Practical project management lessons from environmental, demolition, remediation, and industrial work. For project engineers, developing PMs, and field professionals. Delivered every Friday.
Friday Field Notes #18: Labor Hours Need Context
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Good morning team, This week’s topic: labor hours. 1. From the Field Knowing that a project used 500 labor hours does not tell you much by itself. You need to know what those hours accomplished. That is where labor tracking becomes more useful. If 500 hours produced 1,000 units one week and the same 500 hours produced 650 the next, something changed. The reason could be completely legitimate, but the project team should understand it. I’ve found that labor discussions become much more useful when hours are connected to the work performed instead of reviewed only as a cost total. 2. Leadership Perspective Good leaders ask questions before drawing conclusions from a number. Productivity data should start a conversation about what happened, not end one. 3. Field Observation Labor overruns can develop quietly because crews are usually still working and the project still looks productive. Everyone is busy, equipment is moving, and work is getting completed. The issue becomes clearer when labor hours are compared against quantities. Being busy and being productive are not always the same thing, and project controls should help the team understand the difference. 4. Spreadsheet Tip This week’s formula: labor hours per unit. If Cell B2 contains total labor hours and Cell C2 contains completed quantity: =B2/C2 If the crew used 400 labor hours to complete 200 units, the result is 2 labor hours per unit. To compare actual performance with the estimated labor hours per unit stored in Cell D2: =(B2/C2)/D2 Format the result as a percentage. Anything above 100% indicates the work is using more labor hours per unit than the estimate assumed. 5. Question for the Week What does your project’s labor data tell you when you compare the hours worked against the quantity actually completed? Have a great weekend, Dan |
Friday Field Notes
Practical project management lessons from environmental, demolition, remediation, and industrial work. For project engineers, developing PMs, and field professionals. Delivered every Friday.
Good morning team, This week’s topic: small tools and consumables. 1. From the Field Nobody calls an emergency meeting because the project bought another box of cutting wheels. Small purchases rarely look concerning one at a time. Over several months, though, the job may go through far more blades, filters, hoses, batteries, PPE, and other consumables than the estimate allowed. Some small tools will also disappear into gang boxes, service trucks, and whatever mysterious place tape measures go...
Good morning team, This week’s topic: equipment cost exposure. 1. From the Field Equipment costs don’t wait for someone to notice them. A rented excavator can be fueled, inspected, parked in exactly the right spot, and accomplish absolutely nothing while the rental clock keeps running. Sometimes the delay can’t be avoided. An approval may still be pending, the work area might not be ready, or the sequence may have changed. The trouble starts when “we’ll probably need it later” becomes the...
Good morning team, This week’s topic: production rates. 1. From the Field Production gives the project team an early way to compare what was expected against what is actually happening. If the estimate assumed twenty truckloads per day and the project is consistently completing twelve, that difference deserves attention even before the cost report shows a problem. The same applies to demolition quantities, excavation, waste loading, concrete removal, equipment production, or almost any...