Suepension of a project

mktse,

Inserting an activity will not do it as most software, if not all, do not allow you to do that, it will create a circular reference. You have to split the activity in two.

The option would be to create the work stoppage activity, to end activities that are interrupted just before the work stoppage and add a new activity to account for the remaining portion and successive logic. Somewhat cumbersome but possible only in the retrospective, when the start of stoppage already happened or in other words when the finish of the first split happened and the remaining is known.

On the other hand,in the prospective, when instructed to plan for a future work stoppage your model must allow the activities to move freely and account for changes as the work progress as well as to allow the software to do the resource leveling.

At home most Owners recognize the need to warn in advance about planned work stoppage as to allow the contractor to take mitigation measures for the benefit of both parties.

The following figure illustrates a schedule for planned work stoppage in the future, you do not know exactly how the activities will move and how the timing will change as the work progress before the stoppage occurs. You only have fixed in calendar the work stoppage activity not the predecessors nor successors.

Best regards,

Rafael

to record both reason on suspend/resume and status of each in-progress activities, recommend to insert new activity between completed and remaining.

Mike

I agree about the use of calendars for external work as well for inside work. 

With regard to a general work stoppage somehow you reminded me that it is not only about external and inside work but also about other calendars that might not be affected such as the fabrication of procured materials or concrete curing and others that might still go on while the stoppage is in effect. Same goes to some Overhead activities.

Although I generally use for deliveries a Calendar based on calendar days and never apply calendar exceptions to this calendar it is not always the case, at times I use workdays for some deliveries the supplier conditioned delivery to workdays instead to calendar days, a rare occurence. No matter what calendar you use, in these case the occurrence of such activities still happens during the stoppage period then these shall be shown occurring during the stoppage period. It will make it clear to the owner these are still going on and that not being able to receive the deliveries if the access is closed will have some consequences.

Regards,

Rafael

Hi Marcus

I have just spent 10 minutes deleting all your duplicate threads - Its a good way to boost your contribution numbers but please try not to keep hitting the save button.

Back to the subject:

Planners do not make enough use of calendars in their projects - either global or trade specific.

I use weather calendars for external work and dry calendars for inside work.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Gary,

I must agree that there are many ways to skin a cat, the user shall use a method he feels more comfortable and even he shall be able to switch methods depending on the particularities of the job or task.

When I was a SureTrak user I would organize my jobs in several ways, for very short jobs I would use the Outlining similar to MS Project, for larger jobs I would use Organize by Activity Code and for the Contract reports the single WBS it allowed me to use. Different organizing methods, same job, essentially same thing, just a matter of convenience. Yes even convenience matters.

I forgot to mention that perhaps in P6 using global changes you can apply calendar changes to activities as well as to resources. In this way you keep both definitions as per your preference.

Regards,

Rafael

P.S. Your idea on creating a new calendar under a different name is not bad, perhaps excellent for when the stoppage is not to all job but to a few tasks, it will keep needed transparency. I will keep in mind your suggestion for such cases.

Rafael makes some excellent points regarding the need to understand and reflect in the schedule any changes to activity durations and / or new activities that will arise as a result of this 3 month stoppage.

Regarding creating new calendars vs modifying existing: I prefer to create new as you can name them such that they are directly linked to the 3 month delay -I find it makes it easier to be clear about which activities were directly impacted by the suspension.

It doesn't take that long to filter on the relevant activities, group by calendar and assign the new calendars.

If your software allows you to name a calendar exception as Rafael suggest, this would work just as well -though I would still recommend retaining a copy of the original calendars so you will be able to analyse what would have happened had the suspension not taken place, at some point in the future.

Don't believe in spontaneous generation. People will not vanish and suddenly appear as if spontaneous generation. Some new mobilization activities shall be added and perhaps some remaining duration must be added to account for lost productivity due to such long stoppage.

If the work stoppage is to be claimed then I would add an activity that occurs during the work stoppage period and would split impacted activities to clearly show the added durations to remaining duration, keep it transparent, it will add credibility to your claim.

I do not like the idea of creating new calendars because then you must apply those to hundreds or thousands of activities as well as to all resources. Better edit your actual calendars, just keep a file of your job updated up to stoppage date with the original calendars and make a new file for the revised schedule with the edited calendars and the necessary additional activities as for the impact to be transparent.

If you live in the tropics, you will have only one season, spring, but if you live outside the tropics then you will also have to account on your modeling not only for reduced/increased available calendar time but also for reduced/increased productivity. It is not the same installation of windows on a sunny day than installation of windows on a cold winter day.

Recommend creating a single calendar exception, say:

Work Stoppage 01

From day 1 00:00:00 (HH:MM:SS) to last day 23:59:59.

Then apply the calendar exception to all your calendars except to the activity that will mark the work stoppage period. It would be insane going day by day on every calendar to make all days non-work days, just imagine your reporting on calendars. Better keep it simple so all your calendars and calendar exceptions can be reported in a few pages, one page for all your calendars, one page for all your weeks and one page for your calendar exceptions table. This from other software but you shall be able to adapt it to yours with ease.

Suspend & resume would work, but you can only do this once per activity so it may restrict your options later on in the project.

Moving the data date could give the impression that 3 months of unproductive work has occured, rather than 3 months without work.

I would make a copy of all the project calendars, modify them to make the next 3 months non working, and apply these new calendars to all activities.