UNIMAS 2019

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

PROJECT PLANNING
Planning is the cornerstone of Project Management. It is actually a
vital if not the most important process in Project Management.
 It provides the baselines
 It sets the momentum for the project – the timing and budget
 It insists on the right people with the right skill set for the job
 It acknowledges the availability of the right tools/machinery
and techniques to do the job
 It puts forward the risks for the projects
 It gathers information on operation, technical, contractual,
management, bureaucratic constraints
 It provides directions – objectives and goals
 It provides understanding of the requirements and needs of
the stakeholders, clients and professionals involved and maps
out the quality of the end products/facilities

The primary purpose of planning is of course to establish a set of

directions in sufficient details to tell the project team exactly
o What must be done
o When it must be done
o What resources to be used
o What is the cost attach

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

o Who is to do what
o How the works are supposed to be carried out
Planning effort must be adequate in accordance with type, size
and the project environment.
“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately
degenerate into hard work” ~ Reader’s Digest (March 1998,
p. 49)

Planning is often neglected or done inadequately. Poor planning

may not be entirely blamed for poor project performance but it
contributes to problems and issues during execution.

Please note that planning is a collective effort – not just top down
or client based. Members of other agencies especially contractors
could have involvement and should be consulted to provide at least
basic data on scheduling and construction techniques and material.

With planning, we looked into resource allocations, which includes

time and other physical resources as well

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 UNIMAS 2019
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

What is a Project Plan?

It is good if we can make the planning process as simple and
straightforward as possible. However, as much as project engineers
would like it that way though it is tedious and sometimes torturous.
Having a system would definitely help.
--- Software involvement – the idea of BIM, Scheduling
softwares, construction management softwares

Basic elements of a project plan:

o Activities/Events ~ establishing the technical scope of the
work
o Time Schedules ~ planned schedules
o Resources
o Site labour, machinery, material plans
o Cost estimation of the activities ~ planned budget
o Personnel ~ basic areas if performance responsibility
accepted by the participants
o Quality and safety plans
o Risk assessment and analysis **
**In some cases, a specific risk management group is created
for managing risk in terms budgets and schedules.

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

The project plans include processes (what – work flow diagram)

and procedures (how- steps), and tools and techniques that works
towards delivering the end products desired.

1.1 WORK BREAKDOWN ANALYSIS

Work Breakdown Structures and Statements

Work Breakdown Structures and Statements is an established tool
for structuring a project so that all the individual component and
elements are identified in a hierarchical format. It addresses the
technical scope of the work, to which resources are allocated.
Note: In this course we are concentrating on one project at a time
not multiple projects. With multiple projects, the planning and
resource allocation task can be even more complicated.
Complications will arise when we deal with trade-offs.

WBS are used because they:

 Provide a framework for the organization and management of
the project.
 Provide a framework for planning and controlling
 Breakdown the project into manageable components
 Provide a mean to cover all the works in an easy to
understand way.

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

 Useful as a quantitative for pricing, allocating responsibilities

and costs, durations and quality and safety related
requirements.

In civil engineering, works are breakdown into various key

operations. Work breakdown analysis assists PM in dividing
the overall project into manageable tasks/operations/activities.

The WBS often appears as an outline with the Level 1 tasks on

the left side and successive levels appropriately indented. It is a
picture of a project subdivided into units of tasks, subtasks.
Each activity has to be properly defined and can be further
breakdown into sub-activity Normally three layers of
breakdown are able to well define the project. Work
breakdown Structure is the end product of the process. Please
refer to following “How to do Work Breakdown Analysis”

How do we conduct a WBS exercise?

1) Identify the major components of project, which can be clearly
obtained from the scope and the drawings and specifications. Say,
1. Preliminaries
2. Building 1
3. Building 2
4. Drainage Work
5. Road Work

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 UNIMAS 2019
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
6. Water Work
7. Sewer Work
8. Landscaping, etc

2) With Layering System, breakdown the work into sub-tasks

2. Building Work
Foundation Work
Piling
Hacking of piles
Pile caps

Work Breakdown is the backbone for any planning and

controlling of time and cost. Not only that schedule of operations
are based on these analysis, estimates and costing revolves
around Work Breakdown and resources (machinery, material
and labour) can be allocated efficiently and accordingly. Quality
and safety plans can be drafted based on WBS.

1.2 RESOURCES PLANNING

Resources are about the people and things that are required to
complete the tasks or activities of a project. Consideration of the
resources has to be at the earliest stage of the project, even at the
conceptual stage. They are determinants and considerations in
many cases. Resources at its most basic consist of
 Staffing/ Team/Human/Labor

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

 Material
 Special Facilities and Equipment
 Financial resources – cash and funds needed
 Organisational resources –Other departments, subcontractors,
suppliers

Prior to any scheduling and costing exercise, Project Manager

would need to properly identify and select the resources which are
required. The amount, type and quality of resources available will
directly and indirectly affect the production rate on site.

Staffing/Team/Labour
By Project Staffing, we are looking at the management team,
technical team who has the knowledge and expertise to put
together the project plan, guide the project towards delivery,
organized and carry out monitoring and controlling on site.

By Labour we are specifying the construction site personnel under

direct employment ~ site supervisors, tradesman, skilled, semi-
skilled and unskilled labour.

All elements of construction work will involve the expenditure of

people’s time, which means incurring a cost in terms of labour.

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

This applies across all skills and disciplines, but they are directly
involved in the project.

Material
The largest component of the cost of an engineering project is the
cost of materials. These can be recognized inseveral forms such as
 Building and construction materials required for the structure
(“permanent” materials);
 Temporary materials required during the project delivery
phase;
 Consumables materials required during the operation and
maintenance phase of the facility.

Special Facilities and Equipment

A selection of plant and equipment may be necessary for the
project delivery and operational phases. This could be
 major plant eg. Cranes, tunneling machines, earth moving
plant, barges, tugs
 minor plant and equipment eg. Hoists, compressors,
generators, pumps, piling hammers and equipment.

Special facilities include testing facilities and equipment, batching

plants, storage facilities.

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

Organisational resources
Interdepartmental supports – office administration support,
technical and operations skills from other teams, procurement and
logistics support.
Design team from external organizations.

Subcontractors for any civil engineering projects can usually be

categorized to provide
o Labour only
o Labour and material together with equipment and machinery
o Specialised technology or items and labour and supervisory
team

Suppliers’ support for credit terms, delivery and pricing.

Resources Data
Formal planning needs to be carried out. Tools and Techniques:
 Resources bar charts and tables
 Resources histograms show loading of a particular resources
 Summaries of resources usage

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

 Softwares

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