Important Things To Know About Primavera P6 Calendars

The calendars have become central to the entire scheduling. If you do not have at least one calendar created, you cannot create a schedule in Primavera P6. Here is a quick overview of the calendar features which you need to learn in order to effectively use it to your advantage.

primavera p6 calendar

Calendar for Activities

In the new calendar for Primavera P6, calendars are associated with activities. This allows you to add more flexibility to your scheduling and use multiple calendars for one project. For example, if two works are going on simultaneously at different places, one’s schedule will not affect the other’s work. You can use several calendars on more complex projects involving a lot of occupations to avoid confusion or clutter. However, you can still use one calendar for the entire project if this is what seems to be a more feasible option.

Activity Calendars and Resource Calendars

There are two ways in which you can create calendars in Primavera P6, activity and resource based. The most prevalently used calendars are activity based. For example, you need to perform maintenance of a machine every second Wednesday. In order to put that activity on map, a resource calendar can be created for that machine with the maintenance cycle scheduled into it. All other work related to that machine can now be scheduled around it, wherever the dependencies exist. In order for other related activities to become dependencies, you need to create “Resource Dependent” activity type.

Time Levels

There are three ways in which you can set time levels including; hours of the day, days of the week, and days of month / year. When setting up the rules, work can be scheduled at any of these three time levels. Here are few examples to help you know how you can set time levels.

  • Select days of the month or year that are workable or non-workable, it may include local holidays.
  • Select days of the week which are workable, like setting two days off as discussed above.
  • You can also select office timings, the beginning and ending hours for work.

Calendars and P6 Scheduler

There are different time zones and working days in various parts of the world. For example, in UAE the typically working week starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off. These types of exceptional situations may arise when a project has unusual time zones to deal with. Create a calendar with Friday and Saturday off, Primavera P6 will never allow scheduling of any activity on these two days. All the work and non-work rules can be set in a calendar.

Changing Activities

Changing of activities in Primavera P6 can be tricky. Mostly, a new calendar needs to be assigned to an activity. Be careful when you assign a new calendar because the newly allocated time might add up to increase total duration required to complete the work. The adding up of time usually happens when the time levels are set in hours per day.

Primavera P6 calendars are a lot more comprehensive, although you need to learn them in order to work for you and not against you.

Common Project Control Mistakes Committed By Companies

Among many other reasons which unnecessarily increase costs and decrease efficiency of any project, one important reason is how management uses the tools, supervision, and planning to maximize productivity. However, this is an ideal situation where everything is in its proper place and there are no constraints that the management has to face. Projects control play a critical role in deciding level of productivity actually achieved.

common project control mistakes

A simple way to avoid this pitfall is to set projects control group and not the projects monitoring group which would help a company closely monitor data trends, oversee performance KPIs, and analyze work accomplished after each shift. Here are some of the most common project controls mistakes companies commit.

  1. They do not rely on any turnaround management process or formal project which would help them determine before time that milestones set at particular dates will be achieved. A project gated process or milestone schedule has to be in place to remain on course.
  2. They fail to establish effective project controls which would dynamically schedule planned activities on regular intervals like daily or on shifty-by-shift basis.
  3. There is no proper field supervision for execution of projects. These companies should consider independent field execution supervision. No matter how much resources go into planning, scheduling and coordination if all that has been chalked out cannot be acted upon. Every function needs to be designated to its relevant resource. A team made of individuals who are specialized in their own fields would produce a much better result in comparison to another team where the specialized jobs do not have designated individuals assigned.
  4. Companies may also lack in establishing formal processes which would help them proactively identify work that needs procurement or contracting.
  5. Some organizations overstretch themselves by aiming too high or setting unrealistic targets for quality of work, performance, cost allocations, and schedule durations. They should keep their primary focus on costs, quality of work accomplished, and safety of workers, everything else will eventually fall in its due place.
  6. The preliminary budget set by the companies is not correct and it fails to accurately determine scope of work. Some of the indicators which would be used in correctly estimating preliminary budgets include direct wrench hours and indirect resource estimates. One way of eliminating this problem is to use different tools to reach the cost estimations.
  7. Cost and benefit analysis tools can be very handy in determine the overall risks associated with a project. Asset management teams should rely on comprehensive tools like Primavera P6 to exactly determine scope of the project.
  8. Hierarchy of management plays a critical part in successful completion of a project. The hierarchy various from one industry to another but the key idea is to bring structure to the team. This hierarchy will help in all phases of the project including planning, budgeting, resource allocation, execution, cost controls, and quality assurance.

