Getting Your Site Schedule Sorted

A schedule that lives in your head is a wish. A schedule that trades can read, and that updates when reality moves, is the difference between a build that finishes near its date and one that drifts a month at a time.

Start from the stages, not the tasks

A typical Australian residential build breaks into stages that everyone already understands: site preparation, slab, frame, lock-up, fixing, and practical completion. Sequence the stages first, then hang trades off them. It keeps the program readable and it matches how progress claims are structured anyway.

Use real lead times, not optimistic ones

• Ask each trade for their current notice period, not last year's
• Add inspection and certification time as its own item, not as slack
• Treat long-lead items — windows, trusses, cabinetry — as fixed dates to build around
• Write the weather assumption down instead of pretending there is none

Put buffer where the risk is

Spreading a few spare days evenly across a program hides them. Put the buffer immediately after the items that historically slip on your jobs — usually inspections, wet-weather-sensitive work, and anything waiting on a client decision.

Make client decisions dated tasks

Selections are on the critical path whether or not you show them. Give each one a date, tell the client the date, and state what happens if it passes: the standard item goes in, and changing it later becomes a variation.

Publish it where trades already look

A program only helps if the person swinging the hammer can see it. Whatever you use, the test is simple: can a trade check next week's start date without ringing you? If not, you own every scheduling question personally.

Update it weekly, without exception

1. Mark what actually finished this week.
2. Push what slipped, and see what it pushed with it.
3. Confirm next week's trades against the new dates.
4. Tell the client if the completion date moved.

An out-of-date program is worse than none — people stop trusting it, then stop reading it, then go back to ringing you.

A simple stage checklist to start from

• Site prep: permits issued, service locations confirmed, site established
• Slab: set-out, plumbing rough-in, reinforcement, inspection, pour
• Frame: delivery, erection, roof cover, frame inspection
• Lock-up: windows, external doors, cladding, roof complete
• Fixing: internal linings, cabinetry, fit-off trades in sequence
• Completion: clean, defect walk, certification, handover pack

Start there, adjust it to how you actually build, and keep the same skeleton across every job. Repetition is what makes a program quick to produce and quick to read.