How a programme survives Christmas

Only one on your job working Christmas Day? Your spreadsheet.

Worked Labour Day. Worked Boxing Day. Worked New Year's. Didn't even go to the bach. Handover's the fifteenth of January. She'll be right.

Here's how a programme survives Christmas. Same job, now in QSME.

QSME shuts the site from the twenty-third of December to the eleventh of January, by default. We switched it off, to match the spreadsheet. Same job, from the Townhouses programme. Public holidays are built in. Finishes Wednesday the twentieth of January. Mid-January. Lovely.

Now switch the shutdown back on. Only four of those days are public holidays. Your spreadsheet called the rest ordinary working days. Now there's jobs standing on days the site is shut, and nothing moves until you press the button. Move them off, and there's your real finish. Wednesday the third of February.

Congratulations. Your finish date just got later. It was always February. Nobody's painting on Christmas Day. Now the programme knows.

National holidays are built in, Labour Day included. Drop a job on Labour Day and it lands on the Tuesday. The pour is your call: works public holidays, for that job only. Regional ones aren't built in, so add Auckland Anniversary yourself. One more day off, and the finish moves a day.

Anyone booked on QSME is asked, not told. Nothing changes for them till they say yes. They get it on QSME, and by email. New dates, can you make them? Confirm. One yes, and that bar turns blue.

Tick what drives the finish date, and you get the purple chain. Slide a grey job: the finish doesn't budge. Slip a purple one a day: the finish moves a day. Undo. Want to finish sooner? Don't hurry the grey ones. Shorten a purple one.

Then print it. The chart and the task list, on your letterhead. Purple rings on paper too. Any one of them running late moves the whole finish. That's the date you give the buyer. On one page. A finish date you can still say out loud in January. Sign up at qsme.co.nz.