PlannerTuts Decipher The Disaster 12 Primavera p6 Analysis Tactics
PlannerTuts Decipher The Disaster 12 Primavera p6 Analysis Tactics
PlannerTuts Decipher The Disaster 12 Primavera p6 Analysis Tactics
The
Disaster
12 Tactics to Analyze
A Primavera P6
Schedule Youve
Just Inherited
Table of Contents
Is this Guide right for me?
A Cruel Inheritance
The Plan
Preparation
10
11
12
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19
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Next Steps
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Beginner
Beginners are new to using Primavera P6 and are still learning the basics.
They may have completed some formal Primavera P6 training but have limited
experience using the tool to plan and manage real world projects.
Intermediate
This ebook!
Intermediate users have been using Primavera P6 for some time and may have
completed a classroom course or formal training. They have experience
planning and updating projects in Primavera P6 and are comfortable with some
advanced features as well.
Advanced
Advanced users are competent and experienced with most aspects of
Primavera P6. They have likely completed some formal training on Primavera
P6 and have much experience using the tool on real-world projects. They are
also familiar with many advanced features of Primavera P6.
This Guide is appropriate for the following project management roles:
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A Cruel Inheritance
It happens. You become the new owner of a project schedule that is monstrous, complex and
undecipherable. WHO put it together and WHAT were they thinking?
Activities: 8,200 by last count .and growing
WBS: 10 levels deep
Resources: no naming convention to speak of
Costs: $Millions$ on the Cost Curve
Relationships: serious gaps
and we havent even looked at any dates yet.
The boss wants to discuss key milestones with you this afternoon! Go!
This situation happens every day in our project-driven economy. Planners come and go for
many reasons and what is left behind is the fruit of their labours a schedule. Whether that
schedule is good or bad is up to its new owner (YOU) to decide.
In some situations, you may be able to discuss the schedule with whoever developed it. Then
hopefully youll have a proper transition and get up to speed fast with their help. In other
situations, the person who created the schedule is gone and not coming back.
This guide is for the situation where there is no project plan handoff.
Truly understanding someone elses work and rationale for planning and developing it a certain
way is a big task. There is no silver bullet solution to this inheritance dilemma. But there are
some proven Tactics you can use. Read on.
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Today:
There are no limits on data. A 5,000-line project schedule has become the norm. Schedules
are required to accommodate large scope, hundreds of resources, multiple estimates, store
key scenarios and schedule work packages by 15-minute intervals. Today, projects often track
to numerous baselines and get updates coming from a dozen contractors. Clients require that
every detail is estimated, documented, reviewed, approved, updated, tracked and
statused.weekly.
Planners and Schedulers need to know their project schedules intimately. A planner must
master all of that data. Their teams rely on them to set the pace and track performance,
forecast problems, highlight risks and manage the mountain of project data.
We all know.
if you dont have a handle on your schedule, youre in trouble.
In the popular book and movie The DaVinci Code, Robert Langdon is faced
with solving a murder in the Louvre. The victim is found in the Grand Gallery,
naked and posed like DaVinci famous drawing, the Vitruvian Man, with a
cryptic message written beside his body and a pentacle drawn on his chest in
his own blood.
When asked by an official why the body was laid out so cryptically, Langdon
replies
Captain Fache, obviously I cant tell you why.
When we open up a project we havent ever set our eyes on and try to grasp the meaning
behind the data, it can feel like were trying to crack DaVincis code.
The Plan
If youve recently inherited or become the owner of an Oracle Primavera P6 schedule that
need deciphering, then this guide is for you.
Primavera P6 is a great tool for building complex project schedules. Its also a great tool for
analyzing complex project schedules. Many features in Primavera can be used to help
decipher your project schedule. Then you can determine if your schedule is a disaster or not.
This guide will walk you through a process to help you reveal how your plan was built. During
this process well also answer the key question:
$$
Resources
Don't be afraid to
give up the good to
go for the great.
John D. Rockefeller
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Preparation
Create a Working Copy of Your Schedule
Before you begin deciphering your schedule, youll want to preserve the original in case you
ever have to go back.
10
11
Do you get everything you need? Ask for ALL supporting documentation before you try to
unravel this schedule. Heres a checklist:
Request the Project Charter
Ask for the approved Work Estimate
Ask for any Scoping docs
Ask for any relevant Drawings
Request all Specification documents
Get and read any relevant Contractual documents
Is there a Document Repository on a file share somewhere these and other
documents might be located? Find out and start getting up to speed.
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4 Key Dates
To begin, there are 4 key project dates you should be
concerned with:
Data Date
Find them and jot them down on a piece of paper. Now go through the following analysis of
these dates.
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What was working well with the previous scheduler? What was not working well?
What reporting or statusing processes should you know about? Other processes?
Were sure you will come up with more questions, but those listed above should give you some
ideas to be prepared for a Walkthrough of your new schedule.
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Understanding how big a project plan is can be helpful in understanding a projects scope and
structure. Primavera has some built-in fields to show you exactly how many activities are in
your project plan.
Well focus on 2 components relating to the size of a project:
1) What is the overall duration of the project?
2) How many activities make up the schedule?
In Primavera
1. Open the Project Sizing
Layout.
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In Primavera
1. Open the WBS Summarized Layout.
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WBS Levels
Common Structure: Many WBSs follow a structure that incrementally elaborate a project.
