Decipher The Disaster

12 Tactics to Analyze A Primavera P6 Schedule Youve Just Inherited

1 Table of Contents
Is this Guide right for me? A Cruel Inheritance A Long, Long Time Ago The Plan Scope: Schedule Mechanics Preparation Download and Import Layouts Tactic 1: Review ALL Documentation Tactic 2: See the Big Picture Dates, Durations and Deadlines Tactic 3: Do a Walk Through Tactic 4: Assess Your Projects Size Tactic 5: Unravel Your Schedules Work Breakdown Structure Tactic 6: Tallying Activity Types Tactic 7: Check Project Calendars Tactic 8: Measure Your Milestones Tactic 9: Fix Open-Ended Relationships Tactic 10: Learn about Leads & Lags Tactic 11: Check Constraints Tactic 13: Out of Sequence Activities Next Steps

Decipher the Disaster

2 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 12 14 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

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2 Is this Guide right for me?

Decipher the Disaster

Not quite sure if this Guide is right for you? Check the Primavera user levels below to see if your level matches the level of book you are about to read:

Beginner
Beginners are new to using Primavera P6 and are still learning the basics. They may have completed some formal Primavera P6 training but have limited experience using the tool to plan and manage real world projects.

Intermediate

This ebook!

Intermediate users have been using Primavera P6 for some time and may have completed a classroom course or formal training. They have experience planning and updating projects in Primavera P6 and are comfortable with some advanced features as well.

Advanced
Advanced users are competent and experienced with most aspects of Primavera P6. They have likely completed some formal training on Primavera P6 and have much experience using the tool on real-world projects. They are also familiar with many advanced features of Primavera P6. This Guide is appropriate for the following project management roles:

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Decipher the Disaster

Decipher the Disaster

Curated by Michael Lepage

Michael Lepage is a Primavera trainer and consultant. He is also an editor and author at the Planner Tutorials Hub. He has lead implementations of Primavera for companies large and small. He really enjoys writing and teaching and flying remote control helicopters.

Follow me on Twitter @PlannerTuts

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4 A Cruel Inheritance

Decipher the Disaster

It happens. You become the new owner of a project schedule that is monstrous, complex and undecipherable. WHO put it together and WHAT were they thinking? Activities: 8,200 by last count .and growing WBS: 10 levels deep Resources: no naming convention to speak of Costs: $Millions$ on the Cost Curve Relationships: serious gaps and we havent even looked at any dates yet. The boss wants to discuss key milestones with you this afternoon! Go!

This situation happens every day in our project-driven economy. Planners come and go for many reasons and what is left behind is the fruit of their labours a schedule. Whether that schedule is good or bad is up to its new owner (YOU) to decide. In some situations, you may be able to discuss the schedule with whoever developed it. Then hopefully youll have a proper transition and get up to speed fast with their help. In other situations, the person who created the schedule is gone and not coming back.

This guide is for the situation where there is no project plan handoff.

Truly understanding someone elses work and rationale for planning and developing it a certain way is a big task. There is no silver bullet solution to this inheritance dilemma. But there are some proven Tactics you can use. Read on.
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5 A Long, Long Time Ago

A long, long time ago:

Decipher the Disaster

Project schedules were simpler. I dont mean that projects were easier or simpler to accomplish. But we didnt have the sophisticated tools that store terabytes of project data in a project schedule. Schedules used to incorporate less data, were easier to create, manage, update and understand.

Today:
There are no limits on data. A 5,000-line project schedule has become the norm. Schedules are required to accommodate large scope, hundreds of resources, multiple estimates, store key scenarios and schedule work packages by 15-minute intervals. Today, projects often track to numerous baselines and get updates coming from a dozen contractors. Clients require that every detail is estimated, documented, reviewed, approved, updated, tracked and statused.weekly.

Planners and Schedulers need to know their project schedules intimately. A planner must master all of that data. Their teams rely on them to set the pace and track performance, forecast problems, highlight risks and manage the mountain of project data. We all know. if you dont have a handle on your schedule, youre in trouble.

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Decipher the Disaster

In the popular book and movie The DaVinci Code, Robert Langdon is faced with solving a murder in the Louvre. The victim is found in the Grand Gallery, naked and posed like DaVinci famous drawing, the Vitruvian Man, with a cryptic message written beside his body and a pentacle drawn on his chest in his own blood. When asked by an official why the body was laid out so cryptically, Langdon replies Captain Fache, obviously I cant tell you why.

