop drawing list and then, the planner fills the planned dates from the schedule and gives the form to the document controller to keep updating it.

6 – Materials Tracking Log:

The materials tracking log should be coordinated with the procurement department to provide the planning engineer with a list of the materials along with forecast delivery durations for all trades.

The planning engineer should drive this process by supplying the procurement department with the proper form to fill it and then, the planner fills the planned dates from the schedule and gives the form to the document controller to keep updating it.

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