Building and Controlling Project Schedules with Primavera P6 Training Course
1Summary
A schedule is only useful if it reflects reality. Plenty of project teams build a detailed plan in week one and then watch it drift away from what is actually happening on site or in development — until nobody trusts it anymore. The Building and Controlling Project Schedules with Primavera P6 Training Course by Arab British Fellowship Training Academy focuses on keeping schedules alive: building them properly in Primavera P6, then updating, defending, and reporting on them as the project actually unfolds.
Participants work through Project Management with Primavera P6 from project structuring and activity logic through critical path analysis, resource planning, cost loading, baselines, and progress updates. The course connects scheduling with project controls so that schedule data becomes a decision-making tool rather than a document nobody opens after kickoff. It is part of Project Management Courses Training Courses under the Management category.
2Objectives and target group
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Explain why schedules lose credibility and how disciplined use of Primavera P6 prevents it.
- Structure projects using the Enterprise Project Structure, OBS, and Work Breakdown Structure.
- Build activities, relationships, calendars, and milestones that reflect real project logic.
- Perform critical path analysis and identify the activities that actually drive completion.
- Apply resource planning and resource loading to labour, equipment, and material.
- Link cost information to the schedule and monitor planned versus actual cost.
- Establish and compare project baselines to track deviation early.
- Update progress accurately and forecast completion using data dates and remaining duration.
- Strengthen project controls through variance analysis and corrective action planning.
- Produce schedule reports, dashboards, and layouts that communicate clearly to stakeholders.
Target Audience
- Project Planners and Project Schedulers
- Project Managers and Planning Engineers
- Project Controls Professionals
- Construction Managers and Project Engineers
- Cost and Schedule Engineers
- Resource Planning Professionals
- Engineering and Infrastructure Professionals
- Professionals responsible for project planning, scheduling, monitoring, and control
3Course Content
Module 1: What Makes a Schedule Useful: Foundations of Planning with Primavera P6
- Why schedules lose credibility over time
- Primavera P6 interface, project environment and terminology
- Project planning and scheduling concepts
- Setting up project information
Module 2: Structuring the Project: EPS, OBS and WBS in Practice
- Enterprise Project Structure
- Organizational Breakdown Structure
- Work Breakdown Structure
- Project and activity codes; structuring for reporting
Module 3: Building Activities, Relationships and Logic
- Creating activities, types and durations
- Milestones, deliverables and activity calendars
- Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish relationships
- Leads, lags and schedule constraints
Module 4: Finding and Protecting the Critical Path
- Critical activities and total float
- Free float and schedule flexibility
- Identifying critical and near-critical paths
- Analysing schedule sensitivity and managing critical path risk
Module 5: Assigning and Managing Resources
- Creating and assigning labour, equipment and material resources
- Resource calendars and loading
- Resource availability and utilisation
- Identifying resource constraints
Module 6: Linking Cost to the Schedule
- Resource costs and expenses
- Cost loading and budget development
- Planned value and project cost information
- Monitoring planned versus actual cost
Module 7: Baselines: Setting the Reference Point for Progress
- Creating project baselines
- Baseline comparison
- Data date and progress measurement
- Remaining duration versus actual duration
Module 8: Updating Progress and Forecasting Completion
- Updating activities, resources and actual dates
- Progress calculations and remaining duration
- Forecasting project completion
- Variance analysis and corrective/recovery planning
Module 9: Turning Schedule Data into Reports Stakeholders Understand
- Schedule layouts and filters
- Project dashboards, activity and resource reports
- Critical path, progress and variance reports
- Communicating schedule information to stakeholders
Module 10: Advanced Techniques: Levelling, Recovery and What-if Scenarios
- Schedule optimisation and resource levelling
- Recovery schedules
- Scenario and what-if analysis
- Schedule quality review and integrating scheduling with project controls