When we open up a project we havent ever set our eyes on and try to grasp the meaning behind the data, it can feel like were trying to crack DaVincis code.

Ironically, what we need to get our bearings is a PLAN.

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7 The Plan

Decipher the Disaster

If youve recently inherited or become the owner of an Oracle Primavera P6 schedule that need deciphering, then this guide is for you. Primavera P6 is a great tool for building complex project schedules. Its also a great tool for analyzing complex project schedules. Many features in Primavera can be used to help decipher your project schedule. Then you can determine if your schedule is a disaster or not. This guide will walk you through a process to help you reveal how your plan was built. During this process well also answer the key question:

Was this project schedule built well?

Big Picture FIRST

To get a handle on your new schedule, you need to focus on the big picture first. Understanding the context for the project is as important as understanding the details. Start with our Big Picture Tactics.

Scrutinize the Details

Once we have a firm footing, then we can use Primaveras features to help us focus on specific scheduling details. Well show you specific Tactics to use and steps to take to decipher your schedule.

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8 Scope: Schedule Mechanics

This guide is geared to helping you get your head around your project with a focus on the schedule mechanics of your project. We will not cover any topics on resourcing, resource assignments, leveling, costs or cost-loading. Well focus rather on the true foundation of your schedule which addresses how it was built and organized, how it was linked together, and how it was scheduled.
$$

Decipher the Disaster

Schedule

Resources

The Resource management and Cost management aspects of a schedule are also important and we may address them in a future publication. So if youre ready, lets begin!

Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. John D. Rockefeller
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9 Preparation

Decipher the Disaster

Create a Working Copy of Your Schedule

Before you begin deciphering your schedule, youll want to preserve the original in case you ever have to go back.

Step 1: Make a Copy

We recommend you create a copy of your schedule and re-name the copy something appropriate, perhaps appending todays date to the name. This will preserve the original you were handed. With a working copy and the original still in the database, youll be prepared for anything.

Step 2: Just Schedule It!

Open the working copy of your project plan and reschedule it. This will make sure its been updated and scheduled in case it hadnt been done in a while. Rescheduling will also update many calculated fields and the Schedule Log file which well use later on. Dont worry, its only a copy. You can always restore it to the original schedule.

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10 Download and Import Layouts

Decipher the Disaster

In order to make deciphering your schedule an easier process, weve created some very useful Primavera P6 Activity Layouts for you to use alongside this guide. Well reference a layout for each Tactic we present. Weve even got a tutorial on how to import / install them. We recommend you download and install the layouts into your Primavera P6 user account before you get deep into analyzing your project. Heres how:

Installing the Activity Layouts

1) Goto http://www.plannertuts.com/decipher-activity-layouts to download the Primavera Activity layouts. 2) Read this tutorial to for instructions on how to import / install Activity layouts in P6: http://www.plannertuts.com/tutorials/importing-exporting-emailing-layouts-in-oracleprimavera-p5-p6-134/

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11

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 1: Review ALL Documentation

Do you get everything you need? Ask for ALL supporting documentation before you try to unravel this schedule. Heres a checklist: Request the Project Charter Ask for the approved Work Estimate Ask for any Scoping docs Ask for any relevant Drawings Request all Specification documents Get and read any relevant Contractual documents Is there a Document Repository on a file share somewhere these and other documents might be located? Find out and start getting up to speed.

Speed Reading 101

Once you are armed with as much documentation as is relevant to your task and the project, its time to speed read. Do this: 1. Get a stack of Post-it-Notes. 2. Scan & Tag : Go through each document, briefly scanning each section. Put a Post-it-Note on any page that may be an input to the project schedule. 3. Get rid of documents that were not relevant this should leave you with a short list of 10-15 important pages. 4. Spend some time reviewing the 10-15 important pages in detail. The steps outlined above are an easy way to remove that feeling of overwhelm that shows up when faced with..well, reviewing a monster stack of documents. The goal is to find whats important and get out. You could easily spend many days reviewing and trying to understand project documentation. Just get whats important and move on.
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12 Tactic 2: See the Big Picture Dates, Durations and Deadlines

To see the big picture youll need to gather some highlevel information about your project. That means understanding where the project sits in terms of execution and progress. Heres how:

Decipher the Disaster

4 Key Dates
To begin, there are 4 key project dates you should be concerned with: Planned Finish Date Planned Start Date Data Date Must Finish By Date the projects Deadline

Find them and jot them down on a piece of paper. Now go through the following analysis of these dates.

