Planning, Scheduling & Programming Discussion

Description

General planning comments and questions.

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Probabilistic Chain Analysis (PCA) — A Framework for Running Projects in a Probabilistic World

Introduction

I want to share a methodology I have spent the last eight months developing, validating, and writing up — and I would genuinely value the technical scrutiny of this community before I take it further into academic submission.

The problem it addresses is one I suspect everyone here has lived:

A static risk register sums independent expected values. It treats fifteen risks as fifteen separate coin flips. It produces a number. The Project Director nods at the number. The project begins.

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AI driven tools for Planning

There’s been a lot of noise recently around AI‑enabled planning, risk forecasting, and project controls, but much less clarity on what is genuinely moving the needle beyond traditional CPM‑based approaches and deterministic controls.

From what I’m seeing, the more interesting tools are shifting planning away from being a static baseline exercise and towards a dynamic, probabilistic, network‑aware decision system. The real value seems to emerge where AI is applied to:

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Introducing the Critical Effort Method (CEM)

In many project planning meetings we observe that some parts of a schedule are significantly harder to execute than others, even when they are not located on the Critical Path.

Traditional scheduling methods such as the Critical Path Method focus primarily on time criticality. However, they do not explicitly represent execution difficulty.

Based on this observation, we recently developed a framework called the Critical Effort Method (CEM). The idea is to introduce an additional analytical layer into project scheduling that helps identify areas of high execution complexity.

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Mentor new planner in producing a Recovery Programme for a road project

Hi,

looking for an Iraqi Planner to mentor a new graduate in producing a recovery programme for a delayed road project. It would be better if they were a national as they will be firmilar with local contracts and language.

Can you guide him in this?

Drop your email below and I will pass it on

thanks

 

Peter

 

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Construction Testing, Commissioning, Handover & Start-up

Every wondered how to get more feedback from the project team on your schedule backend for those last 2 activities - Commissioning & Handover? You are at the very start of the project with very little commissioning and ops input so you just put those 2 activity bars from 70% construction complete to the contract handover date without any more thought.

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Summary Schedule; L4 to L2

Hello,

I'd be grateful if anyone could give me some pointers as to how I might share my Level 4/5 working level detailed schedule with the client. I dont want them to see all of our secrets and also dont want to have to create a duplicate, but more summary scedule.

Has anyone got some ideas on a suggested best practice approach please.

Thx Dean

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P6 (non cloud version)

Hello guys,

I'm about to embark on a PhD in Project Management. I hear that P6 is available free for non-commercail activites.

If so, I'm after the version that is installed on my laptop and NOT the cloud version as I travel a lot and work while flying.

Can any one point me in the right direction, please? I've tried the Oracle website but the chat-bot INSISTS of a business email account. This is NOT for business, so I get bombed-out...

Thanks in advance

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Activities Spanning More Days than it should in a Primavera P6 Schedule

Hi Dears

After having created and updated a CPM schedule using Primavera P6 you notice that some 1 day activities are spanning 2 days. How could this be possible?

Although you are scheduling your schedule in days Primavera behind the scenes actually utilizes the hour and minute functions of a day within the program to perform the forward and backward passes.

If you look a 1 day activity you may find that a 1 day duration activity actually spanning 2 days.

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P6 Prof v24.12 XERP330Convert.exe

Hello,

I want to know where in the P6 Professioanl v24.12 file structure to find the P6 XER to SDEF format conversion program, XERP330Convert.exe, so I can write an article to help direct others in converting XER files to SDEF format.

So far, I have been unable to locate this exe file in P6 Prof v24.12 file structure.

Does Oracle still support this Converter program?

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Baseline/Updated program of works

Hi All

I have query that I have recieved Main Contractor Program of works as first program during the execution of project with Baseline dates and Updated/Revised dates together,Program of works also carrying -36 days TF,

I am claiming this program with udated dates as a Baseline program for us with responsibility of -ve TF under Main Contractor...

Is my claim justified !!!or there is better way to handle thesituation !!!!

The program of works fil is provided in pdf format only.

Regards

Khawaja

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