Delay Analysis Techniques

Utilising Project Reflections &

Claim Digger

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Disclaimer
Information contained within this presentation is for education purposes
only. How a programme or schedule is built, maintained and managed is
the responsibility of the owning organisation. Focus Planning Ltd
accepted no responsibility for changes made to programmes or
schedules which are altered as a result of reading slides contained within
this presentation. The configuration and settings of computer software
are the responsibility of the license holders and Focus Planning Ltd
accept no liability for the configuration used by the license holder.

What is a Project Reflection?

Oracle define a reflection as;

A reflection is a copy of a project that has the following characteristics:

Has the same name as the original source project with reflection appended to it.
Internally, contains a link to the source project that allows the application to
merge changes to the reflection into the source project.
Has a what-if status.

Essentially a reflection is a carbon copy of a project, but unlike just hitting Copy in
P6; a reflection retains a logical link between the source project and the copy which
allows any changes to the copy to be reflected against the source project to identify
the impact of change.
This is particularly useful when calculating potential delays in a What-If scenario,
especially as P6 will provide a summary of the changes for the user to communicate
to the project stakeholders. In order to allow for a clear change control and reporting
process when calculating delays with reflections we will include a baseline
integration later in the slides which supports transparent identification of change.

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Process Summary
Over the next few slides we will go through the below high-level process in
order to identify and report back on a delay to a project..

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Original Project Baseline

Best practice dictates to take a new baseline of any project to which you will be
making changes. This is no different for using Reflections.
Before taking the reflection, take a new baseline for the project. The new baseline
doesn't need assigning at the is point, it just needs creating.
To
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

create a new baseline in P6;

Open the project to which the assessment is to be made
Select PROJECT > MAINTAIN BASELINES
Click ADD and then SAVE A COPY OF THE CURRENT PROJECT AS A NEW BASELINE
Click OK
Select the new baseline and enter a new baseline name if desired.
Click CLOSE

For the Baseline Name, it is best practice to include the following elements;
.Project Name
.Data Date
.Last Modified Date
.Change Description (i.e. Prior to Delay Modifications)

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Create Reflection
To
1.
2.
3.
4.

create a new Reflection, complete the following steps;

Go to the PROJECTS WINDOW
Find the project you just created a baseline for and right click it
Select CREATE REFLECTION...
Tick COPY next to any baselines you also wish to reflect, select the newly created
baseline
5. Click OK
6. The projects window will refresh and the reflection will appear as *PROJECT_NAME*
REFLECTION

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What if Scenarios & Edit Reflection

Now the reflection has been created it is ready to start entering changes. First open the reflection from
the PROJECTS window. Once open it can be treated like an ordinary project so the user can make
changes to activity durations, add constraints, update % complete and so on.
There are various methods to which a user can update a schedule to highlight a delay. We will look at
two of these below;
1.

Enter the Delay as a new activity

This method involves creating a new activity or activities to identify the delay, and logically linking these
to existing activities in order to move the schedule activities in line with the delay. Whilst this method
makes the delay activity clear when looking at the programme, it can communicate the wrong message
to others looking at the programme who may only look at the delay activity on its own, rather than
looking at the impact of the delay on all activities.
2.

Amend existing activities to include the delay

This method involves locating existing activities that will have an increased duration due to the delay.
For example, a delay of bad weather may mean that concrete curing takes an extra 3 days, so this
method would involve taking the remaining duration and increasing it by 3 days. The benefit to this
method is the clear variance to the last updates baseline, the main negative being the delay is not
highlighted in the programme unless the user adds a description to the activity, i.e. From Cure
Concrete to Cure Concrete Incl Delay.
For the purpose of these slides we will use the second method. The method used by the user is at their
discretion.
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Initial Assessment

Now the reflection has been changed its time to assess how it compares with the original schedule.
To do this go back to the PROJECTS window and right-click the Reflection, select Merge Reflection Into
Source Project. The Preview Changes screen will open. This screen contains a few elements which we will
go through now.

The Reflection Differences window highlights values which have been changed in the reflection, so as
you can see above the Remaining Duration for the Concrete Cure activity has changed from 10 days to
13 days. Selecting the GROUP CHANGES BY options changes the layout of how differences are grouped.
Activity lists changes by Activity, and Subject Area lists changes by change type, i.e. Duration
Changed/Logic Changed/etc.
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Initial Assessment

Below the Reflection Differences window are the merging options. These should be ticked according to
the requirements of the planner. The Prior To Merging options include two options, the first creates a
copy of the source (original) project as a Baseline, if you decided not to take a baseline of the original
project earlier you will want to tick this box in create one now, as it is a key element of how we assess
delays. The second option is user preference, as best practice it is good process to create a backup.

