Should you cost-load your construction project schedule? What are the benefits of cost-loading your schedule? Whenever either construction Owners or Contractors are looking at a new project, that's when these important questions come up. I'm going to look at the benefits and tradeoffs of cost-loading a construction schedule from the perspectives of both the Owner and the Contractor. Let's
About Michael Lepage
How To Help Your Project Controls Team Love Online Learning
Leave a Comment
Offering online learning for a construction project controls team, to me, seems like a no-brainer. Project controls is tough work. If I had a team of project controllers, I would want them to feel valued and supported in their jobs as much as possible. Because I'm in the business of educating folks, I do my best to stay on top of workplace trends related to learning, productivity and
Primavera P6 Pro v19.12 is here. Here’s What’s New.
7 Comments
Primavera P6 Professional version 19.12 was released by Oracle on Dec 23rd of last year. Let me highlight some of the new features, bug fixes and enhancements that you'll want to know about. Let's go! What's new in Primavera P6 Professional version 19.12 Watch the video to see what's new. Read-on for a detailed list of ALL of the
Quickly Export From Primavera P6 To Excel
10 Comments
Faster is better. That should be Oracle Primavera's mantra. Well, in this case it is! Exporting Primavera P6 data to Excel could not be faster & easier with this quick tip. Getting Primavera P6 Activity data into Excel is essential. Excel's data crunching, grouping, pivoting and filtering is just so much easier to use than Primavera P6's. Even generating S-curves and graphs is better in
Construction Project WBS – Examples to Get You Started
3 Comments
When it comes to planning a construction project, many of us prefer to re-use elements from previous plans and schedules. But what if you're starting from scratch with no construction project examples to draw from? And are your past projects adhering to construction WBS best practices? Most project planners start building their construction schedule by establishing a Work Breakdown Structure.
Primavera P6: Download a Free Trial
56 Comments
Primavera P6 Professional is likely the most-used construction project management software package around today. Now at version 18.8, project controls planners & schedulers use Primavera P6 Professional to manage construction projects big and small around the globe. The Primavera P6 download process will let you download a free trial of Primavera P6 Project Management. And we'll take you
Plan Academy Named Spring 2019 “High Performer” by G2Crowd
Leave a Comment
Bill Gates once said "We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” And as a budding online training enterprise, we at Plan Academy truly value the feedback of our clients. We love hearing from our students. And we always take their feedback into consideration when we plan a new course or training event. That's why we're excited to announce today that Plan Academy has
How To Import & Export Activity Layouts in Primavera P6
17 Comments
Primavera P6's Activity Layouts can be a super-feature for helping you to plan, analyze, and progress a schedule. But what about exporting Activity Layouts to other copies of Primavera P6? In this post I'll show you how to import and export those precious Primavera P6 Activity Layouts. The Activity screen is where we spend 95% of our time as Primavera P6 users. Having a facility to configure
Use Primavera P6 Reflections To Merge Scenario Projects
72 Comments
Reflection projects are a little-known but very handy feature in Primavera P6 Professional. A Primavera P6 Reflection project is essentially a copy of a project but with one snazzy built-in trick - the ability to merge the copied project back into the original at any time. If the genius of this trick hasn't struck you yet, it will. This merging ability was designed to help planners work with
Open Zipped XER files in Primavera P6 v18 – New Feature
4 Comments
As of Primavera P6 version 18, you can now import zipped XER files directly into Primavera P6. There's no need to uncompress them first. Primavera P6 will read the zip archive directly. Check out our zipped xer files video tutorial to see firsthand how it all works....and also what doesn't
5 Things ScheduleReader Does That Primavera P6 Can’t
4 Comments
I've been a fan of PrimaveraReader (or now ScheduleReader) for a quite a while. SchedulerReader is a truly great XER file viewer that fills many gaps for organizations using Primavera P6 Professional planning & scheduling software. More on that in a second. Last month, PrimaveraReader underwent a complete rebrand that had it move away from referencing the name "Primavera". Not surprisingly,
24 Project Controls Books That Every Project Controller Should Have In Their Library
20 Comments
