5.5 Cost/Resource Management, Schedule Change, and Feedback
Key Takeaways
Schedule maintenance updates actual cost/resource use, remaining needs, and current availability without confusing expenditure with physical progress.
Change control distinguishes status, forecast revision, proposed change, approved change, and baseline revision.
Feedback from field, design, procurement, owner, vendors, and commissioning must be validated and dispositioned in the current model.
An audit trail should preserve what changed, why, who approved it, and how dates, cost, resources, and risk were affected.
5.5 Cost/Resource Management, Schedule Change, and Feedback
Schedule maintenance is more than entering actual dates. The team must reassess remaining resources, cost, logic, risk, and stakeholder information while preserving the distinction between current forecast and approved baseline.
Cost and resource status
At each data date, collect:
- actual labor-hours, equipment use, quantities, and cost;
- physical accomplishment and acceptance;
- remaining quantities, production rates, crew plans, and duration;
- resource availability and conflicts;
- commitments, deliveries, and expected cost; and
- time-dependent indirect-cost exposure.
Actual cost does not equal earned progress. A large material payment may occur before installation, while installed work may be earned before every invoice posts. Use the project’s earning rules and reconcile timing differences.
Forecast remaining resources
Remaining duration should reflect remaining scope and expected production, not a formula that merely subtracts elapsed time. If production has changed, document whether the forecast assumes the trend continues, a learning improvement, or a funded recovery action.
Update resource histograms and shared-equipment plans. A date forecast that assumes six crews while the resource plan supplies three is not internally consistent.
Types of schedule change
| Change type | Example | Baseline effect |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Actual start occurred | None by itself |
| Forecast revision | Remaining duration increases | Preserve variance |
| Execution change | Preferential sequence revised | Document in current schedule |
| Proposed scope change | Owner considers added system | Model separately under policy |
| Approved change | Executed change modifies scope/time | Incorporate through authorization |
| Baseline revision | Approved reference is formally changed | Preserve prior baseline and approval |
Do not rebaseline merely because performance is late. Also do not leave an approved scope change outside the current model after authorization.
Feedback loop
Useful feedback comes from:
- field supervisors on means, methods, and productivity;
- designers on release and review dates;
- procurement on vendor progress and logistics;
- owners on decisions and access;
- safety and quality teams on hold points;
- commissioning on turnover and testing; and
- cost control on commitments, actuals, and forecasts.
Validate feedback against records and responsible owners. A verbal statement that work is “almost done” is not a reliable remaining-duration estimate.
Change log and audit trail
For material revisions record:
- change identifier and description;
- source and date;
- affected scope and activities;
- logic, duration, calendar, cost, and resource effect;
- forecast milestone effect;
- approval status and authority; and
- file/version incorporated.
Schedule narratives should distinguish progress-driven date changes from non-progress revisions. This lets a reviewer understand why the critical path moved.
Example
A contractor starts cable pulling before a room-turnover predecessor finishes. Field feedback shows the crew used partial access. The scheduler validates the actual start, investigates the remaining access restriction, and revises logic to represent the real sequence if authorized. Simply selecting Progress Override would calculate a date but would not repair the model or document the execution change.
Monthly integration review
Reconcile scope, schedule, cost, resources, risk, and change before publishing. Check that the current forecast reflects approved changes, pending changes are labeled consistently, resource demand is feasible, and baseline variance remains visible.
The maintained schedule should be the best current model of remaining work and an auditable history of how that model evolved.
Applied review: maintain one controlled story
Status cost and resources with evidence appropriate to the measure. Labor hours expended do not necessarily equal physical progress, and invoices paid do not necessarily equal value earned. Record actual quantities, hours, costs, and completion evidence separately where the control system requires them, then revise remaining quantities, production rates, crews, and forecasts from current conditions. Preserve the distinction between historical actuals and estimates to complete.
Change control should label the state of every revision. A potential change may be logged and modeled for evaluation without becoming authorized scope. An approved change may alter budget, milestones, logic, resources, or the baseline under the governing procedure. Current forecast movement caused by performance is not automatically a baseline change. Keep a change register and a schedule narrative that explain what changed, why, when, under whose authority, and with what time and cost effect.
Field, design, procurement, vendor, owner, and commissioning feedback should enter through a repeatable cutoff and validation process. Resolve conflicts against objective records and responsible-party confirmation. Late information may require a forecast revision even when responsibility remains disputed. In an exam scenario, the best control response usually updates the current model truthfully, protects the approved baseline history, and routes entitlement or approval questions through the appropriate governance path.
A late activity’s remaining duration increases because productivity is poor. What should happen to the baseline?
Preserve the baseline and show the forecast variance unless an authorized change justifies formal revision.
Move the baseline finish to the new forecast automatically.
Delete the actual progress.
Convert the activity to a milestone.
Why is actual cost not a substitute for physical progress?
Payments and expenditures can occur at different times from physical accomplishment and acceptance.
Actual cost is never recorded.
Physical progress is always equal to duration percent.
The WBS prohibits cost loading.
Sections you finish are checked off in the contents.