What to look for

Essentially, you want to ensure these dates line up properly with each other. For example: ensure the Date Date is within the bounds of the Planned Start and Finish Dates. Here are some specific items to check in.

Project Start Date

Do a quick check to make sure the schedule reflects the proper Start Date from the project specification. Check this on the Projects screen, using the Dates tab.
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13
Must Finish By date / Planned Finish

Decipher the Disaster

If there is a Must Finish By Date set, then someone has a project deadline in mind. If theres no deadline set, then you may need to ask why or why not? Is this an error or is it intentional? Better find out. Is the project set to finish before the Deadline? This is the first gauge to see how much hot water you are in. If the Planned Finish Date falls after the Must Finish By Date, then one of your first tasks in owning this schedule should be to help plan the work to finish before the deadline. If the Planned Finish Date falls before the Must Finish By Date, then its a better situation, but by how much? Its important to know how much time there is until a project becomes late.

The Data Date

Notice the projects Data Date. It should be an indicator of when the project was last updated with status information or actuals. If the Data Date matches the Planned Start Date - this is an indicator that your project is still in the planning or acceptance stage. No actuals have been should have been set in the schedule. If the Data Date exceeds the Planned Start Date, then you schedule should have been progressed as well. The Data Date should usually not exceed todays date.

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14 Tactic 3: Do a Walk Through

Decipher the Disaster

The best way to understand your current schedule is to do a walkthrough. Request some time with your projects project manager or someone who understands the schedule to do this. Walk through the schedule line by line to understand the schedule mechanics. This is not the time to fix things, but rather to make notes and to help you get a good feel for the project, its goals, key dates, impacts, progress, etc. Bring a notebook. Here are some potential questions or areas to focus on:

What to ask and what to look for:

What was working well with the previous scheduler? What was not working well? What reporting or statusing processes should you know about? Other processes? Does the schedule have known gaps? Is it missing scope? What areas of the schedule should you focus on addressing first? Does the schedule represent accurate progress in the field? Is it up to date? What impacts do you foresee that will affect the schedule?

Were sure you will come up with more questions, but those listed above should give you some ideas to be prepared for a Walkthrough of your new schedule.

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15

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 4: Assess Your Projects Size

structure. Primavera has some built-in fields to show you exactly how many activities are in your project plan. Well focus on 2 components relating to the size of a project: 1) What is the overall duration of the project? 2) How many activities make up the schedule?

Understanding how big a project plan is can be helpful in understanding a projects scope and

In Primavera
1. Open the Project Sizing Layout. 2. Note the projects duration. 3. Note the total number of activities for the project and for each phase or WBS.

What to look for

a) How long is the schedule in days? b) Could it be better divided into multiple schedules? c) How many activities make up the schedule? d) Are there enough activities to represent the duration of the project? (i.e.: is there enough detail?) e) Are there too many activities? (i.e.: is there too much detail?) Overly large schedules are hard to update, change and manage. Can you combine or merge activities or use steps to remove unnecessary activities?

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16

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 5: Unravel Your Schedules Work Breakdown Structure

your project doesn`t have one, then it might be flawed from the start. A WBS provides a common framework for the natural development of the overall planning and control of a project and is the basis for dividing work into definable increments from which the statement of work can be developed and technical, schedule, cost, and labor hour reporting can be established. Wikipedia Essentially, you want the answer to: Is this project well organized? A well-organized project is the product of a well-organized planner / scheduler. If its well organized, its going to be much easier to decipher and easy to understand.

A Work Breakdown Structure is the fundamental organizing structure of a project schedule. If

In Primavera
1. Open the WBS Summarized Layout.

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17
What to look for

Decipher the Disaster

Many companies enforce a specific WBS structure that ensures consistency across projects. Often this standard WBS will map to a CBS (Cost Breakdown Structure) to ensure the projects costs are accumulating in the right buckets. In some cases, the WBS in your project is the one youre stuck with check with your project cost engineers to see if thats the case. In the case where your projects WBS has been set by the planner, then its a good idea to check the following:

WBS Levels
Common Structure: Many WBSs follow a structure that incrementally elaborate a project. The idea is to organize the work in a meaningful and incremental fashion. A common structure is shown here: Level 0: Project Summary Level 1: Phase / System Level 2: Sub-System or Discipline Level 3: Work Package

0 Aircraft System

1 Air Vehicle

2 System Engineering

3 Program Management

1.1 Airframe

1.2 Propulsion

1.3 Vehicle Subsystems

1.4 Avionics

1.1.1 Airframe Integration

1.1.2 Fuselage

1.1.3 Wing

Depth: We want to include enough depth in the WBS to capture all our project activities at a manageable level. However, going too deep will create a system thats hard to follow.
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18

Decipher the Disaster

Three(3) to six(6) levels of depth is usually sufficient. Ten(10) levels is too deep.

