I wish P3 would provide for the functionality you are asking. I know Powerproject does and won’t be surprised if Spider Project also.
P3 is excellent software but is showing its age as it was never updated after version 3.1 years ago. Others are catching up and showing some additional functionality.
Best regards,
Rafael
Member for
19 years 11 months
Member for20 years
Submitted by Sreejish Vishnu on Mon, 2009-08-17 02:09
Thanks Rafael and Vladimir for your inputs. Those links from Rafael were really useful.
I am proceeding with Progress Override option. Still the scheduling report show that many activities are out of sequence. I think i will need to deal with it seperatly with the PM. May be some incentives to proceed as per the planned logic would help the situation.
Lenear scheduling techniques could probably be used, but I cant use them for official reporting, since P3 is agreed as the software to be used. Moreover I am concerned about the EOT claims. I will need to base it on the P3 schedule and the updates thereon.
Just one doubt to what Rafael said on the mandatory and discreationary logics. Is there any option in P3 to catagorize whether a relation is mandatory or discreationary.
Member for
21 years 8 months
Member for21 years8 months
Submitted by Rafael Davila on Sun, 2009-08-16 20:13
When I suggested the functionality for exporting P3 to Spider Project it was on the idea of a one time operation.
I consider either what you call Linear Diagram or the functionality in Powerproject to display multiple activities in a single line very useful. Better than a 40 or 50 pages Bar Chart covering a few walls. The plan shall at all times be visible to the Project Superintendant and to all crew foremen. What good is your software if you cannot communicate the plan to your team? Do not misunderstand me, Bar Charts are very useful, with the use of filters you can keep them manageable. These reports do complement each other.
Sreejish
Dependencies are defined so that the work is executed in the proper order. Understand the following task dependency types before you use them; incorrect dependencies will impact the finish date of your schedule and create unnecessary constraints:
1. Mandatory (hard logic) - Inherent in the nature of the work being done.
2. Discretionary (soft/preferred/preferential logic) - Based on experience, desire or preferences, although not necessary.
3. External - Based on needs or desires of a party outside the project.
Unless you mean to follow discretionary logic avoid it. Maybe you can try by eliminating these Discretionary (soft/preferred/preferential logic) links and use resource leveling to get a distributed plan. If you change course remember to apply those changes to your resource leveling options.
You as the Contractor have the right to change course but the Owner keeps his right to be informed. If you change plans too frequently the Owner might complain.
Do not confuse Project Updates with Contractual Baselines. Contractual Baselines are set as per contractual Milestones and are used for comparison purposes until a re-baseline is requested to represent changed Contractual Conditions.
Best regards
Rafael
Member for
24 years 9 months
Member for24 years9 months
Submitted by Vladimir Liberzon on Sun, 2009-08-16 18:28
Spider Project is not time-location planning software as it is usually understood. Spider Project is rather traditional - you create the schedule model in the traditional way (WBS, activities, dependencies, resources, costs, activity durations or volumes of work, assigned resources productivities, etc.) but you can also enter activity positions on some metrics (start and finsh coordinates) and activity types.
In time-location report which we call Linear Diagram you shall select the color and the type of the line (thicknes, solid or dotted, etc.) that will represent each activity type, and which activity types to show in the chart. Then you will get the graphical report that shows when activities of each selected type will be done. The X axis of the chart shows position in your metrics, Y axis shows time. You can see when the work of the certain type will be done at any place of your metrics. So one page shows the whole project schedule that may consist of many thousand activities. This type of report is especially useful for road and bridge construction, high rise buildings construction and similar projects. But you can create any metrics and show in X axis not numerical coordinates but some text like Phase 1, Phase 2, etc.
If some schedule was imported then you shall assign activity types, start and finish coordinates and then Spider Project will produce time-location report (Linear Diagram) together with Gantt Chart, etc. I don’t think that it makes sense to use anything else if you have Spider Project. Usually Spider Project users export Spider schedules to communicate with external partners. Other products do not have the same functionality and do not have many fields that are necessary for proper project planning.
