Forensic Planner

Hi Richard

A forensic delay analyst uses planning techniques to demonstrate cause and effect of delaying events on completed work.

Sound simple doesn’t it.

The best kept secret is that it is simple but made to look complex to keep our rates up.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Thanks Mike ,great answer!

Isn’t it like when the crows and hawks are picking over the bloated carcass of a dead kangaroo on the side of the highway?

Or is it just a way of making sure that the money that should have been spent on planning and construction management ends up with the lawyers and experts instead?

Hi Trevor

There is nothing wrong with scavengers - they do a great job clearing up the mess left behind a crash.

If the project was properly planned and monitored from the beginning I would be starving.

But in all my years of experience I have only come across two contract programmes that were fit for purpose for delay analysis.

And those two were my work at the start of the job.

Our role is to determine what actually happened and what was the cause and effect of delays to the work.

We then assist the tribunal to determine who was to blame.

The basic processes are simple but the complexity is when there are multiple causes of delay on different work fronts.

We do get paid well but that is because not many people can do it properly or have the balls to stand up and defend their expert opinion in open court.

You are only as good as your last case.

Just recently two different maestro’s on £300.00 an hour plus - lost spectacularly and are now in the outback picking at dead meat.

Best regards

Mike Testro.

I think what we are trying to say here is that:

Forensic planner must have brain bigger than a fish.

This big brain will be use to analyze the complex situation due to multiple events that causes of delay and to come up with the maximum impact as the basis in granting legitimate extension of time.

Of course, the forensic planner must also have a big "balls" (dako titi) in our farlance to denote courage, courage to stand and defend the outcome of their analysis.

And of course we have to mention the practical use of the "dark art".

So for those whamsy pancy, pompouse ass, or homo sapiens, IMHO, this is not your profession.

Regards,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

Hi Charleston

I consider myself to be of the homo sapiens (latin for intelligent man) species.

But what is IMHO?

Best regards

Mike Testro

Mike
He is talking rubbish as usual
IMHO = In My Honest Opinion

Hi Mike,

IMHO means "In my humble opinion"

I agree with you in your interpretation of homo sapien

By the way, the homo sapien in my post means "

"Homosexual". I don’t want to use the term anymore because in one of the many post I made, I got blundeon because I lower the status of homosexual. And I was attack branding me a racist, sexiest or whatever aggresive and offensive terms they did to me.

So homosexual cannot be a the best forensic planner because they are confuse individuals, so they cannot think logically due to the nature of their mind, very confuse. Also they do not have balls, because they think they got the human anatomy of the other gender.

I maybe attack again but this is my humble opinion., but what to do? I’m just trying to explain to you.

Regards,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

Oh my god!!
You are now saying that peoples sexual orientation has a direct correlation with how well they can do a job, unbelievable, the sooner you disappear the better

Hi Charleston

Alexander the Great was a homosexual.

If you carry on like this - with or without capital letters - I will work to get you off the PP site.

SO STOP THIS SORT OF THING NOW.

No regards or respect at all.

Mike Testro

I must say i didn’t expect that thread to go in that direction but it made light reading. Oh and i will not be suprised if you are attacked as this was not a good idea to write your message.

Quite right Mike, I am still trying to get my head around how somebody can be so blatantly ignorant

Calm down every one it was just a question ...I don’t even think we have an equivilant to that type of planning here in the States not by that name anyhow.

Hello all..
I think we all are popping our-royal-self into PP site to enhance our knowledge, to network and to catchup the latest happenings in our domain.
I am not against fun , but lets discuss relevant things under each thread.

Forensic Analysis in planning is an ’dreadful’ and ’complicated’ thing for me. Reason is insufficient data/logs ,poor schedule which does not clearly depict scope and variations, lack of regular updation of schedules.

The safest way is:
1) catch scope variations as and when they occur & get client signature on variation orders/reports/log.
2)Issue delay & early warning notes to client & get acknowledgment for receipt.
3) Record delays & reasons for delays in weekly progress review meeting minutes.
4) Update schedule against baseline and send to client every week (And acknowledge it!)

Its not very easy to follow the above things. Quantifying ’delay caused by client’ is a difficult task since there can be other reasons for delay (as argued generally by the client like :
1) use of less or less productive labour by contractor
2) Lack of proper coordination by contractor
..etc
The best way is arriving at a percentage breakup of the delays caused by each parties for a particular activity.
(Eg: 75% delay due to late delivery/partial delivery of materials by client , 25% due to loss of productivity for contractor labour force)

A forensic schedule may be rejected by tribune / judge , if they found logical relations improper!