The After Merging Options cover what to do with the reflection after merging has been completed. Again
this is user preference, as best practice it is good process to keep the reflection for future reference but
this should be moved out of the working EPS once this exercise has been completed so as not to clutter
it up.

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P6 Output: Changes Report

Once you have selected your preferences from the previous two slides, take a copy of the Reflection
Changes window information. There is no direct printing option in this screen, so this can be achieved
either by taking a screenshot, or by selecting the first change in the table, pressing Control-A (windows
based machines) to copy the table, open Excel and paste the information. This information will be
communicated with the updated programme as it highlights the changes the planner made to the
programme to account for the delay.
Now you are ready to merge the reflection. To do this make sure your desired preferences are still
selected and then press Merge Changes. P6 will return to the PROJECTS window and refresh the list of
projects. The changes have now been applied to the source project.

New Baseline
The final action to complete is to take a new baseline on the source project, this will allow the P6 Claim
Digger to assess variations to the overall schedule.
To do this follow the steps from the previous slide (No.5)

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Claim Digger

Now we have a project which has been baselined to current progress prior to the delay, a reflection has
been used to update the programme taking the delay in to account, a report has been taken highlighting
the actions taken by the planner, and a new baseline has been taken to highlight the status of activities
with the delay entered.
Now what we can do is take the before delay baseline and compare this with the after delay baseline to
give us an impact assessment of the delay on the entire programme.
Primavera comes with a tool to help us with this, called Claim Digger. This tool has been specifically
produced to compare multiple project versions and baselines.
To access claim digger select TOOLS then CLAIM DIGGER. The below window will open. It can take some
time for the window to open, if it doesnt open after one minute then minimize P6 as it sometimes
opens on the desktop .

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Using Claim Digger

The Claim Digger dialog box contains the following options;
Select Revised Project: This is where you will select the revised project from the EPS, for this example
select the updated project
Select Original Project or Baselines: This is where you will select the pre-delay baseline was set earlier.
Select the input box and tick BASELINES, then locate the pre-delay baseline and click OK
Send Report To: This contains various options for what the format of report should be, for ease we will
select HTML
Output File: In this box select BROWSE and choose the location where you would like the report saved.
View File When Done: Tick this box to have the report visible on screen once produced
Once you have chosen your preferences select COMPARE.
P6 will confirm the report has been produced and saved and shortly after a new Internet Explorer page
will open containing the report.
The report produced contains information on all differences in the schedule before and after the delay.
This will highlight to the project stakeholders which activities have changed as a result of the delay. For
example a Project Completion Milestone may have a different Finish Date on the newly updated schedule
highlighting that the project duration has increased and the critical path has been impacted.

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Communicating the Plan

As best practice the plan should now be communicated to the project stakeholders. A familiar layout to
include in the issue is the Gantt Chart showing the pre-delay baseline against the current schedule. To
do this open the project, select PROJECT then ASSIGN BASELINES, select the pre-delay schedule baseline
and assign as the project baseline. Go to the Activities window and right click the Gantt Chart, select
BARS and find the Project Baseline bar make sure this is ticked as visible.
By following these slides the following information can now be issued to the project stakeholders;

Programme
with
Baseline
Variance

Report
detailing
changes
made by the
planner

Claim Digger
Report
detailing
changes to
the schedule

The following information is also retained for future reference;

Programme
Baseline
Pre-Delay

Reflection
with
changes

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Summary
So to summarise there are various methods to ensure delays are
analysed and recorded, but by using Reflections with Claim
Digger, we are able to track every stage of the schedule update
process to communicate with the project stakeholders.
This ensures the original schedule isn't over-written and lost as
baselines can be restored as projects in their own right, and gives
us the information needed to review the changes against the
original schedule in a format that can be reviewed by nonplanners and planners alike.
Other Delay review methods including Time Impact Analysis will
be covered in future slides and a copy will be made available on
the Focus Planning Ltd website at http://www.focus-planning.com
or by contacting info@focus-planning.com
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