Remaining duration inconsistency within out of sequence activities

Hi Ed

Welcome to Planning Planet.

In future please do not duplicate your topics in more than one forum and you only need to hit the save button once.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Ed,

Why not just correct your logic, so you don't have any OOS activities?

I am using a cost loaded schedule in which percent complete is based on physical & I use expected finish for updating. The problem is that the remaining duration doesn’t show right for in progressed activities which started before DD.

Now RD = finish date- DD while I want it to show RD= finish date- Current date.

Any reason & at least a UDF or Global change to fix that is much appreciated.

(FYI, I have ticked the setting in calculation tab but it doesn’t change anything)

Cheers,

I’m new to this forum & apparently messed up with triple copying a discussion.

Does anyone know how to delete redundant ones?

Ed,

This seems to have nothing to do with out of sequence activities, then?

You are correct to say that remaining duration equals early finish - DD and not current date. This is how it should work. This is the point of having a data date. -So that you can update your schedule with progress up to the latest date for which you have progress information, which very often will not be the same as the curret date.

If you want remaining duration to show early finish - current date, and you have updated all progress to the current date, why not set your data date to the current date?

I am not very good with UDFs, so cannot help you there.

There is a step-by-step way to address team members who do activities out of sequence:

1. Dig a hole.
2. Araange a meeting with them.
3. Shoot them.
4. Bury them.
5. Explain to them that doing work out of sequence can foul up things they don't know about.

If someone has a bright idea of how to improve the schedule through a different sequence:

1. First discuss the idea;
2. Then congratulate the team member if the idea is beneficial;
3. Then amend the schedule;
4. Then do the work.  

Fraternally in project management,

Steve the Bajan

Stephen,

Thanks for the comment. I think although a well established logical schedule should prevent out of sequencing but we all have encountered considerable number of projects with this situation.

Now the solution is better than digging the hole & chucking them in. in such cases, I personally suggest:

1-     Try to work with remaining duration instead of expected finish while updating (out of sequencing creates dodgy RD if you work with expected finish dates)

2-     Ignore negative total float as the result of out of sequencing.

3-     In further programme extensions, try to justify project engineers to avoid unhealthy logic.

Stephen,

I think we've had this discussion before, but I have a somewhat more lenient approach to OOS working than yourself. To my mind how big an issue it is depends on the "hardness" of the relationship that was broken. From hardest to softest, I can think of the following 4 categories:

1) Physical necessity: This is a link which is impossible to break because doing so would require time travel. e.g. you cannot start welding a pipeline before you have strung out (some of) the pipe lengths. 

2) Mandatory link: This is a link which, while it is possible to break, doing so will always be a bad idea. Typically breaking this link will have adverse affects on quality, H&S, or breach of contract. Anyone breaking such a link should indeed be shot. e.g. pouring concrete before formwork.

3) Preferential link: This is a link which represents the (planner's opinion of the) optimum solution to the sequence of work, in terms of efficient working, risk (financial, time, quality, H&S), and project completion. Breaking such a link may be appropriate due to changes in the situation, mitigating delay, info the planner wasn't aware of when developing the schedule, or simply the wrong solution arrived at by the planner. e.g. erecting tank farm before the underground pipework is complete.

In an ideal world, the planner would have talked through whoever is responsible for doing the work in advance, and agreed any changes to the links then, after assesing the impact on the schedule & risk register. If this wasn't possible, then the next most ideal thing would be to agree changes with the planner immediately before changing the work sequence. Often neither of these things are possible, and quite often this is due to availability of the planner.

In such situations, I feel some senior people on site should have the authority to authorise changes to the sequence without first agreeing with the planner.

4) Resource smoothing: This is a link which is just there to balance resource requirements across the duration of the project, whilst maximising float. e.g. design data sheets for procurement. If something stops you from doing the first thing on your list, you should automatically move onto the second thing. Still keep the planner informed, but no need to seek approval.

Cheers,

G

If the software found an optimal sequence of resource assignments doing different task may create problems in future and delay project completion. So it is still necessary to reschedule the project if doing planned work is impossible for some reason.

In any case rescheduling is necessary if resources are limited.