Module 5 of 12 · Planning Studio · Part B

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

Part 1 set the boundary and the budget. Now the same plan becomes a schedule: milestones, protected QAQC periods, and a backward-built network. Then it becomes an Earned Value Plan with its labor demand, and finally the S-curve, the line you manage to.

Oakhaven Public Safety Campus  ·  GRC-26-0142  ·  Design Development  ·  Nov 8, 2026 to Feb 6, 2027  ·  Grace phase fee $280,000
Stage 1
WBS
What is the work?
Stage 2
Budget
What does it cost?
Stage 3
Schedule
When does it happen?
Stage 4
EV Plan
How is the fee earned?
Stage 5
S-Curve
The line you manage to
3

Project Schedule

Milestones first. Then protect them. Then pull the work backward.

A schedule is built in passes, in order. Segment 1: plant the major milestones. Segment 2: back up one week from each milestone and reserve it as the QAQC period, closed to production work. Segment 3a: working backward from each milestone, sequence the work packages by what must precede what, until you have a logical network of tasks and handoffs. Segment 3b: when you lock the schedule, the Studio re-sorts your network into the Gantt chart you would post on the wall.

Segment 1 · Plant the milestones

The submission date is contractual: Feb 6 (Week 13), and it is locked. Place the other two: click a week. The 50% progress set is what your consultants coordinate against, and the reconciled estimate is what lets the Owner say yes.

    Segment 2 · Back up one week: the QAQC period

    Nothing goes out the door without review, and review that is absent from the schedule loses to the deadline it was meant to protect. One click reserves the week before each milestone.

    Segment 3a · Pull the work backward from the milestones

    Click a week in a row to set that package’s start, and the bar draws at its planned duration. Ask of every package: what must exist before this can begin? The checker knows the prerequisite logic and your deadlines, and it will name where the network breaks.

    start week planned work QAQC period milestone week level of effort (auto)
      Lock unlocks when every package is placed and the network holds.
      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.
      4

      Earned Value Plan

      WBS × budget × schedule = how the fee gets earned

      Now the three artifacts merge. Each deliverable carries a share of the $280,000 fee, weighted by where the effort actually sits (your budget is the evidence). The Studio then spreads each deliverable’s fee across the weeks your schedule says the work happens. The result is planned value by week: the Earned Value Plan. Weights must total 100%, since every dollar of fee lives somewhere in the WBS.

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

        Restores the default fee weights.

        Labor demand · who the plan needs, week by week

        The EV Plan implies a staffing plan: each role’s budgeted hours, distributed the way the planned value lands. Highlighted cells exceed 40 hrs, meaning more than one full-time person in that role that week. Each one is a staffing decision to make before the week arrives.

          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.
          5

          Earned Value S-Curve

          Thirteen weeks, one line, no surprises

          The cumulative EV Plan against the $280,000 phase fee is your S-curve. This is the line you manage to: each reporting period, plot fee earned against it. 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.

          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. WBS 1.5.2.1, "Load fee & budget in BST", is a working step. Once your plan is in the system, every timesheet posts against it and every invoice draws from it. The margin gap then becomes visible the week it opens. Below is your plan, exactly as it reads once it is built in BST.

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