planning

• Planning is the most important technique of

the management. Planning means “looking
ahead” this is a mental process requiring the
use of intellectual faculties, imagination,
foresight and sound judgement, to decide in
advance as to what is to be done, how and
where it is to be done, who will do it and how
the results are to be evaluated.
• Planning is therefore course of action to achieve desired
results.
• The planning team for a project should take into consideration
the past, present, future. Are all given due weightages in the
planning process.
• Planning ensure proper utilization of human and materials
resources to achieve the objectives of the project.
• If any of stage of the project, the achieved results are not
proceeding according to the early planning, then revised
planning approach is to be adopted.
• Rethinking is an important feature of the planning, in any
project, the plan includes the estimates, the budget and time
schedule and sequences of completion of each part of the
project, manpower planning and the plant and equipment.
 Steps involved in planning
• Crystalizing the opportunity or problem.
• Securing and analyzing necessary information.
• Establishing planning premises and constraints.
• Ascertaining alternative course of action or plan.
• Selecting optimum plan.
• Determining derivative plan.
• Fixing the timing of introduction.
• Arranging future evaluation of effectiveness of the
plan.
 Objectives of planning
• The main objective of planning is to execute the
project most economically both in terms of
money and time. Effective planning includes the
following factor.
– Proper design of each element of the project
– Proper selection of equipment and machinery: in big
projects, the use of larger capacity plants are found
economical.
– Proper arrangement for repair of equipment and
machinery near site of work to keep them ready for
work.
• procurement of material well in advance.
• Employment of trained and experienced staff on the
project.
• To provide welfare schemes for the staff and workers
such as medical and recreational facilities.
• To provide incentive for good workers.
• To arrange constant flow of funds for the completion of
the project.
• To provide proper safety measures such as proper
ventilation, proper arrangement of light and water.
• Proper arrangements of means of communications and
feedback etc.,
 Principles of planning
• The plan should provide information in a readily
understandable form, however complex the situation it
may describe.
• The plan should be realistic. There is no point for
example, in planning a building to be completed in six
months if the delivery period for cement is five months.
• The plan should b flexible.
• The plan should serve as a basis for project monitoring
and control.
• The plan should be comprehensive.
• Management team
planning
1. Briefing
2. Designing
3. Tendering
4. Constructing
5. commissioning
 Advantages of planning
• Advantages to the contractors
– The fact that the job has been studied in detail in order to draw up a
network or a bar chart means that the contractor knows more
information about the job.
– A properly drawn up programme in conjunction with cost control can
prevent the loss of money and help to relieve the financial burden of
the contractor.
– Supply of labour required week by week for each operation can be
gauged properly if a programme has been drawn up earlier.
– It is a simple matter to produce various schedules from the programme.
– The programme provides a standard against which actual work can be
measured.
– A programme lays down a preconceived plan not only for the whole
job but also for the various stages in the job.
• Advantages to the clients
–The client will know exactly how
long it will take to construct the
project and for what length of time
his capital will be unproductive,
while tied up in construction work.
• Advantages to the architects/ engineers
– The programme will normally be prepared by
the contractor in close consultation with the
architect. After the contractor has prepared a
concise picture of the construction in the
form of a programme and the target has been
laid down for the various operations, then a
draft should be submitted to the architect or
engineer for his approvel.
– The plan may be different from one another
where their objectives and mode of operations
are different from each other.
– The technique of preparing a plan has no
effect on it. Therefore, the difference b/w two
plans can be judged by their objectives and
mode of execution of the operations and not
by the technique adopted to prepare them.
– For example, the difference b/w the objective
of setting up a sugar mill and constructing a
residential building can be clearly seen.
 Limitations of planning
• The effectiveness of the plan depends
upon the correctness of assumptions.
• Planning is expansive.
• Planning delays action.
• Planning encourages a false sense of
security.
 Stages of planning
• Preplanning- this is the stage of planning before a decision has been taken to
take up the project. During this stage, the objectives are to be clearly spelt out, a
general framework of the project is to be formulated, justification for taking up
the project, a cost benefit analysis and investment alternatives are all to be
given.
• Detailed planning- this stage includes the preparation of detailed design,
detailed working drawings, specifications and detailed bill of quantities. Also
the project breakdown i.e breaking up of the entire project into small component
jobs and also establishing the sequences of various operations and allocation of
time duration to the different activities in the project.
• Monitoring and control- this phase involves monitoring the progress of the
project according to the proposed schedule. Also, this includes the updating of
the schedule, taking into account the actual progress of the project and
preparing revised forecasting regarding the availability of the various resources.
 Types of plan
• Standing plan- these are the plans which are used repeatedly and
include the management’s policies, procedures and rules.
• Single use plan- there are used for single purpose and are
designed to accomplish a specific objectives within a relatively
short period of time. Examples, of the single use plan are budgets
and programmes for a specific project.
• Strategic plan- this is concerned with the broad matters that may
vitally affect the development of an organization. The factors
include, the economic, technological and environmental factors.
The emphasis is placed upon predicting the future behaviour of
external variables and formulation of alternative types of action in
the light of the expected events.
• Administrative plan- this is less subjective
than strategic plan. It focuses on how to
accomplish the objectives of the project or the
organization. This type of planning is
concerned with factors within the control of
the organization.
 scheduling
– Construction Scheduling is a graphical
representation which shows the phasing
rate of construction activities with the
starting and completion dates and the
sequential relationship among the
various activities or operations in a
project so that work can be carried out
in an orderly and effective manner.
 Preparation of construction schedules
• The project is divided into number of operations
and the sequences of these operations can be
derived after knowing their relationship properly.
• The quantity of work involved in each operation
has to be calculated.
• The time required for completion of the project as
well as the different activities are to be calculated.
This can be done from the quantity of work
involved and the rate of performing each work.
 Uses of scheduling
• It gives the quantity of work involved, lobour,
materials, and equipment for each stage of
work.
• The actual progress of the work can be
checked.
• The project can be carried out in a systematic
manner using scheduling.
 Advantages of scheduling
• By studying the schedule of any work and the many
alternative methods of execution, we can choose the
best one.
• It gives a clear idea regarding the required men,
materials and equipment at different stages of the
work.
• Since the starting time of each work is known, proper
arrangements and requirements can be done prior to
the starting of the work.
• Resources utilisation is optimised.
• Actual progress of the work is monitored with
the actual plan. If there is any delay, proper
remedial measures can be taken to avoid such
delays.
• Inter-relationship of various activities at
different stages are known; thus we will be able
to fix them according to their priority.
• Total duration of the complete project is known.
 Classification of scheduling
• Scheduling can be classified into different types according
to the requirement for which it is done, such as : material
scheduling, labour scheduling, equipment scheduling,
financial scheduling and other types.
– Differences b/w resource oriented and time oriented
scheduling: in resource oriented scheduling, the focal is on using
and scheduling particular resources in an effective manner. E.g
In a high rise building, the project manager’s main concern is to
ensure that cranes are used effectively for moving materials :
without effective scheduling in this case, the delivery trucks
might queue up on the ground and workers may wait for
deliveries on upper floors.
– In time oriented scheduling, the emphasis is on
determining the completion of the project with the
given precedence relationships among the
activities.
also various techniques exist for resource
levelling or resource constrained scheduling in the
presence of precedence relationships. Most
scheduling software is time-oriented, even though
virtual all of the programs have the capability to
introduce resource constraints.
 Methods of scheduling
• Scheduling can be done by different
methods depending on the size of the
project. The methods used are
– Bar charts or Gantt charts
– Milestone charts
– Network analysis
• These type of charts were introduced by Hendry
Gantt around 1900 A.D. a bar chart consists of two
co ordinate axes one representing the jobs or
activities to be performed and the other
representing the jobs or activities to be performed
and the other representing the time elapsed.