Completeness
The WBS should capture 100% of the projects scope at every level. In decomposing the work from one level to the next, the sum of the work at the child level must equal 100% of the work represented by the parent. Essentially, this really means : a) Do not add extra work that is NOT in-scope at any level b) Do not leave out any work that IS in-scope at any level Check your projects WBS for the items above.

The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves. Stephen Covey

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19 Tactic 6: Tallying Activity Types

Decipher the Disaster

Checking to see what Activity Types are used on your project is another check to ensure good scheduling practices were implemented. Depending on the size and type of your project, expect Start and Finish Milestones and mostly Task Dependent activities. A few WBS Summary activities are ok, as well as Level of Effort activities. Resource Dependent activities tend to be rarely used unless there is a specific or particular circumstance.

In Primavera
1) Open the Activity Types layout 2) Analyze your activities.

What to look for

1) Is the majority of the project using the Task Dependent type? 2) Are there start and finish milestones in the project? 3) How are Level Of Effort activities used? Are they used appropriately? 4) How are WBS Summary activities used? 5) How are Resource Dependent activities used?

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20

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 7: Check Project Calendars

The Activity Calendars your project uses will affect how activities are scheduled and what assigned an appropriate Calendar, and that each Calendar is configured properly.

dates work will land on (or not land on). Youll want to make sure that each activity has been

In Primavera
1) Open the Project Calendars layout. 2) Note what Calendars your project is using. 3) Open each Calendar to ensure each is setup properly

What to look for

1) Is each Calendar setup properly? Does each Calendar reflect accurate working / non-work times? 2) Does each Calendar include corporate or stat holidays as non-work time? Is that a requirement of your project? 3) Are the Time Periods set accurately for your Calendars? (Edit your Calendar, click the Time Periods button) 4) Are your projects activities assigned an appropriate Calendar?

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21

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 8: Measure Your Milestones

According to PMIs Practice Standard for Scheduling, a milestone will represent the start or completion of a portion or deliverable of the project and may also be associated with external constraints, such as the delivery of specific required permissions or equipment. Each project should have a start milestone and a finish milestone. Heres how to check your projects milestones.

In Primavera
1) Open the Project Milestones layout. 2) From the Activities screen, goto View -> Filters 3) Place a checkbox next to the Milestone filter, ensuring no other filters are checked on. 4) Analyze the projects milestones and dates.

What to look for

1) Are there both start and finish milestones? 2) Is there both a project start & finish milestone? 3) Are the milestones to mark the beginning and completion of each phase of the project? 4) Are there too many milestones? Not enough? 5) Are the milestones properly linked with relationships?

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22

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 9: Fix Open-Ended Relationships 9

Good relationship linking is an essential part of a good schedule. A poorly-linked project schedule can steal away endless amounts of time fixing activity order and dependencies. With regard to your projects activity network, one main concern is open-ended activities. Open-ended Activities dont land in the projects Activity Network and can impact your projects Critical Path. Ideally, you have only 2 open-ended activities the projects Start and Finish Milestones. Of course, thats really ideal.

In Primavera
1) Open the Open Ends layout The Open Ends layout filters out any WBS Summary activities and keeps only activities that have no Successors or Predecessors (or both) listed. 2) Examine the list of Open-ended Activities in your project

What to Look For

1) Open-Ended activities other than the projects Start or Finish milestone that should have successors and predecessors assigned. 2) An Open-Ended activity cannot be on your Critical Path. Analyze open-ends and determine proper linkages for those activities 3) Aim to eliminate open-ends on your schedule. (WBS Summaries should not be counted as open-ends) 4) Aim to use primarily Finish-to-Start relationships in the project. Simplicity is key to a good activity network.

"There cannot be a stressful crisis next week. My schedule is already full."

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Henry Kissinger

23

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 10: Lookout for Leads & Lags

In keeping with Tactic 8s theme of good relationship and network logic, you need to delays should be minimized or not used at all. Lag or Lead delays have poor visibility on

10

understand if your project plan has any Relationship Leads or Lags. Relationship Lag or Lead

project schedules, are hard to find and hard to document. Its highly recommended to remove any lag or lead delays in your schedule. Lags can easily be replaced with an activity describing and documenting the delay, offering good visibility.

