By Chris Grosvenor, Director at XER Schedule Toolkit
In today’s high-stakes project environment, the construction or programme schedule isn’t just an administrative requirement – it’s the backbone of project control, stakeholder communication, and ultimately, successful delivery. Yet many organisations still treat scheduling as a tick-box exercise, issuing static PDF printouts or emailing raw XER files and hoping everyone stays aligned.
Chris Grosvenor’s new white paper, The Critical Path: Why Effective Schedule Management and Data Sharing Matter, makes the case that it’s time to move beyond this outdated approach. Drawing on contractual requirements, best-practice standards and the latest project-control tools, it shows how to turn the schedule into a living, breathing “single source of truth” that drives project performance.
The paper explains why creating an early, credible baseline programme is both a contractual obligation and the cornerstone of time management. Without an agreed baseline, projects are essentially flying blind – delays accumulate, disputes multiply, and it becomes harder to manage change fairly. Grosvenor highlights how frameworks like BS 202001 and guidance from APM reinforce the importance of setting a clear, agreed roadmap at the outset, with realistic durations, sound logic and a transparent audit trail of updates.
A baseline alone isn’t enough. Regular, disciplined updates transform the schedule from a static plan into a proactive management tool. Grosvenor shows how frequent progress reporting gives early warning of issues, allows fair and factual assessment of delay claims, and can provide tailored “views” for different stakeholders – from executives who want a milestone dashboard to site managers who need two-week lookaheads – all drawn from the same dataset.
Perhaps the most eye-opening section is the discussion of traditional schedule sharing. Massive PDF exports are unreadable and instantly out of date; raw XER files can leak confidential data and “pollute” other databases. Both approaches splinter the “single source of truth” that projects desperately need.
The white paper introduces modern tools like XER Schedule Toolkit that let teams securely share the live schedule in a controlled, interactive way. Stakeholders can see the latest approved plan, filter for what matters to them, and even view schedule quality checks – all without compromising the integrity of the master file. In Grosvenor’s view, this is not extra bureaucracy but an enabler of best practice: a way to meet contract obligations, follow industry standards and make informed decisions faster.
Why You Should Read It
If you’re a project manager, planner, commercial director or client representative who’s ever been frustrated by duelling schedules, outdated PDFs or misaligned expectations, this paper will be useful for you. It lays out, clearly and practically, how to treat scheduling as seriously as cost or scope management – and how the right processes and tools can give your project a competitive edge.
Download The Critical Path: Why Effective Schedule Management and Data Sharing Matter to see how your organisation can move from scheduling as a formality to scheduling as a strategic asset by entering your details below:
