Build the baseline programme
Turn the agreed scope and the priced BOQ into a baseline programme: list the activities, set durations and logic links, add the milestones and calendars, check the critical path, then baseline it so progress has a fixed line to be measured against.
How it works, step by step
5 steps across the platform - what you do at each one, and why it matters.
List the activities from the scope
BOQWalk the priced BOQ and the scope and turn the work into a list of activities at the level you will actually manage: a floor of blockwork, a run of drainage, first fix to a wing, not one line per BOQ item and not a single summary bar.
Why: The programme only holds up if the activity list matches the work that has been priced. Building it straight off the BOQ is what keeps the schedule, the money and the site talking about the same thing.
Set durations and logic links
ScheduleGive each activity a realistic duration from the quantities and the crew you plan to run, then link the activities in the order they must happen so that moving one moves the ones that depend on it.
Why: Durations without links give you a wish list, not a programme. It is the logic between activities that lets the schedule show what a delay really costs downstream.
Add milestones and calendars
Advanced scheduleMark the fixed dates that matter, start on site, sectional handovers, practical completion, and set working calendars that respect holidays, shift patterns and the weather windows the trades cannot beat.
Why: Milestones are the dates the client and the contract care about, and calendars are what stop the programme promising work on days no one is on site. Without them the finish date is fiction.
Check the critical path
Advanced scheduleFollow the chain of activities that drives the finish date and read it against common sense. Look for missing links, negative float, and activities that show no slack when everyone on site knows they have some.
Why: A critical path that does not match how the job will really run will send you chasing the wrong activities the moment things slip. Sanity-checking it before you baseline is cheaper than finding out on site.
Baseline and issue
ReportsLock the programme as the baseline, snapshot the planned dates, and issue it so that from now on every update is compared to this fixed line rather than to last week guess.
Why: Progress means nothing without a line to measure it against. Baselining is the moment the programme stops being a draft and becomes the yardstick the whole job is judged by.