I am not a forensic scheduler or analyst , but I have come across situations where I have to prepare EOT & Delay claims!

Be prepared to get ashamed .. if you dont have the eye for details and good logic ... in forensic scheduling !

Good luck!

Hi Richard

These threads often go off at alrming angles - especially when Charleston is involved.

You may not have experienced his particular brand invective before but the rest of us are sick of it.

Regarding forensic delay analysis in the States it was the Corps of Engineers that invented the system in the 1960’s - which became known as "Time Slice" analysis.

This worked well for work in progress but was cumbersome for forensic work which happens after the work has finished.

When computers became involved - Primavera was one of the first - then the profession of delay analysis evolved.

America then became stuck with its time slice system but in the rest of the world better systems evolved for forensic analysis.

If you are interested in how it works there are numerous threads in other sections of the forum.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi Sreejith

You are right in your approach and your comments are valid - particularly about a Judge rejecting a programme because the logic was wrong - this happens all the time and most recently in the Shepherd v City Inns case in Scotland.

This is a common peril for delay analysts.

You also said:

"The best way is arriving at a percentage breakup of the delays caused by each parties for a particular activity.
(Eg: 75% delay due to late delivery/partial delivery of materials by client , 25% due to loss of productivity for contractor labour force"

You are into the relams of concurrent delays which are particularly tricky.

In this scenario you have to determine which was the 1st cause of the delay:

Did the late delivery start after the activity had started or before?

If before then that event should be impacted first and the delay result noted.

Then you apply the loss of productivity and note what that result was.

You can now apportion culpabilty reasonably accurately.

You seem to know quite a bit about delay analysis - why don’t you do what I did 10 years ago - call yourself a forensic delay analyst and put your rates up.

Best regards

Mike Testro.

Hi Richard,

You may look at AACEI RP (Recommended Practice)

RP29R-03 Forensic Schedule Analysis

It is around 100++ pages or 106 pages to be exact.

Reading the materials of AACEI RP29R-03 made me think that all post here in PP regarding forensic planning is only baby talk.

The real sensei will is the practioner of that particular Recommended Practice, IMHO. because maybe I was overwhelmed by the content of the RP, recommended practice.

Regards,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

BTW,

It is a free download in pdf format. I donwloaded all AACEI Recommended Practice.

just go to google, type AACEI

then look at the technial, then look at Recommended Practice.

Actually, there are lots of recommended practice, which I believe, most of us may not be able to practice in our lifetime.

So it is a choice, which one will be your preference to master.

I also expect not to receive such post with request "please sent me a copy to my email: charlieorbe@yahoo.com, etc., etc.,

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

There is also another Recommended Practice:

RP 52r-06 Time Impact Analysis as Applied in Construction.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

AACE have already done a tremendous job when it comes to scheduling, forensic analysis, professional accreditation and many more. They’ve got tons of helpful presentation/exhibit during their annual meeting which, the last one was held last year in Toronto. The only thing I want to do but impossible to do during the meeting is, to sit and listen to all presentation.

I believe the next annual meeting is in Seattle, Washington.

Gentlemen,

First off, I apologise for taking this thread away from its original intention as, while this is not my area of expertise, I had noticed that Mike Testro had contributed and, knowing that this is his area I decided to have a look. I then noticed that the thread had been "Charlied" with his usual unprepossessing mixture of barely coherent insults, bigotry and patronising bullsh1t.

Then it hit me, he writes the way people talk when they are drunk. So I must admit I wondered does Charlie have a drink problem, is he an alcoholic? If he is, that could explain a great deal of his erratic posts and insulting behaviour. However, just because he may have a drink problem, does not mean that we should tolerate his gross and totally unacceptable behaviour. Mike may be right in thinking it may be necessary to have Charlie removed.


Richard,

All I can suggest as the answer to your original post is that you take on board what Mike and the others have said and ignore Charlie’s contributions.


Charlie,

You have had it pointed out to you that shouting is not acceptable, so if you have nothing useful to add to a discussion, why don’t you just -

SHUT UP

You see Charlie there are always people who can shout louder than you. Gentlemen, my apologies for my rather raised voice.

Chris Oggham

Bravo Chris,

If that will make you happy to release your suppress emotion, well and good to everyone. At least you now found solution to anger management. Cheers, smile and be happy now.

But I’m not intimidated. We have moderator who will make the decision.

the bottomline here is that we have two school of thoughts in the application of forensic schedule analysis

The AACEI way of doing forensic planning is sophisticated compared to others.

