but cannot discount the importance of schedule delay analysis and its findings – as that will show how strong is the claim and will tilt the balance during negotiations.

imposing a “must finish” may not be a good idea. check the links and see if the procurement activity is linked to corresponding construction/installation activity or not. if no such a logical link exists, create a link and record this schedule change with the reasons for introducing this.

then may be the ” procurement activity” will show it’s impact on the programme and hence a negative float.

i’ll advice you use soft constraints(on or before) on activity level. hard constraints(must finish by) in my case is mostly used on a project level.

just to add to your comments, i can’t over emphasize the importance of having schedule update requirement clause on contracts, spelling it out to let subs or vendors know they’re obliged to send progress updates weekly/bi weekly/ monthly

hi bilal,
i’m sorry – this is out of my area of expertise. i recommend you try asking on linkedin.

dear michael

i need some advice on below scenario
we have project having milestones
one of the milestone is installation works, we have an extension of time earlier due to employer delays.
currently that work supposed to be finish in june, 2017 however we unable to complete the works by the extended date of the milestone.
as of october, 17 – we are still working on milestone.
in august – employer gave us access to one of the sub milestone activities which supposed to be earlier as per approved baseline programme. and this work in progress parallel to our works which we supposed to finish but not completed.
shall the employer delay are concurrent delays in this above case. any case law reference document will be much appreciated.

thanks
bilal rafiq

you can also use a “finish on or before” constraint to generate negative float.

you will only see negative float if you have a “must finish by” date set on the project.

i’m having same scenario of our project my pm asked me to prepare claim for the delayed impact of procurement tendering package which client failed to approved po on time, now when i run my p6 schedule total float for procurement package is not giving negative float which is still 0 float however using bl1 variance project finish date i can proved that there is big delay. any idea advise if i can proceed with this scenario.

best regards,

edilberto oso

interesting read and very concise. you make a couple of interesting points that are all too common but bear repetition.
“…there were no schedule updates over the period of the delay.” when i hear this (and i hear it all too often) i wonder, “how can this happen?” doesn’t everyone do a regular update? but, of course, not everyone does and this is a symptom, in my view, of an organisation that fails to appreciate what programme management is about and the benefits that can derive from its proper use.
“the project team had changed over the life of the project and only one person had been present since the start.” not unusual and emphasises the need for regular and accurate record keeping (including programme updates, see above).
i was under pressure from the project manager to create a hypothetical baseline that did not correspond with the original baseline schedule.” this is an interesting one. i have been here before, too but have managed to resist the siren call. if you are going off-piste to such a degree you may make the pm feel a little better but the chance that you will produce anything valid in a commercial or contractual argument is very, very low. i note that you say this approach was abandoned and no-one should be surprised.
“the previous scheduler had updated the baseline schedule as the worked progressed and did not save regular baselines to create a project record.” oh dear, but see comments above.
“luckily, we had a baseline that was provided at the start of the project that i could recreate to compare the original baseline with the as-built schedule.” yup! been there too. almost the only option available to you.
” the lack of detail in between the project start of finish points was detrimental to the delay claim.” ain’t that the truth!

the last three quotes from your narrative illustrate and emphasise the issues perfectly.

it seems to me that you handled this pretty well with the information available to you and it also sounds like the outcome was probably fairly predictable too, once the basic data was available to management. it is sometimes frustrating when these things finally get decided at that level but it is infinitely preferable to going through a full, legal process after all relationships have broken down.

thanks for sharing.