AACE 29R-03

Rafael
No one said that you were incompetent, and your emotional excesses in your statements do not lend themselves to rational discussion.

I'm surprised that the statement about your lack of experience in this arena is upsetting to you.  In your earlier posts, in at least three occasions, you clearly stated that you have NO experience in the claims side of the business.  My point was valid; this is a distinct area requiring some knowledge that is not acquired by scheduling practice.

Here are YOUR statements, quoted directly from your posts:

"scheduling is my sideline" - well, scheduling is a full time occupation for most of us in the AACEi (there are some cost estimators there) and all of us in the PMI College of Scheduling.  I am not an engineer, and would not attempt to explain to you, from my position of no experience in structural engineering, how to do whatever engineering design that you do.  Similar issue.

"In the few occasions I use scheduling to prove some negotiated claim I usually use some form of TIA" - well, we use scheduling to prove, analyze, or defend claims all the time, and this reinforces what I recognized; most of what you do deal with is in the prospective TIA, during the project.  This is why you had so much problem with the TIA section of the RP, and why I pointed you to the RP that is relevant to what you do (although in your words, on few occasions), the TIA RP.  Those of us who developed the FSA RP have performed thousands of analyses negotiating, mediating, arbitrating, and litigating claims.  This is a big difference in trying to understand the RP.

"A couple of weeks ago a client came to me asking for some assistance for a court claim, something new to me" - This is very clear; you had never dealt with a court claim.  If this isn't lack of experience, what is?

Again, you should not be embarassed at the lack of experience in claims analysis; as I noted earlier, a planner/scheduler is in a much better and more powerful position to help the project by proactively analyzing change and negotiating time extensions.  When that fails, they wind up in the claims arena where the costs to resolve are five to ten times as much as during the project.  This is the right place to be, and the place where I prefer to operate.  However, I have worked hard to try to bring the light of day onto the analysis process, which includes working on the FSA RP.

And as an aside, you mentioned that you were upset that I would try make that statement without knowing anything about you (and as I explained above, I based my comment on your admitting little to no experience), but you have NO problem with impugning all the hundreds of analysts in AACE and contributors to the FSA RP, when you are not even an AACE member and know none of us.  That is considerably more aggregious than my taking you at your word and commenting on it.

At any rate, I do apologize for upsetting you so much.  We are both passionate about this business and that is a good thing.  I'd just like to see your passion better directed.  We absolutely do want legitimate constructive criticism about any RP; anyone can provide commentary to any RP that is under development and/or peer review.  You should try it, it's a lot of fun although a lot of work as well.

Rafael:

The concept of the Longest Path is a CPM concept and any reference in the FSA RP to LP is not related to Primavera and however that software calculates the LP, but only to the CPM concept.  If a schedule that has no constraints, no calendar changes, no relationships other than FS, no lags, and no hammocks falling into the middle of the critical path, then that schedule will have the Longest Path equal to the Critical Path with Total Float = 0.  So, in a well conceived network, there would be no reason to discuss the two concepts, we would be able to just discuss critical path.  But, many (I might even say most) schedules have so many components that cause LPs to start in the middle of the project and end before the completion, or float paths with holes in them, that it is necessary to evaluate both criteria when analyzing a claim.

But please recognize that when a schedule is resource leveled, that leveling breaches the sanctity of the CPM network and often causes the schedule to no longer be a CPM schedule.  That is likely the source of your concern about specific software not calculating LP when there is resource leveling.  This is a problem when manually calculating a resource leveled schedule; the network no longer functions as the plan and thus it is not a good CPM schedule.  Nothing wrong wtih resource leveling, just that it affects the network calculations, so I guess we all agree that software likely doesn't provide a good LP when there is resource leveling.  The FSA RP does not address resource leveled schedules, specifically and at least for the reason that you demonstrate. So, I'm certainly not arguing about the P6 or P7 or P8 or whatever Primavera/ Oracle has out that everyone is using and their longest path calculations; in your postulate, I would expect the LP not to work correctly.