Management should avoid these common project control mistakes to ensure all projects are completed on time, within available budgets and without putting the workforce in harm’s way.

Ohio Gulf Coast Pipeline Project Approved

Ohio Gulf Coast pipeline map
Ohio Gulf Coast pipeline map

The Ohio to the Gulf Coast Oil & Gas Capital Project has meet Federal regulators approval.  Estimated at $468.5 million dollars the eastern Ohio pipeline project will transport natural gas from Ohio to the Gulf Coast.

Texas Eastern, a subsidiary of Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. (NYSE:SE), in February lined up four companies to use its 76-mile long pipeline extension, however were awaiting final confirmation from the agency that oversees interstate pipelines.

Now, its Ohio Pipeline Energy Network– Open Project – which is stet to go forward. Houston-based Spectra hopes the project will be done fourth quarter of 2015.

As most projects of this nature it had to clear concerns and questions from environmental, landowner and government groups. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reviewed them and approved the project Tuesday December 2, 2014.

The pipeline will stretch from the Kensington processing plant in Columbiana County through Carroll, Jefferson and Belmont counties before ending in a Texas Eastern interconnection in Monroe County. Those four counties are where much of the Utica shale oil and gas activity is centered.

Texas Eastern is poised to build a gas turbine compressor station in Belmont County and make adjustments to existing compressor centers to allow bidirectional flow.  Primavera Project Management Software is anticipated to be utilized in the project controls for this project.  PSG Primavera Consultants is poised to support contractors engaged in this project and other Oil & Gas projects meet project requirements for less through its Contractor Compliance Program offering discounted Primavera software and related Primavera scheduling and project controls services.

The Ohio to the Gulf Coast Oil & Gas pipeline is among several of the new bidirectional pipelines are emerging in the Appalachia area. Natural gas traditionally flowed  from the Gulf Coast to the eastern U.S., However, with increased production from Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia’s shale deposits these states have began exporting natural gas instead of importing it.

The pipeline is anticipated to carry up to 550,000 dekatherms of gas from the Utica and Marcellus shales to delivery points at the Egan Hub in Louisiana.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE:CHK), the most active gas producer in Ohio, notched the biggest commitment to pipeline earlier this year. Consol Energy (NYSE:CNX), Rice Energy (NYSE:RICE) and Total Gas & Power North America have also engaged in this initiative managed by Texas Eastern pipeline systems who have more than 9,200 miles of pipe across the U.S.

An Introduction to Level of Effort Activity in Primera P6

Level of Effort Activity means a special type of activity which has its own unique characteristics in terms of duration. Primavera P6 uses predecessors and successors to calculate duration of the level of activity.

integration

What Constitutes Level of Effort Activities?

Level of Effort activities is mainly created to support the main project. The work done using this type of activity only help in completion of the project but it has nothing to do with the deliverables. However, it is important because it acts as a catalyst in completion of a project. The tasks performed under this type of activities are still critical to successful project completion. Some typical examples of Level of Effort activities may include clerical or admin work, project management tasks, meetings with clients, and equipment maintenance. Activities of these kinds do not directly impact the revenue which would be earned from the project which is why it is very difficult to assign values to them in numbers.

Level of Effort Meaning

The term has been coined to mean spreading of work. The level of activity is not crucial to work flow and should not appear on Critical Path.

Use of Level of Effort Activities in Primavera P6

The purpose of creating a Level of Effort Activities in Primavera P6 is to track time spent by allocated resources on supporting tasks. The predecessors and successors are used to get dates and durations of level of effort activities performed. In order to automatically calculate these durations and dates, you need to assign FF relationship to successor and SS relationship to predecessor.

The Calculation

The calculation is done by taking Level of Effort activities date from early start date and the finish date comes automatically from the successor. The Primavera P6 calendar is used to make the date and duration calculations. In order to finalize the calculation you will need to reschedule your project. The change in duration of any of the Level of Effort activities will automatically be readjusted.

How to show Level of Effort activities?

