delay impact analysis utilising project reflections in p6

Delay Analysis TechniquesUtilising Project Reflections & Claim Digger

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DisclaimerInformation contained within this presentation is for education purposes only. How a programme or schedule is built, maintained and managed is the responsibility of the owning organisation. Focus Planning Ltd accepted no responsibility for changes made to programmes or schedules which are altered as a result of reading slides contained within this presentation. The configuration and settings of computer software are the responsibility of the license holders and Focus Planning Ltd accept no liability for the configuration used by the license holder.

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What is a Project Reflection?Oracle define a reflection as;

“A reflection is a copy of a project that has the following characteristics: • Has the same name as the original source project with reflection appended to it.• Internally, contains a link to the source project that allows the application to merge changes

to the reflection into the source project.• Has a what-if status.”

Essentially a reflection is a carbon copy of a project, but unlike just hitting Copy in P6; a reflection retains a logical link between the source project and the copy which allows any changes to the copy to be reflected against the source project to identify the impact of change.

This is particularly useful when calculating potential delays in a What-If scenario, especially as P6 will provide a summary of the changes for the user to communicate to the project stakeholders. In order to allow for a clear change control and reporting process when calculating delays with reflections we will include a baseline integration later in the slides which supports transparent identification of change.


Process Summary

Over the next few slides we will go through the below high-level process in order to identify and report back on a delay to a project..


Original Project BaselineBest practice dictates to take a new baseline of any project to which you will be making changes. This is no different for using Reflections.

Before taking the reflection, take a new baseline for the project. The new baseline doesn't need assigning at the is point, it just needs creating.

To create a new baseline in P6;1. Open the project to which the assessment is to be made2. Select PROJECT > MAINTAIN BASELINES3. Click ADD and then SAVE A COPY OF THE CURRENT PROJECT AS A NEW BASELINE4. Click OK5. Select the new baseline and enter a new baseline name if desired.6. Click CLOSE

For the Baseline Name, it is best practice to include the following elements;•Project Name•Data Date•Last Modified Date•Change Description (i.e. “Prior to Delay Modifications”)


Create ReflectionTo create a new Reflection, complete the following steps;1. Go to the PROJECTS WINDOW2. Find the project you just created a baseline for and right click it3. Select CREATE REFLECTION...4. Tick COPY next to any baselines you also wish to reflect, select the newly created baseline5. Click OK6. The projects window will refresh and the reflection will appear as “*PROJECT_NAME*

REFLECTION”


What if Scenarios & Edit Reflection

Now the reflection has been created it is ready to start entering changes. First open the reflection from the PROJECTS window. Once open it can be treated like an ordinary project so the user can make changes to activity durations, add constraints, update % complete and so on.

There are various methods to which a user can update a schedule to highlight a delay. We will look at two of these below;

1. Enter the Delay as a new activity

This method involves creating a new activity or activities to identify the delay, and logically linking these to existing activities in order to move the schedule activities in line with the delay. Whilst this method makes the delay activity clear when looking at the programme, it can communicate the wrong message to others looking at the programme who may only look at the delay activity on its own, rather than looking at the impact of the delay on all activities.

2. Amend existing activities to include the delay

This method involves locating existing activities that will have an increased duration due to the delay. For example, a delay of bad weather may mean that concrete curing takes an extra 3 days, so this method would involve taking the remaining duration and increasing it by 3 days. The benefit to this method is the clear variance to the last updates baseline, the main negative being the delay is not highlighted in the programme unless the user adds a description to the activity, i.e. From “Cure Concrete” to “Cure Concrete – Incl Delay”.

For the purpose of these slides we will use the second method. The method used by the user is at their discretion.


Initial AssessmentNow the reflection has been changed its time to assess how it compares with the original schedule.

To do this go back to the PROJECTS window and right-click the Reflection, select Merge Reflection Into Source Project. The Preview Changes screen will open. This screen contains a few elements which we will go through now.

The Reflection Differences window highlights values which have been changed in the reflection, so as you can see above the Remaining Duration for the Concrete Cure activity has changed from 10 days to 13 days. Selecting the GROUP CHANGES BY options changes the layout of how differences are grouped. Activity lists changes by Activity, and Subject Area lists changes by change type, i.e. Duration Changed/Logic Changed/etc.


