good article , the fact is that in construction projects many changes happen during the construction process , contractor submits his claim on disruption and delays and client approval comes after many months during which the construction schedule become out dated, this is the problem that makes the pm, staff pay less attention or ignore the schedule. so if client resolve claims promptly on time as indicated in the contract then the schedule will do its function. .

yes, think of the emperor’s new clothes. they are quick to want to dumb down to spreadsheet data before they even understand cpm. that way, their vacuum of cpm knowledge will remain private.

sad to say i can relate to your experience, hatem. you need to do your best to set the dynamic as project controller so that you can somehow dictate from a position of strength, rather than weakness. this is sometimes inachievable. i’m a little long in tooth in the industry to be called incompetent, these days, but i’ve been called worse, usually with no good reason.

another issue i’m experiencing first hand is actually the inverse of what you mentioned. too many update requests. however, the update requests are driven by an obsession with dates rather than logic and duration. this creates a schedule that is treated like an excel spreadsheet were plugging in dates is the norm rather than a true cpm schedule that takes logic and duration’s and populates dates,generates a critical path and calculates float.

thanks, randall. the most important thing i learned is that learning is a lifelong process. it seems we learn more from challenges and frustrations than we do when everything goes right.