In order to show Level of Effort activities you need to make adjustments to Gantt Bar settings. Go to Gantt Bar, right click to select Bars. Make sure the entry named “Remaining Level of Effort” is checked. If there is no such entry made, make an entry using the add button. The “Level of Effort” activities form integral part of complete project schedules as they help display all supportive tasks. Get yourself familiar with them but make sure not to overdo it.

Scheduling Best Practices To Keep Project On Track

Project schedules form an important part of planning. However, some common mistakes repeated by the schedulers often mess up the entire planning process. This article aims to look at most frequently committed scheduling mistakes which need to be avoided to remain on track for projects progress. Let us review each one by one and what it means for schedulers.

Sched Sample 1

Defining of Logics

The most common scheduling problem is leaving logic activities open ended. The activity with open ended logic does not have any successor attached to it, suspending without anywhere further to go down. There can be some scenarios in real world where this is pretty much possible that an activity does not have any sub-activities or successors related to it. However, avoid this kind of open ended logics for activities. If you fail to complete the flow, the activity falls out of critical path. If you must leave activity logic without any successors attached to it, add a constraint date.

Cautious Use of Activity Constraints

The use of constraints needs to be carefully exercised as these not usually necessarily mentioned at start or finish dates all the time. A constraint usually establishes a relationship between two activities. In this case one cannot be completed without the other. Or it can also be related to some particular deadline for a certain type of activity which needs to be completed before a specified date. A lot of guidelines for scheduling recommended sparse use of activity constraints for project scheduling.

Hard constraints are usually introduced when the open ended logic activity represents a major project milestone. In that case, hard lines can be added to lock down starting and ending dates. This practice will provide greater clarity. A milestone can be added to this open or suspended activity and the constraint is accordingly applied. The guidelines which do not encourage using constraints advocate following a safer path as not following them may create confusion between constrained activities and critical path. The true critical path can easily get overcrowded with too many constraints. Therefore, constraints only need to be used when you must have to use them. Rely on constraints like start date, end date or before or after type.

Activity Duration Dilemma

Activities without creating any deliverables cannot be usually defined in certain lengths. However, works which are measurable need to be described clearly in terms of duration required for completion. Usually, the activities duration must not exceed three months as a general guideline. An activity exceeding this period normally represents more than just an activity, an integral component of the overall project summary. In that case, this can be further divided into smaller parts to avoid confusion and be able to identify smaller tasks that need to be accomplished to complete the overall task.

Conclusion

The guidelines only provide you with industry best practices. These guidelines can be customized to match a particular situation and are not hard and fast rules which you have to abide by at all costs. Schedulers, who need to accommodate day to day contingency situations must carefully set guidelines.

Top Reasons for Business Initiative Failures

Business initiatives can play every role provided they are properly implemented. The implementation process involves some treacherous elements to surmount. Particular change initiatives often fail than any other business ideas. However, with some proactive management and closely looking at the most common reasons you can avoid this kind of situation.

business-initiatives

Establishing Cause & Effect Relationship

Organizational changes usually have widespread affects on everyone working in a company. Usually the person or team responsible for bringing the change assumes that everyone else involved will automatically understand the why. The way to moving forward is to create a vision which is easily understandable by everyone else involved. The initiative can be as simple as introducing a new layer of management or using Primavera P6 for every new project assigned.

People usually respond to change in a positive or negative manner. If the management makes them understand the positive differences, they will certainly respond in a more acceptable manner. Another way is to bring up some numbers like increase in a productivity figure or revenue or something which will improve due to the new business initiative.

Continuous Mentoring

One of the biggest problems with change is that the person or team responsible for bringing up new initiative becomes busy with someone else. The company must assign some permanent leader or mentor who continuously oversees the change along with the transition. This person will keep pushing the business initiative forward and remain a positive influencer even when everyone else has started losing interest. The change leader is the one who will brave through all corporate storms to ensure the transition not only takes place but is a permanent one.

Cultural Diversity & Business Initiatives

Organizational cultures have always been key drivers behind success or failure of business initiatives. The change flows from top to the bottom with a willing and accepting attitude. Companies with open or networked culture usually resist change. The best way forward in that case is to rely on structured methodologies to ensure the newly introduced business initiatives have been fully accepted and implemented across the board. However, the process of implementation should be flexible enough to accommodate the culture fit of the organization. However, if things do not work out, then the organization needs to change its culture becoming a more welcoming one towards new initiatives.

