B.Arch CurriculumFree, forever
A tribute to Amogh N P
Project Management
A building does not get built by drawing it. Between the sanctioned design and the handed-over building lies a project — hundreds of interdependent activities that must be planned, scheduled and controlled against time, cost and quality. This course is the discipline of getting there: the bar chart and its limits, the network diagram, the Critical Path Method that tells you which activities cannot slip, PERT for when durations are uncertain, the time–cost trade-off when you must finish sooner, and resource levelling when crews and cranes are finite. Then the tools that run it — MS Project and BIM — and the whole arc from a feasibility study to testing and commissioning. The estimator's money and the lawyer's contract are companion courses; here the subject is TIME.
Course byAmogh N P· Architect & interior designer
The syllabus
5 units · 5 liveTranscribed from the official B.Arch syllabus. All 5 units are live as full interactive lessons, each with original diagrams, a self-assessment quiz and a studio task.
Unit 1 — Introduction to Project Management
LiveWhat a project and project management are; the objectives of PM and the time–cost–quality triangle; planning vs scheduling vs controlling and the role of decisions; the traditional approach; Gantt's bar chart, load chart and progress chart (merits and demerits); an introduction to CPM and PERT networks and where each fits; and the probability and statistics PERT rests on.
Unit 2 — Project Programming & the Critical Path Method
LiveThe network — activities, events, dummies and the rules of network logic; numbering events by Fulkerson's rule; AOA vs AON and the work breakdown structure; and CPM time analysis — the forward and backward pass (earliest/latest event and activity times), total, free and independent float, the critical activity and the critical path.
Unit 3 — Resource Planning — Cost & Resources
LiveThe cost model — direct, indirect and total project cost and the U-shaped total-cost curve; the cost slope and the optimum (least-cost) duration; crashing the network for cost optimisation and the steps in it; updating the schedule with actuals; and resource allocation, resource smoothing (within float) and resource levelling (to a resource limit).
Unit 4 — Computerised Project Management
LiveRunning a project in software — creating the project and its calendar, building tasks and dependencies, creating resources and assessing costs, refining and baselining, tracking actuals, reporting progress and analysing financial progress with Earned Value; an MS Project workflow; and an introduction to BIM as a process and its 4D/5D dimensions.
Unit 5 — Concept to Commissioning
LiveThe whole project life — the feasibility study (technical, financial, legal, market); real-estate and regulatory strategies (land, FSI, bye-laws, RERA, clearances); facility programming and planning; design management; the EPC / turnkey delivery model; and testing and commissioning through to handover.
Course outcomes
What you will be able to doExplain project-management concepts — planning, scheduling, controlling — and the bar chart, CPM and PERT.
Construct a network, number its events, and compute the critical path, activity times and floats.
Optimise time and cost by crashing the network, and allocate resources by smoothing and levelling.
Use computerised project management (MS Project) to plan, track and report — and explain BIM.
Trace a project from feasibility and regulatory strategy through design management, EPC, to commissioning.
Apply management techniques to balance quality, time and cost on a real construction project.
The author
Amogh N P
Architect, interior designer, and creative polymath. Studio Matrx began in his notebooks — his vision of design made honest, useful, and open to everyone. Its Academy is written and taught in his memory, and free, forever.
More about Amogh →From a sanctioned design to a finished building.
The bar chart, the network, the critical path, the time–cost trade-off and the tools that run them. Read the five units, study the diagrams, then test yourself.
The curriculum is free, forever