(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?
(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.
Why does the duration % Complete not show up on all group total bands? These activities are of the same orig duration and same remaining duration. One is working as it should but the other is not totaling for some reason. the group totaling option is checked. What am i missing here? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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thanks for the pdf. i'll certainly read through it when i get the chance. i did start working with getting a global change set up, just havent had the time to dedicate to working it all the way through. its going to be more than just a simple set of parameters but i cant imagine it being impossible. just have to figure it out.
Eldon,
I am sure your proposal about changing the name will make it easier for others not proficient with P6 to understand what it means.
Maybe you can help us with the idea of using a Global Change (I do not have/use P6), if it works it should fix the WBS values while keeping the activity values unchanged, while keeping the original OD values as well. In such case you can use the name you suggest for the UDF and keep both for your use. This shall be a different Global Change to the one suggested on the prior reference as it shall not change OD.
I just found the following PDF that might also be of interest.
http://www.planning-engineer.com/resources/P6P-Progress-2.pdf
Best regards,
Rafael
Eldon,
I appreciate your clarification. The only explanation that came to my mind with regard to P6 and P3 use of the term Original Duration for a value that should have been labeled with a meaningful name is that at some point the development was outsourced without the software owner taking due care about the terms, and this is wrong.
Seems like the PMI got it right with regard to Original Duration:
From http://www.pmgloss.com/about/
Original Duration (OD). The activity duration originally assigned to a schedule activity and not updated as progress is reported on the activity. Typically used for comparison with actual duration and remaining duration when reporting schedule progress.
Not sure about Finish Dates.
Late Finish Date (LF). In the critical path method, the latest possible point in time that a schedule activity may be completed based upon the schedule network logic, the project completion date, and any constraints assigned to the schedule activities without violating a schedule constraint or delaying the project completion date. The late finish dates are determined during the backward pass calculation of the project schedule network.
Late Start Date (LS). In the critical path method, the latest possible point in time that a schedule activity may begin based upon the schedule network logic, the project completion date, and any constraints assigned to the schedule activities without violating a schedule constraint or delaying the project completion date. The late start dates are determined during the backward pass calculation of the project schedule network.
P3, P6 and many others apply impossible constraints to late dates making it possible for late date be displayed earlier than early dates. Here again the use of the terms is wrong, in addition mixing the values is even worst. Any definition that allows for "late" be earlier than "early" shall not be promoted. If you are looking for comparison values they shall be labeled using meaningful terms.
Best Regards,
Rafael
Rafael,<?xml:namespace prefix = o />
I took your response of - The English language term "Original" means it should be a fixed number. This is the problem when outsourcing to people who have no understanding of the English language, you do not know what to expect. - as a comment directed towards myself. If that was not your intent, i apologize for my misunderstanding.
Abilash,
Technically, Rafael is 100% correct as far as OD is concerned. Original meaning the first. There can only be one first. Once that changes, it is no longer your OD and becomes your new planned or adjusted budgeted duration. P6 is faulted in that, it interchanges the planned/budgeted duration and OD depending on the settings. In p6 there is a setting in - admin preferences>industry tab that will allow you to choose your industry type. You have 4 options - 1.Engineering & Construction, 2.Government, Aerospace & Defense, 3.High Technology, Manufacturing & Others and lastly 4.Utilities, Oil & gas. In 1 & 4 OD is used. In 2 & 3 it is replaced with Planned Duration. I believe that OD should only be a changeable field prior to base-lining the project. After you baseline, the OD becomes your planned/budgeted duration and any changes to duration after the baseline should not be allowed in the OD field. Thereby keeping your OD available for variance references. Unfortunately, changes ARE allowed to the OD at any time throughout the project. That’s when a baseline becomes very valuable, as it records information just for that purpose. I still don’t agree with their use of OD. And especially the way it is used to calculate the D%C in the WBS band. Honestly it is very misleading and only comforts those clients that have absolutely no understanding of the how it is calculated. They are just looking for "good" numbers.
Abilash,
That is precisely the point. Current and original are not interchangeable, you shall not use the same word as if it does not matter.
You said - "Few weeks after contract award - due to the late delivery or interrupted delivery of Engineering from client; we have to extend the original duration of activity A1001 as 15 months. Then we have to change the OD of current project as 15 months, whereas the baseline original duration 10 months remaining same in baseline plan, not in current plan."
