If planned completion date of a project is prior to contractual completion date, how would you most correctly show the critical path throughout the project?
Say the contractual duration of a project is 24 months and you plan to complete the project in 21 months, i.e. 3 months before, and you show this in the submitted programme. Initially, there will be no critical path because the “real critical path” up to the planned completion date will have 3 months total float, so no activities will appear critical.
Option 1: Make a lag between “Planned Completion Date” and “Contractual Completion Date” of 3 months, thereby getting the critical path.
Option 2: Make the above lag a task instead of 3 months duration and e.g. call it “Contractor’s Time Risk Contingency” (probably only a valid term in a NEC contract?)
Option 3: Add a soft finish-constraint or deadline with the actual date of the planned completion date? Don’t like this option as the specific date has to be changed every time something else changes in the programme.
Option 4: Tick the milestone for “Planned Completion Date” as being “Always Critical” (total float constraint), however, not all planning software packages have this nice little feature for situations like this.
Option 5: Just leave the milestone for “Contractual Completion Date” out of the programme as all parties know that 24 months is the contractual duration, thereby only showing the programme with a 21 months duration (=as planned).
Option 6: Other?
Concerning option 1-4, the disadvantage is that the Project Summary bar (very top line) will show 24 months instead of 21 months, unless you keep the milestone for “Contractual Completion Date” as a separate little item (outdented to Level 1) below the main programme (presentation wise this looks silly). And showing the 24 months for the Project Summary Bar is maybe not the best thing in a tender situation where people not that well versed in Gantt charts are looking at you rolled-up 1 A4-page presentation of the project.
Regards,
Bo