The issue with experience in litigation, or dispute resolution, is that it requires a very technical evaluation of the schedules, but from a different perspective than project controls.  The validation of schedules for claims analysis is to determine whether they represent the intent of the project management team from the time of updates, whereas the validation of schedule for project controls is to determine if they model the means and methods of the project team (contractor generally).  This shift in validation among other things is not an easy change of perspective.  As a claims analyst, if the schedules represent the contractor's beliefs at the time of the update, no matter whether they contractor was right or wrong, or was following his original plan or not, the schedules are appropriate for analysis.  That is an important point becasuse we believe that the intentions and beliefs of the project management team responsible for execution are very important in analysis of what went wrong in a project.  I may not be explaining this very well, and there were dissenting experts that don't believe this.

You seem to think that the AACE CDR committee and volunteers that participated in the development of the FSA RP are walking in lockstep about the RP and don't want dissent or contrary opinions or even criticism; this is far from the truth. we had teams set up to draft the original sections, and those teams argued over the original drafts.  We held a full track of Town Hall meetings at every PMI College of Scheduling Annual Conference for seven years, where we raised the topics and vigorously debated them.  We contacted hundreds of claims consultants, outside of AACE, and requested review and comments.  We held special sessions at the AACE Annual Meetings to discuss criticism of the RP.  You would be surprised to see the amount of spirited debate about every little issue in the RP, and I personally took hundreds of specific comments, correlated them, evaluated them, and passed them along to Kenji and John to review, just as I reviewed their sections.

I doubt seriously that everyone is happy with all details of the RP; I am still not completely happy with the concurrency verbiage, and think we should have included a section on reviewing the contemporaneous understanding of the critical path (for situations when the updates do not validate) but the decision was made to develop a separate RP on bar chart analysis (because when the updates don't validate, I still believe that the project team relied on those early start sort updates to plan, which means that they relied on the bar charts, ignoring the defects in the networks).  Those bar charts generally make sense and appear to show resource (at least crew) flow, even when the network doesn't actually have the logic and if you sort by late dates, the plan falls apart, so the network doesn't support analysis.

You and I have discussed the RP for a week or so, but in AACE, we have been debating it for six or seven years with hundreds of professional claims analysts.  That doesn't mean that the debate is over, and it certainly doesn't mean that we intend to shut down debate, it just means that it is a much better thought out product than you are willing to credit.  I think you would have enjoyed being part of that discussion.

We are in early stages of writing Best Practices and Guidelines for Schedule Impact Analysis, our PMI College of Scheduling SEI version of the FSA RP, and we are correlating it to the RP.  If you are interested in participating in that effort, you will get another bite of the FSA apple because we will offer commentary on the RP in our product.  In the Planning Planet development of the Planners Users' Guide, we have a section on Forensic Schedule Analysis, and that section will also address similar topics.  So there is lots of rigorous debate going on all around that relates and will likely influence the next revision of the FSA RP.  Those are opportunities to have your say and discuss your opinions with others.

You've referenced exculpatory clauses in contracts a number of times.  In claims analysis, these disclaimer clauses generally refer to intentions to shift risk to the contractor, with examples such as No Damages for Delay, Pay When Paid, Limitation of Liability, and Indemnity Clauses.  I have never heard of ownership of float being called an exculpatory clause.  We do see, and support, language in contracts to assign some float to each party, generally a small portion designed to be used to absorb delays in review of submittals to the owner, and a larger amount to the contractor, designed to be an incentive period, with daily bonus amounts for meeting the completion without using up the incentive period.  So, if they finish two months early on a three month incentive period, they receive 60 days of the daily bonus amount.  I think that's a fair use of ownership of float.

By the way, Oracle made P3 available for no cost as a download on their website late last year.  I'm not sure if it still is there, but if you email me at my business email, I'll be glad to share that information with you and you can get a copy.  I think there are restrictions on the use related to production work, but if you are trying to open schedules in P3 for analysis, I'm sure that is ok.  Here's my email:  chris.carson@alphacorporation.com

Chris,

That I do not have the court experience does not make me unable to understand the RP as you have said, it just says I am not experienced and these are two very different things, your comment about my technical capacity to understand it is still unfunded.

