GRACE · Planning Studio 2 · Sequence, Schedule & the S-Curve

Step 1

Scope boundary

What is in this phase, and what is not?

Step 2

WBS

What are the pieces?

Step 3

Role assignment

What kind of person does each piece?

Step 4

Labor budget

What does the plan cost, and what margin survives?

Step 5

Schedule

When does each piece happen?

Step 6

Labor demand

Which named people, in which weeks?

Step 7

EV Plan and S-curve

How does the fee get earned?

Step 5 · Sequence and schedule

When does each piece happen?

A schedule is built in four passes, in order, and they are named so you can say them out loud: Plant, Protect, Pull, Post.

Plant · Place the major milestones

The submission date is contractual: Jan 15 (Week 13), and it is already locked for you.

Step

Step 5, Plant · Place the major milestones

Purpose

Mark the dates that cannot move. Every other pass in Step 5 works backward from these fixed points.

Where it fits

Plant is the first of four passes in Step 5. Protect, Pull, and Post all follow it, in order.

What it generates

Placed milestone weeks on the schedule grid.

The widget

A week grid. The submission date is already locked at Week 13. Click a week cell to place each of the two remaining milestones.

What to do

Click the week cell for the 50% progress set milestone — what your consultants coordinate against.
Click the week cell for the reconciled estimate milestone — what lets the Owner say yes.
Click Lock the milestones → Protect: reserve the QAQC weeks once every milestone is placed.

Protect · Back up one week for the QAQC period

Step

Step 5, Protect · Back up one week for the QAQC period

Purpose

Reserve the week before each milestone as closed to production work, so quality checks happen before a deadline instead of losing to it.

Where it fits

Protect is the second pass of Step 5, right after Plant.

What it generates

QAQC weeks reserved and closed to production work.

The widget

A single button. One click reserves the week before each milestone for you — there is nothing to place by hand.

What to do

Click Lock the QAQC weeks → Pull: work the network backward.
Review the reserved weeks and flags the Studio shows you.

Pull · Work the network backward from the milestones

Your WBS holds 14 work packages, 13 of which get sequenced here. The 14th, 3.1 Planning & Control, runs level of effort across the whole phase and the Studio spreads it for you automatically.

Step

Step 5, Pull · Work the network backward from the milestones

Purpose

Sequence the 13 scheduled work packages by asking, of each one: what must exist before this can begin?

Where it fits

Pull is the third pass of Step 5, right after Protect.

What it generates

A logical network of tasks and handoffs, checked against your prerequisite logic and your milestones.

The widget

A week grid. Click a week in a row to set that package's start; the bar draws at its planned duration. A Pull-plan it for me button offers the Studio's own sequencing, but it stays disabled until you place at least one package yourself.

What to do

Click a week in each package's row to set its start week.
Read the flags list. Fix any package the checker flags as broken.
Once you have placed at least one package, click Pull-plan it for me to compare your sequence to the Studio's.
Click Lock the network → Post: sort it into the Gantt once every package is placed and the network holds.

start week planned work QAQC period milestone week level of effort (auto)

Lock unlocks when every package is placed and the network holds.

Post · The Gantt: your network, sorted into a schedule

Step

Step 5, Post · The Gantt: your network, sorted into a schedule

Purpose

See your network sorted into the schedule you would post and publish to consultants.

Where it fits

Post is the fourth and final pass of Step 5. Locking it opens Step 7's first pass, the Earned Value Plan.

What it generates

A Gantt chart, sorted first-to-start at the top and last-to-finish at the bottom, built from the same data as the Pull pass.

The widget

A read-only Gantt view. If you go back and adjust the network in the Pull pass, the Gantt re-sorts itself.

What to do

Review the Gantt chart.
Click Lock the schedule → Step 7: draw the Earned Value Plan to close Step 5 and open Step 7.

Challenge · Why plan in reverse instead of forward?

Forward planning tells you when things could happen. Backward planning exposes when things must happen, including the latest date the first decision has to land. Pull the network back from the milestone and slack appears where it actually exists rather than where optimism placed it.

Step 7, first pass · Draw the Earned Value Plan

How does the fee get earned?

WBS × budget × schedule = how the fee gets earned. Now the three artifacts merge.

Step

Step 7, first pass · Draw the Earned Value Plan

Purpose

Merge the WBS, the budget, and the schedule into one artifact: how much of the $280,000 fee is earned, week by week. Each deliverable carries a share of the fee, weighted by where the effort actually sits, and the Studio spreads that fee across the weeks your schedule says the work happens.

Where it fits

This is the first half of Step 7. Step 6, right below, reads the weekly shape of the fee this step produces. Step 7's second pass, the S-curve, comes after Step 6.

What it generates

A weighted fee table (weights must total 100%, since every dollar of fee lives somewhere in the WBS) and a planned-value-by-week bar chart.

The widget

A table of fee weights by deliverable, and a bar chart that updates as you change the weights. Amber bars fall in QAQC weeks, where the effort is review rather than production.