Of course it is only natural because it comes from the US of America.

Regards,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

Hi Charleston

I have just taken some time to look through AACEI RP for forensic delay analysis.

I found nothing new - it describes what I have been doing for the last 10 years.

It is very wordy and full of jargon - it could be compressed to about 5 pages - as does the SCL protocol.

The AACEI is not so sound on concurrency.

It also assumes that there may be multiple critical paths - I have only come across this phenonenom when the planner has fiddled it.

So Charleston - it is nothing special and is too complex for a novice analyst to make any sense of it.

I read it and binned it.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi Chris

How did you get that lovely noisy font into the text?

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi Mike,

It’s the result of a number of years involved with IT, websites and the people who produce them. It’s a pity that the Private Messaging facility is out otherwise I’d show you how to do it. It’s very straightforward, and once we get the PM facility back I will be more than glad to show you and anyone else who is interested how it’s done.

Chris Oggham

Chris,

A bit like this, but with bigger number?


Mike,

When you say you’ve never come across multiple Critical Paths, are you talking about entirely discrete Paths, or one path that diverges and converges shortly after?

Certainly in the Nuclear Industry, I’ve experienced on a few occasions where the Safety Consultants and Designers have been working on a Safety Case and underpinning Design information, their paths have (entirely coincidentally) shared the CP. Although this may be partly due to the slightly archaic ways of working of our Clients, who believe the Silo mentality still rules.

Hi Gordon

I am considering the situation on a project overall including all sub branches that is properly linked with no constrain flags - lead lags or mid task links and no ALAP positioning.

It is of course possible for two or more sub charts with identical tasks and durations that have a common upstream and downsstream linkage to have paralel critical paths where they converge and diverge into the main critical path.

I have not experienced such a situation in construction or civils but I take your point that it may be common in other discplines.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi!
@Mike : Thank you for the nice words.
I really dont want to go for deep specialisations like ’forensic scheduling’.
I am just 27 1/2 and I think there is a long way to go ! :)

How ever data analysis & interpretation are areas of great interest for me.I am also doing bit research on alternate/unconventional data visualization techniques.My latest (completed) work is on representing 4 parameters in a X-Y plot using Excel bubble charting.This was used for SPI plotting for multiprojects. Clients are liking it a lot ! :)

I am here to learn from experienced guys like you.

Thanks Charles for pointing to AACE RP, I have downloaded them all and just going to have a look at them.

Anybody gone thru the latest PMBOK 4th edn..
I have it & it has just grown double the size than previous edition !

You may take a look at my blog reg. new PM standards , when you have a moment.

http://pmkarma.blogspot.com/search/label/PM%20Standards

Cheers!

Sreejith

THIS SIZE SHOULD BE ENOUGH TO SPEAK LOUD AND CLEAR



If u hav 2 learn different formatting styles from any given web page, save the web page on ur PC and then open it with Notepad. U can find the entire HTML code for the page. All formatting line starts with <> and ends with with letters in those brackets like u can add b to get bold letters or i to get in italic

Sorry for the previous post. Font size selected was too big. May I request admin guys to delete it please.

Mike, if u hav 2 learn different formatting styles from any given web page, save the web page on ur PC and then open it with Notepad. U can find the entire HTML code for the page. All formatting line starts with <> and ends with with letters in those brackets like u can add b to get bold letters or i to get in italic

Hi Raviraj

Thanks for that - it made me chuckle a bit - keep it in.

I am too old now to learn new IT tricks but thanks for the advice anyway.

Best regards

Mike T.

Hi Guys,

It looks as if the secret is out. I only hope Charlie doesn’t use it, to have him shouting as loud as Ravi would be quite wearing.

Chris Oggham

The truth is

I’m civilized. My experienced taught me to respect humanity.

Unlike Mr. Chris Oggham!!!!!

Sorry Chris it seems you are carrying a hamnmer to bang your head.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

Hello.. somebody please rename the thread as :

"How to customize font sizing in PP posts" or "Charlie V/s Chris"

Lol !

Charlie,

Everyone knows just how civilised you are and how much you respect humanity, the content of your posts and the number of people who have taken issue with you about them is the indicator. Sorry Charlie, but the only person you’re fooling is yourself.

Chris Oggham

Chris just says what everyone else is thinking!!!

Charlie has got a very thick skin. Nothing is going to stop him from putting posts on this forum.

V r just wasting our time and thats it.