Perhaps an AACE International certification in your state have some value but here it is worth nothing, is not needed for you to present a delay claim in court, because it has no legal standing here a PE would be considered of higher standing. If your RP is so cumbersome that it requires a PHD of experience to be understanded then our Judges will not be able to understand it, making it more of a nausance than something of practical use. If the average General Contractor cannot understand it then it is enough reason to reject it as a contract condition and leave the options opened.

But you are one of the few who can fully understand the RP therefore you should be able to tell me which American software implement out-of-the-box Longest Path calculation that is always correct under true resource leveling, please enlighten us.  I only know of Primavera P6, although some well known writers of CPM Books have questioned the computations by P6.

From the following link at least tell me 20 out of over 70 that implement Longest Path Calculation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_project_management_software

Because of the above and many other reasons, at home most of us have ruled out P6, therefore we need to know the practical alternatives the AACE International considered when issued an RP that requires Longest Path computations.

That I am emotional that I accept, is triggered by prior experiences with abusive State and Federal Government that frequently brand name specify the CPM software you are to use, that inundate their contracts with exculpatory clauses, and now I perceive some agencies might be adopting by reference the AACE International RP even when the practice says it shall not be used as a contract document, perhaps it shall state the document is to be considered invalid as a contract document even if by reference, that the AACE International does not allows the use of the document in such way.

I have been banned by the GSA of quoting my clients for CPM services on Federal Jobs because I do not use P6, a software I do not like and do not use, in this economy much damage have been done to my income with this practice. I don't have the resources to issue a claim in court against the GSA and the only remedy I had was with another agency that ruled me a party without interest as I was not a direct bidder but a subcontractor.

Now a client is issuing a court claim for a Govrnement job that specified the use of P3, a software he never used and could not get a licence of it. The Contractor had no other option than to hire an external scheduler that had an old version of P3 but now he is representing the Government in other cases. Now we have a bunch of P3 files we cannot read with the original software and we have no experience with P6, a different software that yields different results and that we do not like.

Here contractors feel our institutions are failing us.

Best regards,

Rafael

Hi Chris

I would like to be part of the review team if a hairy Brit is acceptable in a USA forum.

Best regards

Mike T.

Hi Chris

You wrote:

"If a schedule that has no constraints, no calendar changes, no relationships other than FS, no lags, and no hammocks falling into the middle of the critical path, then that schedule will have the Longest Path equal to the Critical Path with Total Float = 0." 

I have never yet seen a contractor's programme that meets this standard - therefore they are unfit for delay analysis purposes and have to be redrawn retrospectively. The analyst who dares to do this is immediately challenged that he has rigged it to suit the case.

The only way around this is to redraw the programme BEFORE having any detailed knowledge of the causal events and on occasions I have had to swear an affidavit to that effect.

Best regards

Mike T.

Hi Rafael

I am no great fan of P6 either but it is the only software in use in India and often specified in the contracts.

I have convinced my company to buy some Asta licences for day to day work and to use the XER conversion to take it into P6 format for the client use.

Early days but it is some progress.

Best regards

Mike T.

Mike,

One of the issues we have with any Primavera products is their inability to model true shift work. We usually do not use shift work in the type of projects we do but in this particular job after all delays we had to in many short duration activities. We also schedule some participants of our crews to work on different activities on the same day and partial assignment functionality by any Primavera product is poor and far from transparent. If we use P3 or P6 we would be in a difficult situation to model our needs. We are considering presenting the court that Primavera products are incapable to model our needs and that we had no other option to use P3 because it was required by the specs on a government contract where we had no negotiating power, is take it or leave it.

Even if we decide for P3 as we consider P6 to be a BUG we will need al least two legal copies of it. The very first report generated by P3 is the schedule report, a report needed to disclose out-of-sequence activities that must be resolved each time they happen, as P3 cannot filter for out-of-sequence we have no alternate report for this purpose, the report spells out licensing information, of course if we find the other side using pirated software we will call it out to the attention of the court.

I have no doubt Asta is superior to Primavera for our needs and agree with you and Paul Harris, is a good choice but we want to go with our own superior choice, Spider Project. There are many other superior choices out there and some government contractors would like to invest on integrating their job costing with their scheduling but here every agency has their own choice, different to our best fit so it makes no sense to waste money on something you will be prevented from using. One of the contractors uses Timberline Accounting and Job Costing, they would like to use Sage Project Management module that integrates with their accounting and time cards but for the stated reasons it is out, duplication of effort using multiple software to do the same is also out.

I have no doubt that schedulers in your company, after breaking the natural reaction against change, will love Asta.

Best regards,

Rafael

Mike,

Are you really asking to belong to the AACE International when this Organization is biased in favor of the American Jurisprudence? Are you willing to sell the English soul, experience and jurisprudence?

Only case law in the states matter, it is quite clear who has the last word, accept it, we make the rules.

It is not only the British Jurisprudence it might also be the Australian soul, experience and jurisprudence, judging from the following article some Australians do not share the views of the AACE International.

http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/PDF_Papers/P043_Float%20-%20Is%20it%20Real.pdf

Float is free, who cares about managing float, you only got to manage zero float! Filter for zero float and forget about everithing else.

 I want it all, it is mine.

You will be consumed on a 'first in, best dressed' basis. 

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike:

Everyone is welcome to participate.  If you could email me at chris.carson@alphacorporation.com , I will make sure you are on the list to peer review.  Thanks for volunteering, the more participation we have, the stronger the product.  And you will bring perspectives that we don't have which is very useful.

And, with regard to your comment about the quality of contractors' schedules, that is true.  But it is also why there are different methodologies to analyze delay, with each methodology requiring a certain set of documents in order to provide a reasonable analysis.  Redrawing the programme is certainly a possibility, and there are times when the analyst has no choice as I see it.  But there are also analysts who believe that they should not touch the schedule since it was used at the time of the project.  We see that in the States and in Dubai or other places, and it becomes part of the discussion.

Often the programme is poorly done enough that we can't actually determine the Contractor's plan for construction and that case might force us to look at an as-built analysis of some type.  This is part of the reason why the FSA RP developed, and part of the reason why we are working on the BP&G for SIA.  I have run up against a number of what I call "one-trick ponies", that is analysts who only have one methodology, ignoring what documentation is needed to use that methodology.

It's a great discussion and one that must happen in order to improve the quality of analysis.  What I like most about my Brit friends is that when I do something right, instead of it being "good", it's generally "brilliant".  How do you beat that?

Thanks (or maybe cheers),

Chris

Rafael:

Interestingly enough, that Mosiac paper does capture the philosophy in the States of proactively trying to manage the schedule.  One of the points that Pat makes could sound like he is advocating waiting until the end of the project to see what happened and then resolve delays, but I know that is not his position.

In litigation in the States, clearly there is a reliance on CPM methodology to assess delay, but it is not very difficult to make a case for the accuracy of the schedule failing to rise to the level where all the analyst needs to look at is the single critical path, whether it's longest path or zero total float critical path (or most negative float).  That might lead the analysis to considering near critical path work which can easily move the discussion to a broader view than single critical path.

So, the parts of the SCL Protocol that recommend proactive scheduling, assessing the critical path at each update, validating the schedule, and using prospective TIAs to support requests for EoT, all are supported in the States.  The biggest deviation between the Protocol and US mentality is that we do not recommend just using the TIA unless the contemporaneous documents are sufficient to perform the TIA.  And for me, if the documentation is sufficient to support a forensic (or retrospective) TIA then likely it is also sufficient to support a Contemporaneous Period Analysis, which is an observational method.  I believe that given a choice between two methods, with equal support for deciding in favor of either, observational methods reduce the number of subjective decisions that have to be made.  The fewer subjective decisions, the fewer challenges.

Pat Weaver has some good papers; he was at the recent PMI College of Scheduling Annual Conference in San Francisco and presented a paper there on "Why CPM Scheduling is Wildly Optimistic".

Hi Chris

I reckon that the primary skill of a delay analyst is in selecting the appropriate method - or combination of methods - that fits each case.

Add  to that the capability to tell the client his case is hopeless and walk away from it.

I will be in touch.

Best regards

Mike T.

Hi Rafael

Maybe I am hoping to bring a little balance to the debate and hopefully untangle some of the more arcane tangled prose.