• Each bar represents one specific job or activity of

the project. The beginning and end of each bar
represents the time of start and time of finish of that
activity and the length of the bar represents the time
required for the completion of that job o activity.
• The following steps are involved in preparing
the bar chart:
– Divide the project into many activities
– List out the activities
– Find the inter relationship among these activities.
– Arrange the activities in a systematic way
– Calculate the quantity of work and the time
required
– Draw it according to scale as shown in figure.1
• Figure.1 shows a bar chart for a project which
has seven distinct activities viz. A, B, C, D, E,
F and G which are to be performed for its
timely and successful completion. The time
required for the completion of these activities
are 11,6,11,8,6,9 and 16 units of time
respectively.
• From the above bar chart, we conclude that
– Activities A and B can start simultaneously, since they are, independent
of each other.
– Activity C can start only when activity B is completed.
– Activity D is independent of C. it starts earlier than C and Is also
completed earlier.
– Activity E starts only when D is completed.
– Activity F starts when B is completed.
– Activity G is the last activity and is dependent on the completion of D.
– The total duration of the project is 28days.
From the bar chart we conclude that the total time taken for completion of
the projects is 14 weeks.
 Limitations of bar charts
• They can be used only for small projects.
• It does not show the interdependencies between the various activities
in the project. This is a serious limitation of the bar chart.
• The progress of the work in the project cannot be monitored
scientifically.
• Delays in the work cannot be detected.
• It does not indicate the critical activities of the project.
• it gives some idea about the physical progress, of the project, but the
financial aspect involved is not known: i.e whether the project cost is
within the estimated one or exceeded.
• Bar chart cannot be used as a controlling device by the project
manager to take any timely action.
 Milestone charts
• The milestone chart is a modification over the
original bar chart. In every activity, there are certain
key events which are to be carried out for the
completion of the activity. Such key events are
called milestone and they are represented by a
square or circle. These events are those which can
be easily identified over the main bar representing
the activity. It has been noticed that when a
particular activity represented by a bar is very long,
the details will be lacking.
• If, howover, the activity is broken into a number of
sub activities or key events, each one of which can be
recognised during the progress of the project,
controlling can be done easily and also some
interrelationship between the activities established.
• let us consider the milestone chart shown in fig.2. the
activity or job A is divided into 4 key events or
milestones, job B into 3 milestones and so on. Each
milestone can be considered to be a specific event
along the job and is represented by a sqaare.
 Limitations of milestone chart
• Though controlling can be better achieved with the
help of the milestone chart, still it possesses the
some deficiency as the bar chart i.e: the
interdependencies between the milestone is not
shown.
• Within an activity, the relationship b/w two specific
milestones is revealed by the milestones chart but
the relationship between and among milestone
contained in different activities Is not indicated.