Quote:
Originally Posted by James Shields
I get sick of complaints about inflated project schedules when a project completes ahead of schedule. Every project needs a contingency period in case anything unpredictable happens, such as unearthing the grave of a 1916 general under O'Connell St. I suspect there was a "everything goes smoothly" plan, that reopened start of July, a "slight problems but nothing too serious" plan that runs to end of August, and a "dire straits" plan that ran to end of August. It makes sense to pick the middle plan for your published closure dates, and have (most) people happy when you finish early. If you publish the most optimistic timetable, then any slight problems and people are upset by the delay on top of the original disruption. If you have to run into the dire straits plan, hopefully you have enough evidence to back up your "we couldn't have predicted that" story.
Basically, it would be irresponsible not to allow some reasonable contingency in the project schedule.
James
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Completely agree with this.
The lesson from Harcourt St has been learnt - works over-ran significantly there due to the plans of the utility layout bearing no resemblance to reality.
Far better to build in extra time lest anything similar happens again.