Vladimir
Member for
21 years 8 months
Member for21 years8 months
Submitted by Rafael Davila on Sun, 2009-08-16 17:42
Yes seems like time-location might be what we should look at. It is something I never used but heard before about among the many options in Spider Project. I believe TILOS is one such software but perhaps Spider Project provides greater functionality. Maybe Spider Project provides for ways to define criticality within a time-location schedule.
And what about transferring a P3 schedule into Spider Project time-location functionality?
Can you briefly define what time-location is for our knowledge?
Best regards,
Rafael
Member for
24 years 9 months
Member for24 years9 months
Submitted by Vladimir Liberzon on Sun, 2009-08-16 17:25
Spider Project provides time-location charts as one of many schedule reports (like Gantt Chart, Network Diagram, etc.). The process of scheduling is traditional.
I think that linear scheduling will not help Sreejish if activities at different places have no logical links. If some sequence was accepted then out of sequence work shall be punished in some way. One of potential solutions - to establish the sequence in which accepted results will be paid for. If previous result was not achieved then the payment for the works that follow in the baseline schedule shall wait.
Vladimir
Member for
21 years 8 months
Member for21 years8 months
Submitted by Rafael Davila on Sun, 2009-08-16 17:02
This is known as out-of-sequence progress, it happens frequently, sometimes unnoticed. If you are working on a road job then it should happen very frequently, to the point where you may ask yourself about the usefulness of CPM. Well depending on the type of job CPM might not be the best tool for these purposes.
If you want to continue using your CPM I would consider the use of schedule settings for progress override and then always after every update check on the out-of-sequence activities to make sure that although out-of-sequence happened the logic on the particular chain still makes sense.
Be advised that the Progress Override option is considered not a good option by many in the industry, so more often than not you will read articles suggesting the use of Retained Logic as the best option.
Perhaps Linear Scheduling Software is what you should consider. I believe Tilos is one of such programs and maybe Spider Project can provide the functionality, if so I am sure Vladimir and those using Tilos can provide some insight into this methodology.
Member for
21 years 8 monthsRE: Progress updates
Sreejish
I wish P3 would provide for the functionality you are asking. I know Powerproject does and won’t be surprised if Spider Project also.
P3 is excellent software but is showing its age as it was never updated after version 3.1 years ago. Others are catching up and showing some additional functionality.
Best regards,
Rafael
Member for
19 years 11 monthsRE: Progress updates
Thanks Rafael and Vladimir for your inputs. Those links from Rafael were really useful.
I am proceeding with Progress Override option. Still the scheduling report show that many activities are out of sequence. I think i will need to deal with it seperatly with the PM. May be some incentives to proceed as per the planned logic would help the situation.
Lenear scheduling techniques could probably be used, but I cant use them for official reporting, since P3 is agreed as the software to be used. Moreover I am concerned about the EOT claims. I will need to base it on the P3 schedule and the updates thereon.
Just one doubt to what Rafael said on the mandatory and discreationary logics. Is there any option in P3 to catagorize whether a relation is mandatory or discreationary.
Member for
21 years 8 monthsRE: Progress updates
Vladimir
When I suggested the functionality for exporting P3 to Spider Project it was on the idea of a one time operation.
I consider either what you call Linear Diagram or the functionality in Powerproject to display multiple activities in a single line very useful. Better than a 40 or 50 pages Bar Chart covering a few walls. The plan shall at all times be visible to the Project Superintendant and to all crew foremen. What good is your software if you cannot communicate the plan to your team? Do not misunderstand me, Bar Charts are very useful, with the use of filters you can keep them manageable. These reports do complement each other.
Sreejish
Dependencies are defined so that the work is executed in the proper order. Understand the following task dependency types before you use them; incorrect dependencies will impact the finish date of your schedule and create unnecessary constraints:
1. Mandatory (hard logic) - Inherent in the nature of the work being done.
2. Discretionary (soft/preferred/preferential logic) - Based on experience, desire or preferences, although not necessary.