Every industry has its publications that are held to that lofty status of go-to guides, and project controls is no exception. Rather than spend valuable time weeding through the volumes that are available out there, we bring you the top 24 can't-miss project controls books that every good project controller has on their shelf. And now I've kept the promise I made on a recent webinar. Top Project
Install 2 Versions of Primavera P6 On the Same PC – NEW In Version 18
4 Comments
I used to think installing 2 different versions of Primavera P6 Professional on the same PC was impossible. Well, impossible OR really, really difficult. I used to have a complicated VirtualBox setup with a huge virtual machine that would crawl along with delayed mouse movements just so I could run an older version of Primavera P6 on my PC. Of course, I would install the latest version
How to Audit Your Primavera P6 Global Activity Codes
11 Comments
I had a very simple question posed to me in the Plan Academy Member's Community area recently about auditing P6's Activity Codes. It was this: How can I prepare a report to see which projects use my Global Activity Codes? ie: Can I prepare a report where I can see all the “Global Activity Codes” used in each project in my Primavera P6 database? Posted by one our P6 trainees, it was a question
5 Tactics To Get Your P6 Project Taken Seriously
18 Comments
The other day I spoke with a scheduler friend of mine by phone to see how his construction project was coming along. From the moment I asked question “So how is the project going?” I could hear that something was up. “Good…. It’s fine. Things are moving.” “Still making progress?” “Yeah, sure.” He answered. But I could hear the frustration in his voice. I dug a bit deeper to see just
How To Do Rolling Wave Planning in Primavera P6
10 Comments
One of the biggest challenges with building project schedules is that often you don't know the details of a piece of work but you need it on your schedule regardless. Yes, you know you need to say remediate an area once you've installed the watermain underground. But early in the project, the finer details of what that remediation might look like are scarce. Enter Rolling Wave
These Top 3 Drivers Ensure Project Success According To PMI
1 Comment
The latest Pulse of the Profession® report from PMI reveals that too much money is being wasted on poor project performance. In today's world when an average of 9.9% of every project dollar is lost to lousy performance, it's time for project professionals to achieve higher results by learning to adapt, adjust and innovate. However, before you become a champion performer, you've got to
How Construction Companies Manage Communications Effectively
Leave a Comment
93 out of 100 construction professionals agree that communication is the key to a successful project. Companies are looking to closing gaps in communication that are hindering their productivity, so they can minimize costly errors related to poor communication. The remaining 7% believes that communication is not a key factor in a project and oh boy they are so wrong. Photo When
How To Find Relationship Lag in Primavera P6
53 Comments
It's not very easy to find Relationship Lag in Primavera P6 project schedules. There aren't really any features to highlight which relationships have lag or lead time. But understanding how leads or lags are used on your Primavera P6 project is a vital part of analyzing a project schedule. We need a process to find relationship lag in Primavera P6 schedule. And I'm going to show you
These 4 Project Controls Software Trends Will Make Waves in 2018
2 Comments
In 2018, schedulers, planners & cost controllers will continue to deal with the pressures of managing complex projects amidst scarce resources, limited budgets and tight deadlines. And while most project controllers will spend their time in front of a piece of software, our project controls software is changing and evolving in our connected world. Project controls software tools play a
How To Perform As-Planned Delay Analysis On A Construction Schedule
6 Comments
When there are delays on a construction project and a delay claim has been issued, it's vital to determine who caused the delays and what happens next. Forensic Delay Schedule Analysis is broad area of expertise in project controls whereby a set of techniques are used to analyze a schedule and figure out who is at fault, whether a Time Extension should be granted and if there's monetary
Construction Projects: What I Saw On My Visit To London
11 Comments
London is a big and inspiring city. I had the chance to spend a week there for a bit of work and a bit of play. I managed to attend 2 excellent conferences, although they are quite underelated. I attended Chris Ducker's first Youpreneur event, and then later the 7th Project Controls Expo. As I walked around the city during the course of the week, I saw lots of construction activity going on in