Defining Success

Organizations need to understand the difference between process implementation and real success accomplished. Installing a new project management system in the company is not success but it will be counted as success when it will deliver, help cut costs and ensure achieving of anticipated results. The act of switching from one system to another is not a success. Often top management makes this mistake of shutting down a change process once they have shifted to something new without realizing the actual benefits. Stick to the switching and ensure you achieve success before shutting down the entire process.

Integrating Primavera P6 with Project Portfolio Management

Oracle Primavera P6 can be very useful if integrated with social media, websites and other enterprise systems. It can greatly help in revamping management processes, improving transparency of available information and reduce costs. However, the transition may not sound very easy for a lot of IT departments.

Primavera-Project-Portfolio-Solution

The canvas of functionalities given to Primavera P6 is very wide. It is fully capable of assisting management in complete prioritization, planning, management and execution of projects. It is able to leverage responsibilities, skills, and role-based functionalities. The Enterprise Project Portfolio Management can singlehandedly adapt to various levels of dynamism and complexity involved in various projects. Besides, its ability to be scaled up to multiple projects and any number of users in different roles make it the most comprehensive project management tool available.
MGS can handle variety of projects for customers. It is able to handle both small and large scale projects of customers. You can now integrate Oracle’s Primavera Enterprise Project Portfolio Management via iBOLT Integration suit for CRM, ERP and proprietary systems.
Project management needs methodology and discipline to ensure a project gets completed successfully. The ability to execute disciplined project management skills involves deployment of right application platform and technologies. Integration of operational systems with project management systems plays a pivotal role in effectiveness of a project management office.
The integration requirements and patterns differ from one organization to another. Different organizations deploy various enterprise systems as per their specific needs. One piece of information updated in one system is automatically updated into another system. Similarly, associating one completed activity with another is very important for an ERP system. There can be several examples quoted in this regard like hourly billing, milestone payments, and threshold payments.
The rules and criteria in which one organization works usually differs from that of another. The visual configurable business flow tools are well suited for this kind of integration. Organizations need to work with these tools to optimize various IT processes in order to effectively support the Project Management Office. Make sure the business processes which are supporting PMO are well integrated otherwise you may need to start introducing your own integration processes.
Conclusion
The experience working with various technologies is critically important as it helps understand other factors involved which may include creation of detailed mapping requirements, defining business rules, utilization of use case scenarios, and normalization of data. The understanding developed for Primavera P6 is only part of the entire integration process. In order to get a grasp of everything, hiring expert for everything is very costly. The best way forward is to outsource the work.

A Guide to Creating Effective Primavera P6 Schedule

Scheduling forms an integral part of project management. There can be hundreds or few thousand of activities which need to be scheduled. The scheduling without any predecessor or successor relationships can create multiple problems for the project manager. The interconnectedness decides the order in which all tasks can be executed to achieve desired results. Lack of relationships means no network which would have no critical paths to follow. Here is a look at some simple tips to avoid this dilemma.
Primavera P6 Schedule

Set Milestones
Milestones set you apart by standing out for anyone who is going through the layout. Make sure that all milestones are put under one Work Breakdown Structure element on top right of the project. All you need to do is to add one Work Breakdown structure which can be named Important Milestones. Now cut and paste every milestone set in the project under this WBS element to make things easier to manage.

Naming Cost Heads

The allocation of costs is a very important part not only for the accounting team but also for the management to understand flow of budget. Generic names for resources can only create confusion. The best way to name cost heads is to make them relatable. For example, cash paid or interest accrued is too general a name given to a cost head. On contrary, if you name it something on the lines of travel or daily wages paid, it will make things crystal clear for every stakeholder involved.

When to Be Vague?

Some of the projects started are very large and nothing can be said about their scope with certainty. This is the case where naming conventions should convey that sense of broader aspects of matters to accommodate the changes which would occur at later stages of the project. The use abbreviations should be intelligent yet balanced. If you choose too many abbreviations, it would make it different for the management to interpret various activities named. On the other hand, too few or generic names can also generalize or oversimplify matters.