What to do

Enter a fee weight for each deliverable in the table.
Check that the weights total 100%.
Read the bar chart below the table. Confirm the shape matches where you expect the effort to fall.
Continue into Step 6 below. There is no separate lock button here — Step 6's Lock the labor demand button locks these weights too.

Where this data comes from

This data is pulled forward from the Project Budget and the Work Breakdown Structure. Those two data sources combine with the schedule to build a financial picture for the project. This step demonstrates how much of the fee is allocated to each of the major work packages.

Planned value per week, $000s. Amber bars fall in QAQC periods, where the effort is review rather than production.

Restores the default fee weights.

Step 6, mid-Step 7 · Hard resource the plan

Which named people, in which weeks?

Step 6 sits inside Step 7 here, because the tool needs the weekly shape of the fee before it can name the people.

Step

Step 6, mid-Step 7 · Hard resource the plan

Purpose

Check whether the plan is physically staffable: which named people, in which weeks, at what load. Soft resourcing in Part A asked what kind of person does each piece. A budget that balances is not yet a plan a team can run.

Where it fits

Step 6 reads the fee weights from Step 7's first pass and turns them into a labor demand table. Locking Step 6 also locks Step 7's first pass and opens Step 7's second pass, the S-curve.

What it generates

A labor demand table with week/role cells highlighted whenever they exceed 40 hours, more than one full-time person in that role that week. Your own written fix, and, once unlocked, the Studio's redistribution.

The widget

A read-only labor demand table, a text box for your fix, and a Redistribute labor and maintain performance button that stays disabled until you write your own fix first. Six of the eight seats already carry a name; two do not.

What to do

Read the labor demand table. Find every highlighted cell (over 40 hours in a week).
In the text box, write one line describing your own fix: which weeks you would take hours out of, and which role you would move them to.
Click Redistribute labor and maintain performance to see the Studio's own fix and compare it to yours.
Click Lock the labor demand → Step 7, second pass: draw the S-curve once the flags clear. This also locks Step 7's fee weights.

Steps 5 and 6 work together

Steps 5 and 6 are iterative. Adjusting the schedule in Step 5 changes the labor demand you see in Step 6, and fixing a labor demand problem in Step 6 may mean going back to adjust the schedule in Step 5. Go back and forth between them until the plan is both logically sequenced and physically staffable.

The EV Plan implies a staffing plan: each role’s budgeted hours, distributed the way the planned value lands.

Name your own fix first. Which weeks would you take hours out of, and which role would you move them to? Write it in one line. The Studio will not offer its fix until you have named yours.

Challenge · Why weight fee by deliverable instead of just spreading $280k evenly across 13 weeks?

A flat line says every week is worth the same. Week 3 of floor-plan development and the week the package sits in QC review carry very different effort. Earned value only works if planned value follows the work. Even spreading is how projects report "on track" for ten weeks and then report the overrun in week eleven.

Step 7, second pass · Draw the S-curve

Thirteen weeks, one line, no surprises

Step

Step 7, second pass · Draw the S-curve

Purpose

Turn the Earned Value Plan into the single line you manage the phase to: cumulative planned value against the $280,000 fee. Ahead of the line with costs in check, your margin is safe. Below it, you know the week the drift started rather than only the week the phase ends.

Where it fits

This is the second half, and the last step, of Step 7. It closes the seven-step chain that started with the scope boundary in Step 1.

What it generates

An S-curve chart with milestone diamonds and QAQC hatching, and, once complete, a "Five artifacts, one story" summary of everything you built across both Planning Studios.

The widget

A read-only chart. Nothing to click or enter, only to read.

What to do

Read the S-curve. This is the line you will plot fee earned against at every reporting period.
Review the "Five artifacts, one story" summary below the chart.
Optional: work through the transfer test — explain the whole chain (work, hours, weeks, planned value, the line) to another PM in ten minutes, on a whiteboard, using a real project.

Oakhaven DD S-Curve. Cumulative planned value ($000s) across the phase. Hatched bands are QAQC periods, and diamonds are your milestones.

✓

System of Record

This is what your plan looks like in BST

The Studio taught the logic, and BST is where the plan lives. Once your plan is in the system, every timesheet posts against it and every invoice draws from it.

Step

System of Record · This is what your plan looks like in BST

Purpose

See your committed plan exactly as it would read once it is built in Grace's real project system, BST.

Where it fits

This is the last section of Planning Studio 2, after the seven-step chain is complete. It connects what the Studio taught to the tool you use on real projects.

What it generates

Nothing new — a read-only view of your own committed WBS, budget, schedule, and Earned Value Plan, simulated as BST screens.

The widget

Simulated, read-only BST screens.

What to do

Review each simulated screen.
Compare it to your own committed numbers from Steps 1 through 7.

Screens simulated for training, a Grace Design Studios PM Excellence Academy exemplar. Values shown are your committed plan.