Of course it is set up for the American system but it is read by the rest of the world so maybe a bit of an international slant would not go amiss.

It may even turn out like my shortlived membership of the CIOB group who drafted the latest handbook on time control of complex projects - I was thrown out for promoting a minority view - of 1 as it happens.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Chris,

The RP is frequently calling for the comparison of Critical Path as defined by Float and Critical Path as defined by Longest Path theory, a dual definition for critical path. But lets forget the issue and as the protocol makes many assumptions, let assume is is correct to say activities with float included on the longest path are critical and the same criteria of criticality is applied to all the schedule and no other activity with similar criticality is left out by the procedure. Then the issue is with the availability of software that can make the tedious computation by computer instead of using manual methods.

The most used software in the US is Microsoft Project and I want to make sure it can easily make the computations, does it?

Many of us do not use Primavera products because of their limitations when modeling shift work, the limitations when modeling partial work assignments as is not transparent and cumbersome, the incapability to model volume of work production by resources with different productivity and many other limitations, for many others the cost of providing a license to all their Project Managers, schedulers and estimators is too much, you got to realize not everyone is elitist as to who uses CPM, so P6 is out of our consideration, expensive and not enough for our modeling needs.

Therefore I would like you to tell me which software capable of making the Longest Path calculations did the AACE International considered as to determine it was appropriate to include such calculations in their RP. There are hundreds of software choices and therefore there must be hundreds of software capable of making the computation, but for some reason I cannot get the listing, please do not leave unanswered the question with evasive, please just give me the list, it is not much what I am asking for. It does not have to include all the possibilities, even a list of 20 would be enough.

Best regards,

Rafael

Mike,

Seems like I will never get an answer form the AACE International regarding wich commercial software implement out-of-the-box Longest Path Calculations as a computation independent from float, a consideration they must have realized when decided to make reference to these computations.

I think the SCL Protocol is more in accordance with the principle of cause and effect, if the action of one party causes damages to the other it can recover while the AACE International establishes Float is available for whoever uses it first without taking into consideration what this means with regard to compensation.

Still I believe use of float might cause delay even if not directly modeled by the limitations of a CPM Schedule, in this case the SCL falls a bit short but at least is more equitable, perhaps some recovery of liquidated damages can be obtained under the disruption part of the claim.

Maybe the English view that the claim of "float ownership to be free for whoever uses it first" is a wrong concept or maybe they view it an exculpatory clause, no matter what the reasoning I believe it superior thinking. But this is my opinion against the opinion of "experts" versus "experts" and no matter what, my opinion does not matter. Which of the experts are correct? I believe the SCL because they do not close the options to an otherwise valid claim, and is fair as it is always on the claimant the burden of proof, I believe this is enough.

Maybe we shall compare on one to one each of the main postulates in a similar way we compare software functionalities.

It will be a comparison between a 50% protocol that does not considers disruption against a 100% protocol that considers disruption but we can comment on the disruption issues without comparing protocols, leave the comparison to the imagination of everyone. Who said they are related? Don't look at me. There is a possibility delay and disruption are unrelated to each other as much as reinforcing steel is to concrete on a concrete structure. I never liked to compute balanced condition in ultimate design, save the step, anyway you are designing with ultimate load factors, forget about it, the balanced condition is available to either the steel or the concrete, to whoever reaches it first.

I always wonder what would haqppen when the assumptions by these protocols are contrary to the laws (written or common) of your jurisdiction, or when contractual conditions differ. I believe they shall be used as a guide but never as a contractual document.

My call is therefore a warning as for the use of AACE RP even when voluntarily and for the SCL Protocol only voluntarily. The necessary assumptions to present a case make it difficult if not impossible for a protocol to be universal. Same as courts in many cases waive exculpatory clauses when one party has no real negotiating power under similar conditions such protocols shall be waived. In government contracting there is no negotiating power therefore in government contracting shall be declared null and void.

Still I appreciate the value of the guidelines, please make no mistake about my feelings, there is much to learn from such guides and on the debate they generate.

Best regards,

Rafael

Raphael:

I've been busy so haven't had to time to go through your emails and see what issue I may have missed addressing.  Here is my take on your concern about how different longest path calculations occur in different software; it doesn't matter from a forensic analysis standpoint. 

