Do I Need a Schedule?

Well, if you work at AECOM or Fluor or Bechtel, this is a ridiculous question. Hundreds of hours were poured into that schedule before you were even authorized to bill the project.

If you run a ten-person general contractor, a resource-loaded schedule is — to borrow a phrase from Dr. Manhattan — “like a picture of oxygen to a drowning man.” Sounds great. Maybe next year.

Are these different businesses? At a fundamental level, no. We all invest time and materials, mark them up, and try not to burn all the profit in overhead. The difference between these two worlds, as it relates to schedules, is ROI.

A schedule isn’t free. Even a modest baseline takes dozens of hours from planners, engineers, and managers. So how should we size the investment? What’s the return?

We use a few key metrics to target investment size:

• Raw dollars. If you don’t have the dollars, it’s too much. Modern scheduling tools are extremely efficient — there isn’t a project in the universe that can’t be baselined in a few days. Every project has some amount of overhead available on a daily or weekly basis; it’s just a question of allocating it wisely.

• Cost ratio. This is usually expressed as a percent of total contract value. The oft-cited “2 percent rule” — a metric appearing in project management journals for decades — is a good conceptual starting point. It applies to all project controls, of which scheduling is one subset. Think: % of total cost for project controls → % of project controls dedicated to scheduling.

• Task spend. This is a scalable metric that aligns schedule cost to the level of detail at which the project is managed. Divide the total project cost by the number of detailed schedule line items. In parallel, divide the same total by the intended schedule budget over a given duration. Then work to harmonize the two numbers.

So, the I in ROI is straightforward math. What about the R?

That’s where things get interesting.

Like most things in business, the return lives on a spectrum. There are tangible and intangible benefits — and they differ for every organization. It all starts with profit, sure. But pure margin targeting can quietly erode intangible business goals.

In construction, the fastest possible schedule might seem to be the most profitable — until you factor in the degradation of quality, safety, and employee well-being that often accompanies it.

How does that apply to scheduling itself?

Well, the most detailed Level 5 schedule might be impressive to look at, but:

1. It takes too long to make.

2. It takes too much effort to update.

3. No one reads it.

The right level of effort in project controls is the one that makes your team most likely to reach its operational goals — not more, not less.

At the end of the day, every project — big or small, corporate or hands-on — faces the same question: is the effort worth the outcome? The answer depends on context, not company size.

Whether you’re managing a $100 million EPC contract or a $50,000 site job, the logic is the same: identify what decisions actually drive your success, then invest in the systems that make those decisions better. That might mean a fully resourced, logic-linked, multi-discipline Level 3 schedule. Or it might mean a two-page pull plan on the wall that everyone actually reads. Both can be the right answer — it depends on what you’re trying to achieve.

That’s where we come in. We help you figure out the ROI question before you spend the time. We look at your business model, the decisions you need to make, and the risks you’re carrying — then we right-size the planning effort to match.

Because “Do I need a schedule?” isn’t really about schedules. It’s about knowing when a plan earns its keep.