Schedule Management Planning for success

It is my experience that most of us in the Plant Turnaround and Maintenance business fail to utilize tools including a Schedule Management Plan. Understanding that I may not be in my current position for long; I decided to create a Schedule Management Plan for the somewhat complicated Joint Venture Turnaround Project that is now in the final stage of execution. The intent is to create a document that will act as a road map for the current and future Turnarounds...which in this case occur every six years.
Most organizations forgo this exercise and proceed directly from planning to the schedule. This is a logical relationship, however developing a clearly defined Schedule Management Plan will pay almost immediate as well as long lasting benefits. Essentially main purpose is to create a standardized approach to scheduling practices and requirements. This is accomplished by identifying the software and version as well as rules regarding processing, formatting, modifications, reporting and Scheduler responsibilities. The plan also includes descriptions of Gantt Charts, Work Breakdown Structure, Milestone Charts as well as some insight of schedule development logic. This is especially important when major contractors are required to provide a schedule that is to be merged into a master. When using Primavera it is important to understand the logic of relationships, activity types (LOE, WBS Summary or Task Dependant), layouts (plf. files) to ensure the migration is as seamless as possible.
The schedule process includes information on when the schedule should be baselined as well as updating frequency. Where as formatting establishes understanding of the WBS structure, relationship, duration and percent complete types to provide clean outputs.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is organizations who understand and ultilize tools such as this truely understand the value of not recreating the scheduling wheel. By providing a proven, consistent methodology for schedule management the organization will enable confidence in the tools that help develop our landscape.