Helpful Resources
1) Read our tutorial on building a P6 report to find lead or lag delays in your Primavera schedule. Build a quick reusable report in P6 to ferret out lag or lead entries.

In Primavera
1) Build the lag report as outlined in the tutorial above. 2) Open your project and run the report.

What to Look For

1) If there are leads or lags, check activity Notebooks to see if there is any documentation as to why they are being used. 2) Aim to remove lag entries and to replace them with real activities that represent and describe the delay. 3) Aim to remove lead entries by revisiting each activitys relationships and relationship types.

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24 Tactic 11: Check Constraints

Decipher the Disaster

11

Activity Constraints can get you into a lot of hot water! How? Well, essentially Constraints override network logic and delay activities to start or finish on a user-specified date. Granted, sometimes using a Start on or After constraint to delay an activity is necessary. But many inexperienced schedulers use Constraints much too often or sometimes instead of using Relationshipsand without adding any documentation to the Activity. This becomes a major mess for someone like you who has to figure out why an Activitys dates were changed with a Constraint. Thus, youll need to check your projects constraints and decipher them quick!

In Primavera
1) Open the Activity Constraints layout 2) Examine the list of Activities that have constraints in your project.

What to Look For

1) Look for any documentation in each constrained activitys Notebook. If youre lucky youll soon know why a Constraint was added to a specific activity. 2) Check project documentation for reasons constraints are used on key activities. 3) Check for Mandatory Constraints. Mandatory Constraints are NOT recommended and should be avoided as they override relationships and destroy a projects fluidity. Remove any Mandatory Constraints or replace them with a soft Constraint. 4) Remove any Constraints that you think are not necessary. The fewer Constraints in your schedule, the easier it will be to update, change and manage. Keep the list of constrained activities down to a dozen or less.

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25

Decipher the Disaster

Tactic 13: Out of Sequence Activities

some Out of Sequence activities as a result.

12

If your project has already been progressed, you may have This situation

arises when activities are progressed, but not in the order that they were planned. For example, work begins on an activity prior to the completion of its predecessor activities. Although it may be legitimate to execute activities out of order (as determined by workers in the field), doing so can cause problems in your schedule, affect the critical path and downstream activities. A scheduler will need to be aware of when activities are executed out of sequence and should adjust their schedule accordingly.

In Primavera
1) Schedule your project (unless you have already done so). Open the schedule log. 2) Check the Errors & Warnings listing for Out-of-Sequence Activities.

What to Look For

1) Find and analyze out of sequence activities using the schedule log and Gantt. 2) Understand the contractual details around execution of activities. Are there contractual stipulations that limit or allow out of sequence execution on your project? 3) Adjust Advanced Scheduling options (F9 -> Options button). Set Primavera to schedule progressed activities as Retained Logic (if activities must be progressed in sequence) or as Progress Override (if activities can be progressed out of order). 4) Adjust activity relationships to re-sequence activities if appropriate. Update any baselines to accommodate these changes as well.

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26 Next Steps

Decipher the Disaster

Project planning and scheduling is like painting a picture. I believe its truly 80% science and 20% art. The tactics in this guide will help you with the science part. But its up to you to fill in the gaps and use your design expertise to create (or re-create) a highly-organized and intuitive project schedule. Since the focus of this guide was schedule mechanics, you may also need to dig into the following aspects of your schedule (if appropriate). Critical Path and Total Float Resource assignments Find Resource over-allocations Cost loading Earned Value Management

If you havent done so, ensure you download the Activity Layouts that accompany this guide, as outlined on page 10.

Helpful Tutorials
Use A Level Of Effort To Add Work Stoppage Info To A Project and Still Track To Your Primavera Baseline Use Reflections in Primavera P6 to merge scenarios back into your project [Video] Building a Stacked Histogram in Primavera P6 Quick Tip: Zoom! P6 Activities to Excel in 8 clicks! Schedule % Complete in Oracle Primavera The Missing Guide (Part 1) Units Percent Complete in Primavera P6 the Missing Guide Using Primaveras .Xer File Parser Import WBS From Excel Without The SDK

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27

Decipher the Disaster

Learn PRIMAVERA P6 From Expert Users

Take your Primavera P6 skills to the next level and join a growing community of planners who help & teach each other.

WWW.PLANNERTUTS.COM P6 Tutorials By Email Unique Articles Quizzes & Files New Content Weekly

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