Keeping a Schedule

At minimum, the general contractor should give you a schedule that lists activities, with dates they expect work to happen.

On large projects, the contractor should be able to give you a complete project schedule and a two-week look ahead. The two-week look ahead is a schedule snapshot that details the activities for the next two-weeks.

The contractor should update the two-week look ahead every week, to reflect progress. This way you stay aware of how progress is affecting the expected completion date.

Sometimes a project is so short that the two-week look ahead is the duration of the entire project.

Most residential contractors avoid providing the owner a schedule. Some reasons will include:

• “We don’t have a scheduling application.”
• “Things change too much.” or
• “We would rather communicate with you verbally, it’s easier.”

You cannot afford to allow the contractor this luxury. It is very important that you require contractors to put things, like the schedule, into writing. At the very least, they must be able to tell you in a bullet point list what and when things will happen. If they cannot, then they are not organized enough to finish the project in any time frame but their own.

If you’ve gotten this far and you somehow forgot or overlooked the project schedule. You should review Planning – Project Schedule, and if you have to create the project schedule yourself using their information, do so. Then get them to accept it as theirs and then use it to monitor progress.

Remember to use the Project Schedule form to plan and maintain your project schedule.