And it doesn't matter because forensic analysis is attempting to determine what the project team's intention was at the time of each update and each decision.  This means that  the analyst must discover what was the contemporaneous understanding of the critical path.  During the project, the project management team, using whatever crappy software they had on the project, came up with a critical path printout, whether longest path or zero total float, and they used that information in making decisions about the project.  Since this is generally true, it is essential to review what that software-generated critical path showed to the project team.  This is why we say that project scheduling is different from forensic analysis scheduling; in project scheduling, we should be concerned about how the software generates a longest path, but in forensic analysis, it is a secondary issue.

As the RP states, "The best accuracy that an analyst can hope to achieve is in the faithful reflection of the facts as represented in contemporaneous project documents, data, and witness statements."  This is what I mentioned earlier when I said that scheduling for forensic use is different from scheduling for project controls use.

Look at it this way; if we were analyzing a project that had no schedules, but each week the project team explained the means and methods and the vital work that must be planned for the upcoming week, and that was documented in minutes, than that would identify the critical path.  And that identified critical path, those activities that the team believed must be completed each week to keep the project on track, would be the one that would be used to measure slippage.

Doesn't that make sense to you?

And, Rafael, please be a bit more patient about requesting feedback.  You asked the question on Saturday and by Monday afternoon are making a statement indicating that AACE will never give you an answer.  Surely, you don't think that I am sitting around just waiting for your next issue to respond?  Or that the entire AACE membership is reading your posts?  I just got back from two weeks of conferences, and so I had a lot of work to catch up on last week, and I have my daughter and my two grandchildren visiting this weekend and leaving tomorrow.  My grandchildren are my top priority, higher than work, and higher than forum responses.  And, I have had a great time with them here, so it's worth not opening up my laptop to give them full attention and enjoy the moments.

Now, in reference to the SCL Protocol, I am not sure where you are reading your information.  The Protocol clearly states, under the Core Principles Relating to Delay and Compensation, Section 7. Float as it relates to time, "Unless there is express provision to the contrary in the contract, where there is remaining float in the programme at the time of an Employer Risk Event, an EOT should only be granted to the extent that the Employer Delay is predicted to reduce to below zero the total float on the activity paths affected by the Employer Delay..."  The Protocol also clearly states, in Section 1.3.6, regarding a delay having to be critical before an EOT is due, that "It has the effect that float is not time for the exclusive use or benefit of either the Employer or the Contractor."  This indicates that the float is owned by the project, not the contractor or owner.

This position and the position of the FSA RP are EXACTLY the same.  And your reference to "cause and effect" doesn't make sense either because both documents also treat the need to substantiate cause and effect the same.

The Protocol is designed to deal with project contemporaneous delay and disruption primarily, and highly recommends that delays are dealt with during the project.  The FSA RP specifically addresses delays (and not disruption) that were not addressed during the project time frame of the delay.  So the intended use of the two documents is very different.  That was why I referred you to the Time Impact Analysis Recommended Practice which is the AACE's recommended way to deal with delay, and by the way, that is exactly the same approach that the SCL Protocol recommends.

And your quoted text refers to what we call an "early completion schedule", and in the States, we agree with the quoted position, noting that courts call this a "right to finish early'.  This is not related to ownership of float, because in either the US or the SCL Protocol, there are requirements that have to be met to achieve an early completion schedule which remove the time from the contractor's early predicted completion and the contractual completion from the definition of float.  If those requirements are not met, then that time would remain as float, available to first need, just as in the SCL Protocol.

I hope this is enlightening.  Have a great week.

Chris

Chris,

I agree with you that Longest Path Computation from a particular methodology does not matter and this is precisely one of the reasons why I see flawed the RP, it makes too much emphasis on a particular computation by scrappy software.

I do not believe software that is error prone and so notorious for the occurrence of bugs shall be accepted in forensic analysis, crappy software shall not be used and some sort of validation shall be required before wasting time using software that yields wrong computations that will be misleading.

As you can see from the following posting, many consider P6 crappy to the point other software is needed to verify their computations.