3. External - Based on needs or desires of a party outside the project.
Unless you mean to follow discretionary logic avoid it. Maybe you can try by eliminating these Discretionary (soft/preferred/preferential logic) links and use resource leveling to get a distributed plan. If you change course remember to apply those changes to your resource leveling options.
You as the Contractor have the right to change course but the Owner keeps his right to be informed. If you change plans too frequently the Owner might complain.
Do not confuse Project Updates with Contractual Baselines. Contractual Baselines are set as per contractual Milestones and are used for comparison purposes until a re-baseline is requested to represent changed Contractual Conditions.
Best regards
Rafael
Member for
24 years 9 monthsRE: Progress updates
Rafael,
Spider Project is not time-location planning software as it is usually understood. Spider Project is rather traditional - you create the schedule model in the traditional way (WBS, activities, dependencies, resources, costs, activity durations or volumes of work, assigned resources productivities, etc.) but you can also enter activity positions on some metrics (start and finsh coordinates) and activity types.
In time-location report which we call Linear Diagram you shall select the color and the type of the line (thicknes, solid or dotted, etc.) that will represent each activity type, and which activity types to show in the chart. Then you will get the graphical report that shows when activities of each selected type will be done. The X axis of the chart shows position in your metrics, Y axis shows time. You can see when the work of the certain type will be done at any place of your metrics. So one page shows the whole project schedule that may consist of many thousand activities. This type of report is especially useful for road and bridge construction, high rise buildings construction and similar projects. But you can create any metrics and show in X axis not numerical coordinates but some text like Phase 1, Phase 2, etc.
If some schedule was imported then you shall assign activity types, start and finish coordinates and then Spider Project will produce time-location report (Linear Diagram) together with Gantt Chart, etc. I don’t think that it makes sense to use anything else if you have Spider Project. Usually Spider Project users export Spider schedules to communicate with external partners. Other products do not have the same functionality and do not have many fields that are necessary for proper project planning.
Vladimir
Member for
21 years 8 monthsRE: Progress updates
Vladimir,
Yes seems like time-location might be what we should look at. It is something I never used but heard before about among the many options in Spider Project. I believe TILOS is one such software but perhaps Spider Project provides greater functionality. Maybe Spider Project provides for ways to define criticality within a time-location schedule.
And what about transferring a P3 schedule into Spider Project time-location functionality?
Can you briefly define what time-location is for our knowledge?
Best regards,
Rafael
Member for
24 years 9 monthsRE: Progress updates
Rafael,
Spider Project provides time-location charts as one of many schedule reports (like Gantt Chart, Network Diagram, etc.). The process of scheduling is traditional.
I think that linear scheduling will not help Sreejish if activities at different places have no logical links. If some sequence was accepted then out of sequence work shall be punished in some way. One of potential solutions - to establish the sequence in which accepted results will be paid for. If previous result was not achieved then the payment for the works that follow in the baseline schedule shall wait.
Vladimir
Member for
21 years 8 monthsRE: Progress updates
Sreejish
This is known as out-of-sequence progress, it happens frequently, sometimes unnoticed. If you are working on a road job then it should happen very frequently, to the point where you may ask yourself about the usefulness of CPM. Well depending on the type of job CPM might not be the best tool for these purposes.
If you want to continue using your CPM I would consider the use of schedule settings for progress override and then always after every update check on the out-of-sequence activities to make sure that although out-of-sequence happened the logic on the particular chain still makes sense.
HANDLING OUT-OF-SEQUENCE PROGRESS
Be advised that the Progress Override option is considered not a good option by many in the industry, so more often than not you will read articles suggesting the use of Retained Logic as the best option.
The Myths of “Out-of-Sequence” and “Retained Logic vs. Progress Override”
Perhaps Linear Scheduling Software is what you should consider. I believe Tilos is one of such programs and maybe Spider Project can provide the functionality, if so I am sure Vladimir and those using Tilos can provide some insight into this methodology.
Computer Based Linear Scheduling Application for Highway Construction Planning
Best regards,
Rafael