Pathline Scheduling Guide

What Should Be Included in a Primavera P6 Baseline Schedule?

A practical guide to the logic, coding, procurement, milestones, resources and narrative expected in a credible construction baseline schedule.

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A baseline schedule should explain how the project will move from notice to proceed through turnover. The software file is only one part of that deliverable.

Start With Contract Requirements

Review required software version, schedule level, calendars, coding, cost or resource loading, update frequency, narrative format and acceptance criteria before activity development begins.

Represent the Full Execution Plan

Include design, submittals, procurement, fabrication, delivery, access, construction, inspections, testing, commissioning and turnover where those activities can control field execution.

Use Complete, Defensible Logic

Activities should have meaningful predecessors and successors. Constraints, lags and open ends need a documented purpose because they can distort float and critical-path calculations.

Make the Schedule Manageable

Use WBS and activity codes that support the views the team actually needs: area, system, trade, responsible party, phase, work package and milestone.

Include a Basis-of-Schedule Narrative

Explain calendars, assumptions, planned sequence, critical path, key procurement items, resource strategy, constraints, risks and items awaiting owner direction.

About the author

Josh Roberts has more than 29 years of construction scheduling and project-controls experience and has managed Primavera P6 schedules exceeding 50,000 activities.

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Tell us what you are building, where the project stands, and what the schedule needs to accomplish.

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