Programming 101

What are planning, programming or scheduling advisory services?

Planning and scheduling interfaces with a range of services that E3 Advisory provides. While it’s a fairly specialised field, there are not many projects where we have only provided program advice; usually, the skills for scheduling are utilised for other kinds of services, like cost or time to complete, dispute work, Schedule Risk Analysis (SRA) and other risk work.?

Our clients approach us at various stages of a project’s life cycle to provide valuable advice. Some of the work that we do at each stage includes:

• Development – effective scheduling underlies the success of any project. At E3 Advisory, we’re often asked to review the robustness of a client’s delivery planning processes, assessing the risks and testing proposed program in reaching key milestones. We utilise our expertise in the industry, such as understanding approval processes and constructability, to recommend improvements to??the client’s program through development and delivery.
• Delivery – we coordinate with various parties to understand the progress of a project, consolidating schedules and providing advice on the forecast of project milestones to the client. We also often undertake a “time to complete” analysis, which involves the interrogation of a program and implementing our expertise to estimate the time required for completion.
• Post-completion – we are often engaged by legal counsel to act as an expert witness in disputes by undertaking delay analyses and provide expert opinion regarding contractual responsibility for delay via expert reports or as an expert witness.??That is to interrogate as-built programs along with other contemporaneous records to understand what happened during construction and provide expert opinion in reports or in person..?

Which projects has E3 Advisory worked on in this space?

While the majority of E3 Advisory’s work in the program space are for confidential dispute, some of the public projects on which we’ve worked include:

• Moorebank Logistic Park – E3 Advisory was engaged by the developer to maintain the project master schedule, i.e. track the progress and potential risks (from a planning/scheduling perspective) on the project during delivery and also prepared advice based on the schedule that assisted with executive decision making.
• WestConnex – E3 Advisory was engaged to provide due diligence advise to support the SMC sale process.??As part of this advice E3 Advisory reviewed the project programs and other contemporaneous records to advise on a risk adjusted time to complete for the various projects that were underway at the time.
• Sydney?Metro –?E3 Advisory has been engaged to undertake reviews of planning processes and programs and provide advice to support key decision points on the project i.e. prior to tender release or during tender evaluations.
• Melbourne Airport Rail – E3 Advisory has undertaken program review and schedule risk analysis with the project team to assess / help improve the program quality and establish the likely completion periods when taking program risks into consideration.

What would I be doing as a scheduler?

At E3 Advisory, we value lifelong learning and invest in our people through structured training programs, including for scheduling programs such as Primavera P6. If you don’t have knowledge of or experience in scheduling, you will be trained in these areas as part of our graduate program and have the opportunity to use these skills on exciting and interesting projects.

You will have the opportunity to liaise with industry experts within E3 Advisory, and potentially externally, to understand the processes involved during all phases of the project lifecycle. You will step through each activity of a project and provide advice on the foreseeable issues that may be arising at each stage. Given the broad variety of services E3 Advisory offers over a project’s lifecycle, you will have the opportunity to gain an appreciation of the processes involved prior to construction, as well as exposure to construction methodology as you interrogate construction schedules.

Additionally, you will gain valuable technical skills by having E3 Advisory support you by training you, and allowing you to utilise, industry-recognised software for planning and scheduling, such as Primavera P6, Microsoft Project and Safran Risk. There will be training throughout the year for Primavera P6 with both inhouse and external training providers.

If you believe scheduling, programming and planning is something you’d like to work on as a graduate, apply now:?https://www.e3advisory.com/undergraduate-program/.