You did not said - Few weeks after contract award - due to the late delivery or interrupted delivery of Engineering from client; we have to extend the current duration of activity A1001 as 15 months. Then we have to change the OD of original project as 15 months, whereas the baseline current duration 10 months remaining same in baseline plan, not in original plan.
If you interchange the words as if synonyms all meaning is lost.
Two schedules, the same job, the same origin (the original), the original always remains the same.
Can you tell me then, what is the meaning of Original Duration?
That the wrong use of the term original have been present for decades do not makes it correct, not even the tolerance by the PMI justifies such misleading use of the term. I am still surprised by the concept that late can mean earlier, as in the case when negative float is implemented, this is another wrong use of terms that I believe shall not be tolerated.
Best Regards,
Rafael
Rafael,
I fully agree with you in a sense; but please judge this scenario also.
When we sign the contract and according to the baseline plan activity A1001 was planned to finish in 10months
Few weeks after contract award - due to the late delivery or interrupted delivery of Engineering from client; we have to extend the original duration of activity A1001 as 15months. Then we have to change the OD of current project as 15months, whereas the baseline original duration 10months remaining same in baseline plan, not in current plan.
Abilash,
If OD is intended to be changed it shall be labeled with other name, it is misleading.
On a court claim you cannot say your original intention was to finish the job in 10 months and next day say your original intention was to finish in 12 months, it would be interpreted as a lie, in any case it would be your revised intention.
It is about the use of the language we use to communicate ideas.
Best Regards,
Rafael
Rafael, in my opinion OD of baseline plan shouldn’t be changed; but OD of current plan can be changed according to current situation / plan.
Eldon,
I never claimed to be an expert on P6, I do not even have a copy of the software, but I used it before and some of the principles are common. Maybe if a regular user of P6 I would never notice the BUG because I never use duration % complete, we use actual duration and remaining duration for our updates, for % complete we use cost.
Even when I have used P6 (rarely - long ago), SureTrak (frequently - a few years ago) and P3 (rarely - long ago) I never noticed this BUG in the calculation of duration % complete at the WBS level. I never noticed the misleading use of the language by P6 when referring to original duration. I could not believe "original duration" was something that changes, to me it does not makes any sense, something original by definition is unique.
About the wrong use of the English Language by P6 I believe it is very simple issue and even a grammar school student (non-spanish named) would interpret original duration as to mean a single duration value, not something you change very frequently.
You said/implied English is a better fit to you because of your name, you know better, you accept original to mean something that is not unique, something that is subject to change. But the issue shall not be not about my name, is a bit more intellectual, is about P6 and their use of the English language when labeling "original duration" to a parameter that might be subject to change.
I would like to hear the opinion of others about what "original" means, it is still hard for me to swallow something original can be changed/replaced and still be labeled as original.
Abilash,
For years I have not used P6 nor I have a license, still must interact with it when importing P6 files to other software.
I recall using Global Change before but it was long ago when I had access to it. I am sure other can help you.
I was hoping the idea of the Global Change can be investigated as I believe the author of the article is warning about an issue that can happen at any time and believe if it works it might be easier than the suggeste workaround on the article. A workaround that seemed to me somewhat complicated, it shall be asier to click on a user defined global change, that shall be available at a few clicks after being saved.
Best regards,
Rafael
Rafael,
Can you please advise me how to put said the formula in global change for UDF?
user defined field = 100 x [actual duration]/[actual duration + remaining duration]
You said - By doing this it recalculated the OD for the WBS band from the new earliest start date.
Original, well revised original, wait it is re-revised original... until further notice and any afterwards.
Are you serious?
Are you kidding me?
The English language term "Original" means it should be a fixed number. This is the problem when outsourcing to people who have no understanding of the English language, you do not know what to expect.
If a Cantinflas (a Mexican Comedian) movie I would not be surprised but such use of the English language makes no sense, you got to be joking!