Even the efficiency of their resource leveling algorithms is questioned and some supporting software have been developed to make-up.

http://www.stottlerhenke.com/products/aurora/index.htm

But as you mentioned for the AACE International use of crappy software does not matter, therefore the list got to be very big.

I will be waiting for the requested list.

Best regards,
Rafael

Rafael:

I am confused; you apparently understood my post, but then are still asking for a "list".  From a project controls standpoint, most people spend a fair amount of time in validating results from network calculations in P6, so I can understand your irritation with that software.  But, we were talking about forensic analysis, not project controls.

The FSA RP does not refer to Primavera or any other software specifically when discussing Longest Path.  Longest Path is a CPM concept that is independent of any software and that is the context used.  CPM and Longest Path existed long before software was invented, and can be calculated without the software.

And, as I've mentioned repeatedly, resource leveling is not addressed in the FSA RP. 

I do think that Primavera and MS Project are the two most popular software packages for planning and scheduing in the U.S., and although I certainly hear a lot of complaints (some of them mine) about both packages, they continue to be popular.  And apparently they manage to work for most people even if it requires validation and work arounds.  You can find lots of other forums that bash the software packages.  Your profile region shows Puerto Rico, is that where you work?  What is the most popular software there?

I don't know how else to explain it.  Hope that helps this time.

Chris

Chris,

I have always worked in Puerto Rico. The preferred software in Puerto Rico among the Contractors I know was SureTrak but now it is obsolete, not compatible with Windows 7 64-bit nor its Mail function compatible with newer versions of Outlook, also it is not available for sale and I wonder if MSP has taken its place when the Contractor has a choice. Not many Big Digs around here to justify overly expensive software for our type of jobs.

Usually, when not negotiable the Contractor has no other option than outsource the scheduling at high cost and loss of efficiency. Now contractors hire an outsider and  project managers work the day to day operations with Excel spreadsheets as the monthly updates by the outsiders is always too late to be of any use. Here General Contractors are mostly p-off with Primavera P6 and the CPM concept, for many Bar Charts are better, not much benefit with a tool they do not own, for some CPM is a nauisance. None is popular but a contractual requirement.

Seems like on Government jobs, where the Contractor has no negotiating power the tendency is to outsource to whoever has the specified brand as if a change of underwear. We have been prescribed P3, MSP, P3e, P3ec, Primavera Contractor, SureTrak and P6 on awarded jobs, on jobs bided the selection have been larger and comes to my memory a web version by the people who sell Prolog. We have also used Micro Planner Manager. On the other hand integration between Sage PM Module and Timberline Job Costing has been recommended by a Surety but it was ruled out as it is generally not at the Contractors option. None is popular but a contractual requirement.

I use Spider Project on a very limited basis as on every job the prescribed software is different and my clients are essentially doing government jobs. Not many private roads, private bridges, private ports, private schools, private water works, private jails, private fire stations nor private institutional buildings around here.

Anyway I am curious about software capable of calculating Longest Path and will continue for my search on the available software and will let PP community know if I can ever compile the list. I am interested in finding out how longest path can be calculated under resource constraining without any need of the software, just from the paper output of most commercially available software. We do not make use of soft links to force resource leveling, it is not a recommended practice for well known reasons. Now I knoe the RP is flawed because do not considers resource leveling, still interested if Longest Path calculations are flawed under resource constraining.

Now it comes out that there is a risk forensic analysis methodologies can be prescribed, fot most of us based on our experience with government contracting where we have no real negotiating power this is risky and we do not like it, too many assumptions we do not agree.

Puerto Rico has no single person certified by the AACE International as a Certified Forensic Analyst. What a problem if the Federal Government starts to prescribe the AACE International RP in Puerto Rico, believe me it is possible.

Mike,

If I assign a buffer to every activity equal to the float value because I need to manage float as a way to reduce the risk of liquidated damages, does this means I reached to it first?

If I run a Monte Carlo simulation to a schedule with float and then I run another Monte Carlo simulation to the same schedule but with all activities delayed as to consume all float does the probability of finishing on time remain the same? Under this simulation does the expected value of liquidated damages remains the same as the original simulation of the job with float? Assume a standard PERT distribution derived directly fom the deterministic duration of the activities.

