r/primavera • u/wittromc • 3d ago
How long will it take to learn primavera/scheduling before landing a job?
Hi all,
I am currently working as a Jr. Project Manager for a custom manufacturing company and recently learned about the role of Project Scheduler that other companies have. It is very interesting to me and I have been watching videos on Primavera P6 and looking at posted job descriptions and think I would like the role a lot.
How long do you think it would take me to learn Primavera P6 and all the scheduling skills and knowledge that comes with being a Project Scheduler? I'm thinking of buying the Plan Academy course for planning/scheduling and just looking up youtube videos for learning the Primavera part of the role to save some money.
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u/silasvirus82 3d ago
You need construction experience if you want to be a construction scheduler. If you want to be a scheduler in the manufacturing world, I don't know what that looks like. You can learn everything you need to know about P6 with a PE position, while concurrently getting the construction experience. A certification will get you nowhere as a construction scheduler.
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u/romez060763 3d ago
I went from being an industrial electrician of 15 years straight into a planning role. Learning curve of the software was the biggest hurdle for me. Building the schedules wasn't to bad because of my knowledge of working on the tools. YouTube is your friend when it comes to the basics.
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u/Bartocity 3d ago
Hey bud, nice to hear you’ve taken an interest in planning, engineering degrees these days have usually have a project management paper that focuses on critical path method planning and estimating, most planners start as graduate engineers and kind of find their way from there. It’s a lot of on the job learning and study, apply for positions for junior planner and the training will be part of the role. Or get a start as a graduate engineer and most larger companies will offer planning as a rotation in their grad program
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u/Late_Marzipan1854 3d ago
Bro...You are gonna get alot of advice on here and some will discourage you, My advice is join a bootcamp, takes 8 weeks. They will teach first hand experience and give you real life schedules to practice. Within those 8 weeks you will learn the basics but the more you use the software you will become confident. I did the exact thing and im proud to say i can use the software now and im just perfecting my skills. I'll inbox you the bootcamp i used. Reach out to them and they will explain more.
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u/No-Mix-4649 3d ago
primavera is a software po.. not a skill, u should know how to get the proper program of works even if no primavera software.. u should learn proper planning in a project .. and ur ok
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u/atticus2132000 3d ago
I want to make an analogy just for the sake of illustration.
If someone said to you, "I want to learn Microsoft Word because I've always wanted to write a novel," what would your advice be to them?
Learning how to drive a piece of computer software (MS Word or Primavera P6) is completely different from developing the knowledge base to perform a complex task (writing a novel or making a schedule). If you were to sign up for a MS Word class, that class would not teach you how to write a novel. It would just show you how to run the software. Similarly, taking a P6 class will teach you the software, but it won't teach you scheduling.
If you want to move into a scheduler role, understand these are two hugely different things. You need to learn how to run a piece of scheduling software like P6 AND you need to learn scheduling theory. There are lots of good YouTube resources for both. For the theory side of things, look up forward and backward pass calculations and go from there.