After playing with the data. I see where the issue started. It was a junior mistake made on my part. Obviously we know that the OD in the WBS band is based on the OD of the activities under that band. The actions that led to the issue are as follows:
Activity PR4-520 was scheduled to start on 18-Apr. I actuated and progressed PR4-520 as of 18-Apr. Therefore locking in the OD for the WBS band to calculate from the earliest start of 18-Apr to the latest finish of 13-Sep which is a working duration of 125 days. It wasnt until AFTER i actuated the activity and input the progress that i changed the actual start date of the activity to 23-Mar. Since the activity was firstly actuated on 18-Apr, thats where the OD for the WBS was locked in from. Changing the start date to 23-Mar after the activity was started did not affect the OD but it did relfect in the RD.
Corrective actions:
I unprogressed the activity and changed the activity status to "not started". I then rescheduled the project to reset the data fields which changed the RD from 140 back to its original of 120 to match the OD. Once the fields were reset, i reprogressed the activity by changing the start date to 23-Mar prior to changing the activity status to "in progress". By doing this it recalculated the OD for the WBS band from the new earliest start date of 23-Mar to 13-Sep. Giving a working duration of 145 days.
Moral of the story: When your progressing an activity, be sure to change the start date PRIOR to changing the activity status to started.
Thanks for the help guys. Hope someone can learn from my mess up.
Abalish,
The wrong values are at the WBS lines, at the activity lines is where the values can be wrong. You have two options, disregard WBS values or create a user defined field using the correct formula, the last option shall yield expected values at all lines.
I do not use P6 so I cannot give you the details but I believe you shall be able to figure out how to implement the global change to populate the user defined field with the correct values.
user defined field = 100 x [actual duration]/[actual duration + remaining duration]
Another option is to look for a more recent version of P6 that might have cleaned the BUG.
Good luck.
Rafael
Rafel & Eldon,
Personally I too agree to avoid using d%; but due to the external / client factors and job type we may have to use duration% also.
As per the reference Duration % Complete is calculated with this formula:
Duration % Complete(P6) = ( [Original Duration] – [Remaining Duration] ) / [Original Duration]
Duration % Complete(P6) = (120-145)/120 = -25/120 = -20.8 %
Shall be as follows.
Duration % Complete
= [Actual Duration]/[Cummulative Duration] x 100
= { [Actual Duration] / ( [Actual Duration] + [Remaining Duration] ) } x 100
Using original duration for the computation is in abominable error. But loook at it in the positive way, before any progress AD = 0 and therefore % duration complete is 0, at least they are ok up to here, don't ask for more, computations in P6 are said to be unreliable as per some PP contribuitors as well as per the author of the referenced article. In this case it looks like a huge blooper.
Rafael & Abilash,
Thanks for the help. Rafael, i agree with you in not using d%c to track wbs progress. It was a client request. I am going to try the global change that was suggested in the link that you posted.
The issue was that it was showing negative progress. 145 RD/ 120 OD. All though i am not 100% sure how it is calculated or why. Here are a few facts that may or may not have contributed to the issue:
Under the WBS 1600.FA-8.3.1.26:
1. Activity PR4-520 was started on 23-Mar. The original early start for this activity was on 01-Apr. Do to an unexpected availabilty in resources from another project, we were able to start it sooner than expected.1600
2. After the start of activity PR4-520, the scope was redefined and the following activities were added: PR4-530,570,580,590,640 & 650.
Here are the steps that i took to correct the issue. Seems to have worked. I am not sure of the technicals as to why.
1. I backed out all progress on the "in-progress" activity PR4-520 to "not started".
2. Rescheduled
3. Re-entered the progress with the same early start dates.
4. Resheduled
Results:
OD in the WBS band is now 145 while RD is still 140. Currently showing D%C at 3.45%
From the reference I posted before:
Maybe if you substitute the values in some cases it would yield negative progress and because it does not makes much sense 0% is displayed. It seems experienced users of P6 cannot find the logic on it. I suggest to follow the advise of the author and forget about WBS % complete as calculated by P6, consider it just as another BUG.
Under the band 1600.FA-8.3.1.23
It calculates as follows
For act ID PR3-540 - 5d (Actual duration)/20d (Original duration) = 25%
And the band – 4d (actual duration) / 134d (original duration) = 2.99%
Under band 1600.FA-8.3.1.-26
Act ID calculates as mentioned above; but for band it shows some error, may be due to wrong data entry. Total activities aren’t displayed hence I can’t say it clearly. But pls check the anomaly what I found on the band level, that the band OD is 125 day, activity started on 23Mar13 and RD shows as 140days. If you correct the root cause of this difference it will calculate as normal.
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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