Primavera P6 Release 17.7 Is Out But It’s A Light Update
16 Comments
Quietly in July, Oracle released this year's 2nd iteration of it's Primavera P6 EPPM & Primavera P6 Professional Project Management application, release 17.7. Why am I saying this is the 2nd iteration? In 2015, Oracle committed to delivering 2 releases per year x.1 and x.2. At that time they shifted their version from version 8.x to version 15.x, seemingly jumping 7 versions in numbers. The
My Favourite Quotes About Learning On The Job
12 Comments
Learning often comes with a curve that can pull you up quickly and leave you wondering if you are cut out for what you are trying to accomplish. It can be comforting, motivating and inspiring to know that people from all walks of life have felt exactly like you do. To do just that for you, I've gathered together some of my favourite quotes that are designed to encourage and support you when
Types of Schedule Delays in Construction Projects
4 Comments
A 2016 report on worldwide Construction Claims states the global average value of a construction delay dispute to be a staggering US$46million, a trend that has climbed upward from 2010. The report also indicates that the average dispute took 15.5 months to reconcile. You can read the full report from Arcadis here. Although claims and disputes are the inevitable result of delays to a project, for
Review of ScheduleReader – the P6 XER File Viewer You Didn’t Know You Needed
10 Comments
In this post, I'm doing a complete review of ScheduleReader. When it first launched, ScheduleReader was formerly known as PrimaveraReader an XER viewer that was an intriguing alternative to importing .xer files in your database to view the contents. But the tool was a bit too new to do a deep dive. Now, having a few releases under its belt (currently version 6.1), I'm convinced ScheduleReader
How To Preview A Primavera P6 XER File’s Global Data
1 Comment
This post is part 2 of our Scheduler's Guide to Primavera P6 Global Data and Project Data. If you have't read part 1 yet, go have a read. In this post, I'll show you how to preview Global Data coming from a Primavera P6 xer file. The concept of Global and Project Data in Primavera P6 is important to understand; not so much from a planning & CPM scheduling perspective, but from the view of
A Guide to Primavera P6 Global & Project Data
11 Comments
I've always had difficulty explaining the concept of global and project data to new users of Primavera P6 in my training courses. It's a bit too much for some, and why should you even care? You seem to be able to use Primavera P6 just fine without any knowledge of Global or Project Data. You can, but you can also get into trouble once you start moving data around, especially back and forth
As Late As Possible Constraint: How To Use It In Primavera P6 [VIDEO]
3 Comments![As Late As Possible Constraint: How To Use It In Primavera P6 [VIDEO]](https://cdn.planacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/as-late-as-possible-264x200.jpg)
Ever been confused by Primavera P6's As Late As Possible constraint? If you're a still familiarizing yourself with P6's many features, you might not be sure what the As Late As Possible (ALAP) constraint does or when to use it. I had a Plan Academy member ask me that question recently and decided to put this informative video together. I had a chance to practice my whiteboard skills and
Primavera P6 Certification Explained [Video]
3 Comments![Primavera P6 Certification Explained [Video]](https://cdn.planacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/certificate-p6-icon-264x200.jpg){kind=icon}
After so many questions about how to get certified on Primavera P6 and the confusion around Oracle certification exams, Michael has decided to clear things up with an explanation of Primavera P6 certification for users of the tool. Michael answers the following questions in this Ask Plan Academy video: How do I get certified on Primavera P6? What's the difference between a
5 Ways to Prevent Your Primavera P6 Install From Getting Hacked
2 Comments
Just over a week ago, the city of San Francisco lost millions in revenue as a hacker's attack left the city's MUNI municipal transportation kiosk system completely inoperable. The trains and buses were running, but everyone was rode for free for 2 days as IT experts struggled with a ransomware demand. All MUNI computer terminals displayed the “hacked” message: “Contact for key
My Favourite Quotes on Construction & Building
17 Comments
Throughout history, builders have always been revered for their ability to mold the natural elements into something new, perhaps something never seen before. Building is therefore a creative act on a momentous scale. For those lucky enough to be involved in Construction & Building, it's an incredible joy to be involved in bringing forth from mere drawings and ideas a structure that will