Calendar Use

The use of calendars cannot be over emphasized. The best way to remain on schedule in Primavera P6 is to make use of as many calendars as possible. There are many benefits of using multiple calendars. The first major advantage is that different activities can have separated into sub-schedules or perhaps there may be different teams working on various parts of the project. Similarly, in some projects, each phase is not rigidly tied to another milestone or dependency in completion which means separate calendars of activities can be maintained.

Incrementing and Managing Activities

The default incrementing in Primavera P6 is done by 10. However, it is highly recommended that you increment activities by 1 instead. The creation of 1 increment helps you create a simple to understand numbering convention which would ensure no other activities are added at later stages to jumble things up. Unlike the older version, you will not have to renumber all activities should you feel the need to add one activity in between as Primavera P6 automatically increments the rest of the activities. And do not force yourself to set dates for every activity. Half of the activities should have constraints so you are able to understand flow of logic in dependencies without getting overburdened with too much data to understand.

 

Oracle Now Delivers Primavera P6 Software to the Cloud

eppm-home-mainfeat-left-184264

With the introduction of Oracle Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) Release 8.3.2, Primavera Software is now available in the cloud. This best-of-breed Software as a Service (SaaS) solution can be deployed quickly and securely.

Eliminating your need for costly hardware and IT staff your total cost of ownership is dramatically reduced long term.   Oracle Primavera P6 SaaS just like its predecessors cloud applications is designed to allow admins to configure advanced functionality on the fly as business needs grow and change.

Todays Primavera P6 on demand cloud application allows you:

  • Deliver Primavera purpose-built solutions in the newest, most cost effective way
  • Establish worldwide standards and accelerate staff ramp-up with self-service capabilities
  • Institutionalize best practices for real-time collaboration with native social network communication tools

Primavera P6 cloud services include:

  • Primavera P6 EPPM
  • Primavera P6 Professional
  • Primavera EPPM Web Services
  • Primavera P6 Team Member
  • Primavera Team Member for iPhone and iPad
  • Primavera P6 Email Statusing
  • Primavera P6 Progress Reporter
  • Document Management
  • BI Publisher
  • WebLogic Application Server

P6 Cloud Connect

Primavera P6 Professional connects to the cloud using a new connector called P6 Cloud Connect. Instead of connecting to the database on the cloud, this connector is used to send and receive data. Users still have a direct connection to the most up-to-data project information. The cloud service supports all of the Primavera P6 user interfaces and mobile apps. In addition, customers can now deploy both Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera Unifier in the cloud—and run them together. Each cloud service includes both a test and a production environment.

Read More:

PPM Software, Is it your Companies 2014 News Years Resolution?

Improving Project Portfolio Management by purchasing software is kind of like trying to lose weight by buying an exercise machine. Exercise machines work great when you use them correctly

IT Governance

Getting in shape requires a plan, commitment and execution.  You have to look at your habits – what you eat, what activities you undertake, and work with integrity (The Commitment we talked about previously)  Sometimes you have to shift your paradigm by changing the foundation of daily habits.  Once you’ve wrapped your mind around eating right and increasing exercise, you are ready to use that exercise machine to reach your goal for success.

Similarly, the adoption of any PPM tool can cause more problems than it solves IF the relative questions have not been asked with a commitment to answer honestly.

These questions may be:

  • Do we have an achievable plan?
  • Have we figured out how to put it into action, our projects or programs that deliver on a strategic goal?
  • On our projects or programs, do we know what metrics we need to gather so that the numbers tell the story and allow for good business decisions?
  • Equally important, do we know what metrics are the “white elephant” that we either don’t want to gather or just ignore because not acknowledging them does not result in any useful understanding?
  • Is everyone, from planners to project admins, on the same page, willing to working toward the same project goals – and opening collaborating and workflow ?Some of the collaboration mentioned can be reports, or other project deliverables or artifacts.  But the old adage reporting just for the sake of reporting because a PPM software can– doesn’t always provide value.“PPM Software” management comes before software.   With out this element you end up managing the software (or really, letting it manage you) instead of the portfolio of work. Questions that require answers like (“What’s more important to our company?”) cannot be answered by a software tool.  You have to wrap your mind around them before you apply a project management software tool.(And, as in dieting, you have to avoid the treats: “I know it’s not in the budget, but this one project is ‘the boss’s pet project… “The Proverbial BROWNIE”!”)

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