Best regards,

Rafael

Rafael:

I was a big SureTrak fan until I found I really needed more horsepower and moved to P3 about ten years ago or so.  I beta-tested SureTrak, and was very impressed at how many of my comments and gripes were taken into account in the final release (I don't flatter myself that it was due to me, but at least it showed that many were on the same page).  We also see software driven by the owner on some projects, but on the East Coast it is generally Primavera.  In our West Coast offices, it often is MS Project. 

In the PMI College of Scheduling as well as AACE, both the previous owners of Primavera have always come to the conferences, and we've cornered one or the other a number of times about deficiencies in P4/P5/P6, and some of the things that were lost when they went to enterprise from P3.  But, very little was fixed, and since Oracle took over, I think it's getting worse.  Sone of the excuses for simple things were disappointing to say the least.

Why not do a survey on PP about Longest Path calculations in various software; that would be a useful study, and PP might be able to take it to the manufacturers.  One of the things that we've been discussing in PP is trying to start software evaluations.

Obviously, I still am adamently opposed to you continually repeating your opinion that the FSA RP is "flawed" because it doesn't deal with resource leveling since that is kind of a meaningless statement (is the SCL Protocol "flawed' because it doesn't address windows analysis?) , but do you realize the amount of effort required when analyzing a set of resource leveled schedules?  I've only had to do it one time, fortunately, and the actual contemporaneous documents showed, time after time, that the resource leveling was only a plan and never really either followed or staffed.  And, now, we have Fred Plotnick's RCPM, which as I understand it, is getting incorporated into Primavera.  This is going to make analysis that much more difficult.

Chris,

you wrote: "the resource leveling was only a plan and never really either followed or staffed."

It means poor project management culture that is wide spread in the USA.

I don't think that it shall be supported by PP, AACE, PMI or any other PM professional association.

Regards,

Vladimir

Chris,

Agree, guess I have expressed myself many times and although got nothing out of it, all who have witnessed the debate have seen America is a free country where you can express yourself against the opinion of the majority. ... Maybe a few listened and something good in favor of the Contractor might come out of it.

Not that I am saying the majority is correct.

Going back to the calculation of longest path I believe it of critical importance especially for the action scheduler who must have some metrics that will help him take control of the schedule in an orderly way. I said I do not believe float is an absolute value but still very important it is as good as it can be.

About Fred Plotnick's RCPM not sure if you refer to Resource Constrained or if you are referring to RDCPM a coding system I believe was initially based on the AOA representation that can be applied to the AON representation as well, it is more an issue of software coding.

http://www.fplotnick.com/rdcpm/RelationshipDrivenCPM.pdf

Thanks for the debate, you are a gentleman, we can move to other thread.

Regards,

Rafael

Thanks, Rafael, enjoyed the discussions, and I appreciate your gentlemanly response as well.  We'll hit on another topic, I'm sure.

Vladimir:

I think lots of construction professionals in the States would take issue with your comment about widespread poor project management culture here but we won't quibble over it. 

I think that my point was that the rationale of the FSA RP to not include analysis of schedules that have been resource leveled is a solid one.  I don't know how Spyder works, but once you've leveled resources, do you consider the resulting longest path to be a legitimate one provided by clean network calculations?  How do you see the difference between the use of resource planning logic to force the flow of crews through the project and leaving out resource logic while relying on leveling to drive the schedule?

Chris,

in our contracts the contractor submits the schedule and resource flows. We do not accept the schedules that are not resource leveled. Contractor shall confirm that he will do the job in his schedule with resources that he has. Resource Critical Path activities require special attention and it does not depend on the software that is used. Spider Project calculates resource critical path and resource constrained activity floats. Besides it keeps project history and analyzing the schedule you can open and analyze the schedule existed at any moment in the past.

I see no point in the analysis of the schedule that requires resources that are not available.

I don't understand your question on the difference between resource planning logic and resource leveling logic. Resource management decisions are based on resource constrained scheduling. One can add soft restrictions like selecting the direction of work. These decisions shall be proved as the best and then implemented. The software and resource leveling is used to compare different options and selecting the best.

Best Regards,

Vladimir