The idea is to organize the work in a meaningful and incremental fashion. A common structure
is shown here:
Level 0: Project Summary
Level 1: Phase / System
Level 2: Sub-System or Discipline
Level 3: Work Package
0 Aircraft
System
1 Air Vehicle
1.1.1
Airframe
Integration
1.1 Airframe
1.2
Propulsion
1.1.2
Fuselage
1.1.3 Wing
2 System
Engineering
1.3 Vehicle
Subsystems
3 Program
Management
1.4 Avionics
Depth: We want to include enough depth in the WBS to capture all our project activities at a
manageable level. However, going too deep will create a system thats hard to follow.
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18
Three(3) to six(6) levels of depth is usually sufficient. Ten(10) levels is too deep.
Completeness
The WBS should capture 100% of the projects scope at every level. In decomposing the work
from one level to the next, the sum of the work at the child level must equal 100% of the work
represented by the parent. Essentially, this really means :
a) Do not add extra work that is NOT in-scope at any level
b) Do not leave out any work that IS in-scope at any level
Check your projects WBS for the items above.
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Checking to see what Activity Types are used on your project is another check to ensure good
scheduling practices were implemented. Depending on the size and type of your project,
expect Start and Finish Milestones and mostly Task Dependent activities. A few WBS
Summary activities are ok, as well as Level of Effort activities. Resource Dependent activities
tend to be rarely used unless there is a specific or particular circumstance.
In Primavera
1) Open the Activity Types layout
2) Analyze your activities.
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The Activity Calendars your project uses will affect how activities are scheduled and what
dates work will land on (or not land on). Youll want to make sure that each activity has been
assigned an appropriate Calendar, and that each Calendar is configured properly.
In Primavera
1) Open the Project Calendars layout.
2) Note what Calendars your project is using.
3) Open each Calendar to ensure each is setup properly
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According to PMIs Practice Standard for Scheduling, a milestone will represent the start or
completion of a portion or deliverable of the project and may also be associated with external
constraints, such as the delivery of specific required permissions or equipment. Each project
should have a start milestone and a finish milestone.
Heres how to check your projects milestones.
In Primavera
1) Open the Project Milestones layout.
2) From the Activities screen, goto View -> Filters
3) Place a checkbox next to the Milestone filter, ensuring no other filters are checked on.
4) Analyze the projects milestones and dates.
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In Primavera
1) Open the Open Ends layout
The Open Ends layout filters out any WBS Summary activities and keeps only
activities that have no Successors or Predecessors (or both) listed.
2) Examine the list of Open-ended Activities in your project
Henry Kissinger
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10
In keeping with Tactic 8s theme of good relationship and network logic, you need to
understand if your project plan has any Relationship Leads or Lags. Relationship Lag or Lead
delays should be minimized or not used at all. Lag or Lead delays have poor visibility on
project schedules, are hard to find and hard to document. Its highly recommended to remove
any lag or lead delays in your schedule. Lags can easily be replaced with an activity
describing and documenting the delay, offering good visibility.
Helpful Resources
1) Read our tutorial on building a P6 report to find lead or lag delays in your Primavera
schedule. Build a quick reusable report in P6 to ferret out lag or lead entries.
In Primavera
1) Build the lag report as outlined in the tutorial above.
2) Open your project and run the report.
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11
Activity Constraints can get you into a lot of hot water! How? Well, essentially Constraints
override network logic and delay activities to start or finish on a user-specified date. Granted,
sometimes using a Start on or After constraint to delay an activity is necessary. But many
inexperienced schedulers use Constraints much too often or sometimes instead of using
Relationshipsand without adding any documentation to the Activity. This becomes a major
mess for someone like you who has to figure out why an Activitys dates were changed with a
Constraint.
Thus, youll need to check your projects constraints and decipher them quick!
In Primavera
1) Open the Activity Constraints layout
2) Examine the list of Activities that have constraints in your project.
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12
This situation
arises when activities are progressed, but not in the order that
they were planned. For example, work begins on an activity
prior to the completion of its predecessor activities. Although it
may be legitimate to execute activities out of order (as
determined by workers in the field), doing so can cause
problems in your schedule, affect the critical path and
downstream activities. A scheduler will need to be aware of when activities are executed out
of sequence and should adjust their schedule accordingly.
In Primavera
1) Schedule your project (unless you have already done so). Open the schedule log.
2) Check the Errors & Warnings listing for Out-of-Sequence Activities.
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Next Steps
Project planning and scheduling is like painting a picture. I believe its truly 80% science and
20% art. The tactics in this guide will help you with the science part. But its up to you to fill in
the gaps and use your design expertise to create (or re-create) a highly-organized and intuitive
project schedule.
Since the focus of this guide was schedule mechanics, you may also need to dig into the
following aspects of your schedule (if appropriate).
Critical Path and Total Float
Resource assignments
Find Resource over-allocations
Cost loading
Earned Value Management
If you havent done so, ensure you download the Activity Layouts that accompany this guide,
as outlined on page 10.
Helpful Tutorials
Use A Level Of Effort To Add Work Stoppage Info To A Project and Still Track To Your
Primavera Baseline
Use Reflections in Primavera P6 to merge scenarios back into your project
[Video] Building a Stacked Histogram in Primavera P6
Quick Tip: Zoom! P6 Activities to Excel in 8 clicks!
Schedule % Complete in Oracle Primavera The Missing Guide (Part 1)
Units Percent Complete in Primavera P6 the Missing Guide
Using Primaveras .Xer File Parser Import WBS From Excel Without The SDK
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