I'm struggling to identify the best way to implement a baseline change to my P6 projects once they have begun to be progressed.
The scenario I'm considering is one in which the Baseline Schedule needs to always match the contract. Part-way through execution, with substantial updating having been made to the Current Schedule to reflect actual progress and actual costs, a contract change is negotiated, one which involves substantial change to the schedule logic, durations, and resources. Clearly, one wants to reflect those changes both in the Baseline Schedule and in the Current Schedule.
One way to do so would be to detach the Baseline Schedule from the Current Schedule, make the full set of changes twice--once to the Baseline Schedule and once to the Current Schedule--and then reattach the Baseline Schedule to the Current Schedule. Clearly, this is fraught with the opportunity for error, and seems like a unjustifiable inefficiency. Surely there must be a way to make the changes only once.
Presumably, the second way to go is to make the changes to the Current Schedule, then make a copy of the revised Current Schedule, and attach that copy as a new Baseline Schedule. However, clearly that new Baseline Schedule will contain all the progress updates and actual costs of the Current Schedule from which it was derived. I haven't attempted this approach yet, and thus do not know what the consequences are, beyond the obvious that all variances for work to date are lost.
From my review of various posts, it seems that a third approach would be similar to the second, but that after making a copy of the revised Current Schedule, one removes all progress from the copy, then attaches it as the new Baseline Schedule. However, I would expect that this approach, too, would be fraught with the potential for error because I should think that removing progress would result in changes in the timing of the later portions of the work such that it no longer matches the agreement in the change order.
None of these approaches seems at all close to ideal. And yet, thus far I have been unable to identify another alternative.
Thus, I wished to ask the community if there is a consensus regarding what the best practice is for implementing a revised baseline for a schedule that has already been progressed.