A structured series built for engineers who want to understand project controls the way it actually works on site. Theory first, then the tools — because a tool you can drive but not reason about is worth nothing on a site.
The logic. Why projects succeed — and why they fail.
A complete 27-week curriculum on how project controls actually works on site — from why projects fail, through the critical path, earned value and forecasting, to forensic analysis and the people who have to act on your numbers. This is the foundation everything else stands on, and it stays free.
Built on the PMI Practice Standard for Scheduling and 8+ years on nuclear, mining, port, and high-rise projects.
The money. Where the numbers come from — and how companies go broke while profitable.
Track 1 taught you to read a project. This one teaches you to read its money. Where a unit rate actually comes from, why the BoQ and the schedule never quite line up, how physical percent is really measured — and the half nobody teaches a planner: cash. A contractor doesn't fail because of a bad CPI. It fails because it ran out of money while turning a profit.
Track 1 ends with two things that need correcting. In Schedule Week 18 we said actual cost was simple — just ask accounts. It isn't, and one day that costs somebody a great deal of money. And Schedule Week 20 forecast the overrun by dividing a million dollars by the cost efficiency — right method, wrong number, because that million is a selling price with overhead, profit and reserve inside it. Track 2 opens by going back for the first, and takes the second apart in Weeks 5 and 6.
Estimating, budgeting, measurement and cash flow — built on AACE's cost engineering framework and the way contractors actually run their books on site.
The future. What has not happened yet — and who pays for it when it does.
Track 1 taught you to read a project's time. Track 2 taught you to read its money. Both of them measure something that has already happened. This one is about the only part of project controls that moves before the number does: where the risks on a job actually come from, what a probability is worth when somebody just felt it, how much confidence you are really buying with a contingency — and the question nobody in a PMI textbook asks, which is whose money pays when the risk arrives.
Cost & Cash Week 5 showed you a risk register with five lines on it. It sized the contingency at $47,553 and admitted, in one sentence, that the odds of that money being enough were 49.5% — a coin flip. Nobody ever asked where those five lines came from. Track 3 opens there, and comes back to that number in Risk Week 12.
Identification, analysis and ownership — built on the PMI risk standards, the quantitative methods behind them, and the FIDIC conditions that decide who actually carries a risk on site.
The machinery. Whether the money is still yours by the time you ask for it.
Track 3 ended holding a priced risk and a clause number, and one uncomfortable sentence: an entitlement is not the same thing as an entitlement you can still use. This track is the machinery in between — notices and the periods that kill them, the records that make a right provable rather than arguable, instructions, variations, payment, and what changes when the contract is cost-plus or target cost instead of lump sum. Being right is not the job. Staying entitled is.
Risk Week 15 found five of your thirteen risks had a contractual mechanism behind them. It put clause numbers against each one, then noted that a clause is only worth the notice you served under it. The rock is worth $48,450 against a net margin of $48,163 — Track 4 opens on the letter nobody wrote, in Contract Week 1.
Notices, records and entitlement — built on the FIDIC 2017 conditions and the contract administration that decides whether a right survives contact with a programme.
The number. What the right you kept is actually worth.
Track 4 ended holding a preserved right, a programme that can be re-run, and the question it deliberately never answered: how much? This track is the answer — forensic delay methods and why two competent analysts reach different numbers, float and concurrency, disruption and the measured mile, and the quantum that turns an entitlement into an invoice. The method you can use is decided by the records you kept, not by the one you prefer.
The rock is worth $48,450 and the net margin on the job is $48,163. Four tracks have circled that pair without closing it — Risk Week 5 priced the rock, Contract Week 13 asked whether the contract even calls it a variation. Track 5 opens with the notice served on time, and the argument moved to what it is worth.
Forensic delay analysis, disruption and quantum — the methods that turn a preserved entitlement into a number, and the reasons two analysts using two accepted methods disagree.
Tracks 1–5 teach the methods. Reporting follows every number back to the person who produces it and forward to the person who acts on it. Interfaces shows how all of it changes shape under more than one contract. The Life of a Project shows the order the work actually arrives in, what feeds what, and which record is born where. Each one needs the other two.
Everything that arrives, everything you issue, and what to do when two of them disagree.
Five tracks taught what to do with a number once you have it. None of them said where it came from, who owns it, when it closes, or who reads it afterwards. This track follows every input project controls consumes back to the department that produces it, then follows every document you issue forward to the person who is supposed to act on it. It teaches no new technique. It is the trade around them.
Every week ends the same way. What arrives — from whom, in what unit, on which day. What you issue. Who uses it. And the records born there. Learn the trade and you learn the paperwork with it, in the order it actually reaches your desk.
Fifteen weeks on what each department feeds you and in what unit, then eleven on what you issue back — daily to executive, dashboards, KPIs, registers, and the report nobody acts on.
Where the work and the numbers change hands.
Six tracks taught one job: a single contract, a single chain of command, a single team on a single site. Every technique in all of them quietly assumes that shape. This track is what happens when it stops holding — when the scope sits with somebody else, when the critical path runs through a purchase order, when the work nobody planned appears where two programmes meet, and when the number has more than one owner.
The handoff was printed five tracks ago. Claims Week 28 closed by naming four things this track answers. It opens by naming the assumption every track before it was built on, and then takes it apart one contract at a time.
Delivery models and who holds the scope, EPCM authority without privity, joint ventures, the critical path through an order, the work between two programmes, and the number with two owners.
From the investment decision to the handover certificate — and what project controls does at every step.
Everything above answers how. This answers when, why and with whom. It follows one EPC job in the order it actually arrives — the decision made before you were hired, the tender you inherit, the kick-off, the baseline nobody has time for, the six weeks that run the site, the month the curve stops behaving, the punch list, and the archive you hand to whoever starts on Monday. It teaches no new technique. It shows where the ones you have get used, and hands the method back to the track that owns it every time.
Records born here. Every week ends the same way — naming the documents that come into existence at that stage, from the clarification log at tender to the lessons learned register at closeout. Learn the job and you learn the paperwork with it, in the order it appears rather than as a list.
Nine phases from the investment decision to closeout, plus a two-week capstone. The integration layer: the order, the handovers, and the records.
The tools. Take these in any order, whenever you need them.
These aren't a track — they're a shelf. The learning path above teaches you what to think; this is where you learn to build it. Nothing here is a prerequisite for anything else, so start with whatever your Monday morning demands.
Strategy before software. The fundamentals stay free, and they come first — a tool you can drive but not reason about is worth nothing on a site. Once the logic is yours, these are the tools that put it to work.
Where everything begins. On day one, it's all Excel — BOQ, material lists, progress, manpower, equipment, daily and concrete reports, the procurement log. Master this before anything else.
Now we turn data into a plan. With scope, WBS, and activities in hand, this is where the schedule is truly built — the engine every report and forecast runs on.
The plan exists, progress is coming in, and management wants a report. This is where data becomes a decision — live dashboards that show exactly where the project stands.
Stop chasing people for numbers. Build the form the foreman fills on his phone at the pour, and the flow that files it, checks it, and tells you when it's late — without you opening anything.
Where your cost data actually lives. Commitments, invoices and accruals sit in SAP, Oracle, IFS or Dynamics — and until your schedule can talk to them, earned value is a spreadsheet exercise.
Last — because AI does nothing on its own. It becomes powerful only once you know Excel, Primavera, Power BI, and Power Apps. Then it accelerates everything.