Project Scheduler

Reports to: Operations Management Team

Job Location:

Toronto, with periodic travel throughout the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Southern Ontario

Job Purpose:

Provide scheduling oversight and support across multiple construction projects, using Microsoft Project to develop, maintain, and analyze schedules with preconstruction, project management, superintendents and subcontractors. Apply scheduling best practices to monitor progress, assess risks and communicate the effects of changes on project timelines and costs so project teams can make informed delivery decisions.

Support preconstruction and project teams in coordinating sequencing, resources and milestones across concurrent projects. Lead scheduling discussions, develop contingency plans and integrate VDC/BIM technologies into construction planning and delivery.

Major Responsibilities:

1. Coordinate scheduling across multiple projects with project teams: monitor milestones, identify competing resource demands and communicate schedule risks and priorities. Provide oversight and support to keep concurrent project schedules coordinated.
2. Develop baseline schedules with preconstruction team, project management, superintendents and subcontractors. Integrate trade sequencing, design deliverables, procurement, construction, commissioning and closeout activities and align key milestones with contract requirements and project delivery commitments.
3. Validate schedule updates with project teams, superintendents and subcontractors using site observations and supporting progress records. Check actual start and finish dates, remaining durations and reported progress and resolve discrepancies before issuing updated schedules.
4. Use scheduling best practices and software to implement, maintain and analyze project schedules, including activity coding, resource and cost loading, sequencing and critical path analysis.
5. Work with superintendents and subcontractors to develop and review look-ahead schedules linked to the master schedule. Identify constraints involving design information, approvals, procurement, access and resources; coordinate their resolution and assess the effect of short-term changes on project milestones.
6. Manage project controls for risk assessment and compliance with scheduling best practices and standards. Recommend or implement process improvements and provide project teams with detailed schedule-change risk and impact assessments using those controls.
7. Maintain schedule version control and analyze each revision’s effects on project cost and timelines.
8. Ensure project changes and delay events are identified, documented, analyzed and incorporated into the schedule in a timely manner. Coordinate findings with project management for mitigation planning, change management and the preparation or evaluation of requests for time extensions and communicate their effects on project timelines and costs.
9. Develop fragnets to model changes, design revisions, procurement impacts, unforeseen conditions and other delay events. Perform time-impact analyses in the schedule update current when the event occurred to assess effects on critical and near-critical paths, float and contractual milestones, documenting assumptions, logic and supporting records.
10. Maintain a delay-event register linking each event to affected activities, notices, fragnet status, mitigation and supporting records. Distinguish schedule effects from contractual responsibility; project management retains responsibility for notices, entitlement and commercial decisions.
11. Lead project scheduling meetings with appropriate project management representation. Facilitate discussion of complex scheduling issues and recommend cost-effective, efficient solutions. Prepare and distribute detailed weekly, monthly and quarterly reports that explain baseline variances, milestone forecasts, critical and near-critical activities, available float, key risks and recommended corrective actions.
12. Support project budget forecasting by analyzing the cost implications of schedule changes, resource requirements and sequencing. Coordinate with project teams to reconcile schedule assumptions with cost forecasts and recommend mitigation measures; project budget approval and ownership remain with project management.
13. Track all baselines and use complex what-if scenarios to develop contingency plans for potential schedule changes.
14. Provide scheduling expertise for the preparation, evaluation and defence of schedule-related claims and time-extension requests, including as-planned versus as-built, windows and concurrency analysis. Develop recovery, resequencing and acceleration scenarios, with associated schedule risks and cost implications.
15. Perform periodic schedule-quality reviews to identify open ends, inappropriate constraints, invalid logic, excessive or negative float and other conditions that compromise the critical path or forecast completion date.
16. Prepare a narrative for each formal schedule update covering progress, logic changes, critical paths, variances, delay events, risks and required decisions. Maintain contemporaneous schedule records and preserve original and approved baselines; review baselines for authorization and traceability.
17. Establish subcontractor scheduling requirements and review their schedules, updates and recovery plans for logic, durations and consistency with the master schedule, escalating material deficiencies to project management.
18. Develop corporate scheduling standards, templates and review checklists, coach project teams on schedule development, progress measurement, look-ahead planning and delay documentation.
19. Prepare proposal schedules for the pre-construction and business development teams using scheduling best practices. Identify key milestones, sequencing assumptions, procurement requirements, and schedule risks, support the transition of successful pursuits into execution schedules through construction, commissioning and closeout.
20. Produce complex schedule models for project planning. Ensure scheduling systems meet project needs and integrate VDC/BIM technologies into construction planning and scheduling practices.

Minimum Education & Certifications Required:

Bachelor’s degree or diploma in Architecture, Engineering, Construction Management, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of technical training and relevant professional experience.

Experience & Skills Required:

• Minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in construction scheduling and project controls, including experience supporting multiple concurrent projects and analyzing project delays.
• Ability to coordinate scheduling oversight and support across multiple concurrent projects, supported by strong critical thinking and oral and written communication skills. Knowledge of construction methods, field operations and logical work sequencing, with the ability to interpret construction drawings, specifications and contract documents and communicate schedule implications to project stakeholders.
• Proficiency in the following scheduling and project controls activities:

Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Project, including calendars, custom fields, activity coding, baseline management, resource and cost loading, critical path analysis, fragnet development and time-impact analysis. Ability to prepare progress reports, analyze risks and delays and perform what-if modeling.

Demonstrated experience preparing or evaluating schedule-impact analyses, including fragnets, time-impact analyses, as-planned versus as-built comparisons and recovery schedules.

• Familiarity with virtual design and construction (VDC) and building information modeling (BIM) technologies for construction planning, experience with Primavera P6 or 4D scheduling, or Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP) or PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP) certification would be considered assets but are not required.