So, just ignore him and plz dont reply to his posts. He will definietly give up one day, if nobody will respond to him.

Oh Charlie..
Lots of men on you..
Time to call your ’Angels’ dude !
:)

All,

I would suggest that if you don’t like Charlie’s posts, just ignore it. It seems that his winning everytime you resort to openly stopping him. Send him a private message if you feel it’s time to correct him.

Also, take into consideration his good intentions/efforts/contributions in getting his view heard on this site.

Unknowingly, you expose also your trueself (aside from being professional/expert in the field) by insulting him on what he believe is right.

Float the ship, and that’s makes you a better person.

Cheers,

R Catalan,

I understand the point you are making - ignore Charlie and eventually he’ll go away. Unfortunately, in the time it would take for him to go away others might see his racist and homophobic diatribes and believe that these are acceptable on this forum and use it for just that sort of purpose.

In order that this doesn’t happen, people try to make it clear to Charlie that this sort of behaviour is unacceptable, as bluntly and forcefully as they believe is necessary. No-one is trying to prevent Charlie from holding opinions, no-one is trying to prevent him from making useful contributions to the forum.

However, the ignorance and vindictive spitefulness of some of his posts are beginning to erode people’s tolerance, and I for one would not like to see someone make a post about his behaviour in terms that they would deeply regret later. So it is necessary to slap him down hard whenever he becomes too obnoxious.

Chris Oggham

Chris,

I do not attempt to stifle opposing viewpoints, but at least we try to bury the hatchet and carry on with the brilliant goal of PP.

Thanks Chris.

Hi R. Catalan,

Don’t get affected by CHRIS ORGAN post towards my post. He has beenn doing this for the last 4 years since I started or join PP. He even conspired with other PP members to have me kick out or terminated from PP.

some great planners who follows his line of thinking, have sympathy with him, lost that criticcal thinking and they just becomes imbecile like what he is now.

I don’t think that this will stop him. Basically, I disregards his post, he is just like a child wanting so much to get my attention.

But I’m a very busy man, I cannot afford to lost time.

So Mr. CHRIS ORGAN, the ball is in your hand. You have to choice. Please figure it out. No need to waste my time.

cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

I’d say that reading Charlie’s post #43 pretty well proves the points I made in post #41.

Chris Oggham

Chris & CJO,

It seems there’s a thriving irrevocable hate between you guys. No EOT is sufficient to reconcile your emotions, given that the expert forensic planners in PP are also not happy with the other.

Good luck then.

Best regards,
R. Catalan

R Catalan,

I’m afraid you’ve got that one wrong. I don’t hate Charlie; in order to hate somebody you have to care about them, and while you might, I don’t. What I have no patience with is his arrogance, racism and the ridiculous nonsense he posts, but hate him? Definitely not, he’s not important enough to hate.

Chris Oggham.

Hi R

...given that the "expert forensic planners" in PP are also not happy with the other.

Are you implying that C-JO is an expert forensic planner? He can’t even explain a simple ALV process.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Mike,

My only comment is that you started to be like Chris.

I do read your post and it is nor really great. Although some I do agree help me.

But then, I lost respect of you, you are just like Chris, the imbecile.

From this day on, I will avoid your post, but I will keep reading it. You can continue doing what Chris is doing to me, humiliating me in PP ... and I will keep a tab on it.

So

Expect me to one of this day come back to you and make payback time with you.

Your only course of action is to threaten me to tell PP Admin to exterminate me here in PP.

I know PP is fair. I have been in this Plannet for too long. You will get form me what you give from mwe. If you humiliate me, then, expect to humiliate you also. At the end of the day, all is fair ... and that is freedom.

Personally, I don’t give a damm.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

Charlie,

I do believe that you are the only person I have encountered who can combine arrogance with self-pity. There is only person who is humiliating you, and that is you, with the self-evident ridiculous nonsense that you post.

When people don’t accept you at your own valuation you label them imbeciles and indulge in the most juvenile name calling. When people recognise you for what you are and respond to you accordingly you go on to make threats. Charlie for a man approaching fifty you really do need to grow up.

Chris Oggham

CHRIS ORGAN,

YOUR ALWAYS IMBICILE. SORRY I DONT NEED ANY OF YOUR POST.

THERE IS NO BRIGHT IDEA, FULL OF WANTING ATTENTION.

BETTER CHECK A DOCTOR

CHEERS

Chris Organ,

congratulation,

You have one convert: as idiotic as you are

Mr. Mike Teste

cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling