Programmes
The programme is the first exhibit in every extension of time.
Long before anyone writes a claim, the programme decides how a delay will be measured. I build and update Primavera P6 programmes on major railway and infrastructure projects — baselines, monthly updates with their narratives, revised and recovery programmes — so that each one is a calculation the Engineer can follow and a tribunal could rely on.
- activities across four live programmes, updated every month
- ~20,000activities across four live programmes, updated every month
- logic links in those networks
- ~45,000logic links in those networks
- of railway programmed
- 1,000+ kmof railway programmed
- planning railways, hydro and power plants, towers and a hospital
- Since 2013planning railways, hydro and power plants, towers and a hospital
Illustrated · one month-end, one update
The life of a programme under FIDIC
01
Baseline
Submitted within 28 days of the notice of commencement (Sub-Clause 8.3). Access dates, review periods and the Employer's activities go into the logic — they are what Employer delay will later be measured against.
02
Monthly update
Statused at each month-end: actual dates, remaining durations, logic changes logged, and the native file archived alongside the progress report.
03
Revised programme
Whenever the programme no longer matches actual progress or the Contractor's obligations — and after each extension of time, re-based on the new Time for Completion.
04
Recovery or acceleration
Under Sub-Clause 8.6 (1999) or 8.7 (2017), recovery is at the Contractor's cost when the delay is the Contractor's. Demanded while an extension for Employer delay is still undecided, it is acceleration by another name — and is answered in writing.
05
As-built
The record the delay analyst will rely on — built up from the updates as the job goes, not reconstructed when the dispute arrives.
What a good update does
Eight disciplines, every month
An update that will later carry a delay analysis has to be honest the month it is issued. These are applied to every one.
Calculated, not typed in
Retained logic and no constraint on completion. The network computes the forecast; nobody types a date into it.
The Employer's obligations in the logic
Access, approvals and payments are modelled as activities with logic, so the critical path shows what actually drives completion.
Out-of-sequence work reported
Progress that ran out of sequence is reported in the narrative — not hidden by rewriting the logic or switching to progress override.
The right critical path
Longest Path rather than total float where seasonal calendars make float misleading, with near-critical paths reviewed every month.
Contingency in plain sight
A time-risk allowance declared as its own activity before completion, instead of being buried in padded durations.
Durations from evidence
Rain calendars from 30-year climate normals and station records; production rates from earlier projects, measured in track metres rather than route kilometres.
The claimed date, while an EOT is pending
Until the extension is decided, float is reported against the completion date claimed as well as the contractual one — so the update neither hides the delay nor concedes the claim.
Checked before it leaves
Every reschedule is checked by an independent forward and backward pass, and the critical and near-critical reports are verified against the P6 file.
The update narrative
The narrative explains the calculation
The P6 file says what the network computed; the narrative says why. It is what the Engineer reads first and what a tribunal reads years later, so it follows the same structure every month.
A programme records how the Works will be done. It is not a promise to meet a date the facts no longer support.
- 01Executive summary
- 02The critical path, and how it was identified
- 03Near-critical paths
- 04Float against the contractual and the claimed completion dates
- 05Scheduling basis — data date, calendars, constraints, settings
- 06Events affecting progress, and their causes
- 07Forecast, and its movement since the last update
- 08Mitigation and recovery measures
- 09Previous submissions and the Engineer's comments
- 10Reservation of rights
From the files
Programmes built, updated and rebuilt
Railways for the most part, with a power plant and a dam. Anonymised, with rounded figures.
Four years of updates on one railway
~7,000 activities
Monthly updates · 20+ revisions
From the revised baseline to more than twenty revisions of a P6 network of about 7,000 activities and 12,000 links on an electrified railway, now in close-out. The Employer's outstanding obligations — payments, access, approvals — sit in the logic as activities, so the longest path shows what actually drives completion. When updates were returned for not showing the contractual date, the narrative held its ground.
Programming around a financing hold
~10,000 activities
Progress update · large network
An update of a network of about 10,000 activities and 24,000 links for an electrified railway section, after a long hold pending project financing. Site handover is modelled as two milestones — handed over, then verified for entry — and financial close as a gate on procurement and remobilisation, so every Employer-side dependency is visible in the logic. A declared contingency before take-over replaced hidden padding.
Weather and output from evidence
Resource-loaded update · what-if runs
On a resource-loaded railway programme, the rain-season calendars come from 30-year climate normals and decades of daily station records, and the trackworks durations from production rates achieved on earlier projects, measured in track metres. What-if runs — crews, lags, staged deliveries, gang limits — show which levers actually move the date, and which do not.
A power plant, a year unstatused
30 MW
Monthly P6 updates · independent engagement
Monthly Primavera P6 updates for an engine power plant on an island, taken over when the programme had not been statused for a year. The first cycle rebuilt a year of actual progress from the contractor's records, removed the imposed finish date so the network could show its true critical path, and replaced spreadsheet “logic” with real relationships. Each update closes with critical and near-critical reports checked line by line against the file.
A linear railway programme
~430 km
Time-distance planning · four years
Four years as senior planner on a railway of about 430 km, keeping a resource-loaded programme of about 7,300 activities through successive forecast revisions. A time-distance plan co-ordinated the earthworks, track, signalling and electrification fronts along the line, with mass-haul and quantity-release curves feeding the monthly forecast.
Progress measured in money
Progress measurement · for the Engineer
For the supervising engineer on a roller-compacted-concrete dam: a progress-measurement system built on the contractor's P6 programme, each activity weighted from the bill of quantities so that planned and earned progress reconcile to the contract value. The review that came with it caught production work typed as level-of-effort — which can never drive a schedule — and a missing foundation-acceptance milestone.
Examples are anonymised and figures are rounded. Client, project, contract and correspondence details are withheld for confidentiality.
Reviewing a programme
Before the Engineer does — or for the Engineer
A review before submission costs less than a rejected programme after it. The same checks serve an Engineer or Employer reviewing a contractor's programme. Each finding comes with the fix and the clause it answers to. Recent reviews have turned up:
- Seven-day, no-holiday calendars on half the activities
- Long lags standing in for work nobody wanted to plan
- Production work typed as level-of-effort, so it can never be critical
- Open ends and hard constraints that leave float meaning nothing
- No stored baseline to measure variance against
- Commissioning windows too short for the systems they have to test
- A completion date that contradicts the contractor's own extension-of-time programme
Illustrated notes
Where programmes meet claims
Questions people ask
Programmes and updates
Does the Engineer approve the programme under FIDIC?
Not under the 1999 forms. The Engineer has 21 days to give notice that the programme does not comply with the Contract; otherwise the Contractor proceeds in accordance with it. The 2017 forms add a formal Review: if the Engineer gives no Notice within 21 days of receiving the initial programme, a Notice of No-objection is treated as given.
How often should the programme be updated?
FIDIC requires a revised programme whenever the current one is inconsistent with actual progress or with the Contractor's obligations. The SCL Protocol recommends updating at intervals of no more than a month, and most Employer's Requirements tie the update to the monthly progress report.
What completion date should an update show while an extension of time is pending?
The date the network calculates, with no constraint forcing it. Report float against the contractual date and against the completion date claimed, so the update neither hides the delay nor concedes the claim.
What should an update narrative contain?
Enough for the reader to follow the calculation: the critical and near-critical paths and how they were identified, float against the relevant dates, the scheduling basis (data date, calendars, constraints), the events that affected progress and their causes, the forecast and its movement since the last update, and the mitigation in hand.
Programme or schedule — is there a difference?
No. FIDIC and British usage say programme; US-trained teams and many Gulf projects say schedule. Either way, what matters is the native file (P6 XER), not the PDF.
A programme under review, or an update to defend?
Send the native file and the Engineer's comments. You will hear what a reviewer — or the other side's planner — will find first.
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