Initial AssessmentBelow the Reflection Differences window are the merging options. These should be ticked according to the requirements of the planner. The Prior To Merging options include two options, the first creates a copy of the source (original) project as a Baseline, if you decided not to take a baseline of the original project earlier you will want to tick this box in create one now, as it is a key element of how we assess delays. The second option is user preference, as best practice it is good process to create a backup.

The After Merging Options cover what to do with the reflection after merging has been completed. Again this is user preference, as best practice it is good process to keep the reflection for future reference – but this should be moved out of the working EPS once this exercise has been completed so as not to clutter it up.


P6 Output: Changes ReportOnce you have selected your preferences from the previous two slides, take a copy of the Reflection Changes window information. There is no direct printing option in this screen, so this can be achieved either by taking a screenshot, or by selecting the first change in the table, pressing Control-A (windows based machines) to copy the table, open Excel and paste the information. This information will be communicated with the updated programme as it highlights the changes the planner made to the programme to account for the delay.

Now you are ready to merge the reflection. To do this make sure your desired preferences are still selected and then press “Merge Changes”. P6 will return to the PROJECTS window and refresh the list of projects. The changes have now been applied to the source project.

New Baseline

The final action to complete is to take a new baseline on the source project, this will allow the P6 Claim Digger to assess variations to the overall schedule.

To do this follow the steps from the previous slide (No.5)


Claim DiggerNow we have a project which has been baselined to current progress prior to the delay, a reflection has been used to update the programme taking the delay in to account, a report has been taken highlighting the actions taken by the planner, and a new baseline has been taken to highlight the status of activities with the delay entered.

Now what we can do is take the before delay baseline and compare this with the after delay baseline to give us an impact assessment of the delay on the entire programme.

Primavera comes with a tool to help us with this, called “Claim Digger”. This tool has been specifically produced to compare multiple project versions and baselines.

To access claim digger select TOOLS then CLAIM DIGGER. The below window will open. It can take some time for the window to open, if it doesn’t open after one minute then minimize P6 as it sometimes open’s on the desktop .


Using Claim Digger

The Claim Digger dialog box contains the following options;

Select Revised Project: This is where you will select the revised project from the EPS, for this example select the updated projectSelect Original Project or Baselines: This is where you will select the pre-delay baseline was set earlier. Select the input box and tick BASELINES, then locate the pre-delay baseline and click OKSend Report To: This contains various options for what the format of report should be, for ease we will select HTMLOutput File: In this box select BROWSE and choose the location where you would like the report saved.View File When Done: Tick this box to have the report visible on screen once produced

Once you have chosen your preferences select COMPARE.

P6 will confirm the report has been produced and saved and shortly after a new Internet Explorer page will open containing the report.

The report produced contains information on all differences in the schedule before and after the delay. This will highlight to the project stakeholders which activities have changed as a result of the delay. For example a Project Completion Milestone may have a different Finish Date on the newly updated schedule – highlighting that the project duration has increased and the critical path has been impacted.


Communicating the PlanAs best practice the plan should now be communicated to the project stakeholders. A familiar layout to include in the issue is the Gantt Chart showing the pre-delay baseline against the current schedule. To do this open the project, select PROJECT then ASSIGN BASELINES, select the pre-delay schedule baseline and assign as the project baseline. Go to the Activities window and right click the Gantt Chart, select BARS and find the Project Baseline bar – make sure this is ticked as visible.

By following these slides the following information can now be issued to the project stakeholders;

Programme with Baseline

Variance

Report detailing

changes made by the planner

Claim Digger Report detailing changes to the

schedule

The following information is also retained for future reference;

Programme Baseline Pre-

Delay

Reflection with changes

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SummarySo to summarise there are various methods to ensure delays are analysed and recorded, but by using Reflections with Claim Digger, we are able to track every stage of the schedule update process to communicate with the project stakeholders.

This ensures the original schedule isn't over-written and lost as baselines can be restored as projects in their own right, and gives us the information needed to review the changes against the original schedule in a format that can be reviewed by non-planners and planners alike.

Other Delay review methods including Time Impact Analysis will be covered in future slides and a copy will be made available on the Focus Planning Ltd website at http://www.focus-planning.com or by contacting [email protected]

http://www.focus-planning.com/

delay impact analysis utilising project reflections in p6

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