AWWA INF55793

Both owners and contractors generally acknowledge planning and scheduling the activities of a construction project as crucial to project success. Unfortunately, contractors often allow their attention to the project schedule to drift when distracted by resource and budget concerns. On difficult or complex projects, inattention to planning and scheduling only aggravates resource and budget problems. Owners often attempt to motivate contractors to develop realistic and useful schedule baselines and provide monthly updates by describing Critical Path Method (CPM) schedule requirements in the construction documents. These requirements sometimes lack consequences for non-compliance or have consequences so onerous as to be unrealistic and ineffective. The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) has developed and instituted an approach that balances the specified schedule requirements with reasonable monetary incentives for compliance with those requirements. This paper explains the details of how SNWA applied this approach in both the construction documents and the construction management activities.