We have been creating scenarios in Primavera P6 the same way for so long - and it completely sucks! Here’s what I'm talking about. Let's look at a project and say we want to add a second crew, or maybe change the way the project is starting. These actions are next to impossible to implement in a tool like Primavera P6. Why doesn’t Primavera P6 work for this? Let's dive into this example
Planning with Oracle Primavera P6 - Tutorials & Articles
Primavera P6 Tutorials and articles related to Planning processes.
70 Project Scheduling Terms That Every Planner Needs To Know
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The number of project scheduling and planning terms out there can be overwhelming. Interpreting and communicating a plan can become a task in itself if you are not up-to-date with the planning jargon. So here is a list of 70 Project Scheduling terms every planner should know for smooth sailing – check out the glossary below to brush up on your terms. If you have any terms that are essential
What is a Level of Effort Activity in Primavera P6? [FAQs]
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A “Level of Effort” Activity in Primavera P6 is a special activity type with unique qualities for duration. Primavera P6 will calculate the duration of a Level of Effort Activity based on dates from its predecessor(s) and successor(s). Let’s dive into some specifics about Level of Effort activities in general because they are not specific to Oracle Primavera P6 but are common tasks in project
What is High-Level Resourcing?
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We all know how versatile Primavera P6 is as a planning, scheduling and project resource management tool. P6 can handle incredibly detailed project schedules where you can plan and track thousands of work tasks by the hour. But Primavera P6 is also an ideal tool for creating high-level project plans and schedules. High-level resourcing is the process of planning your resource needs across a
How Primavera Calendars Change Durations – and what to do about it
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If you do a quick google on keywords <Primavera calendars change>, you'll end up with quite a few results that show you how to use Primavera's Fill-Down feature to change the activity calendar of all the activities in a project. But I think the fill-down piece is only the first step in changing activity calendars. What about durations? Changing an activity's calendar in Primavera can
Here’s A Quick Way To Keep Your Primavera P6 Milestones in Focus
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Primavera P6 Milestone Activities in any schedule usually represent the most important deadlines, deliveries, start ups or drop-dead dates for a project. These are undeniably dates that you’ll want to stay on top of and keep close at hand in case you’re asked for a report or to check on the health of the project. But it can be difficult to search for milestones in a large construction schedule,
How To Write Better P6 Activity Names – These 5 Easy Ways
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Every planner knows that WBS and Code Structure are essential elements needed to successfully maintain a Primavera P6 schedule network. But what about your Primavera P6 Activity Names? A sometimes overlooked schedule quality issue is the use of well articulated activity descriptions. Planners who began their career in P3 or earlier versions were limited to 48 characters in the activity
9 Common Project Controls Mistakes Companies Make That Cost Them Millions In Lost Wrench Time
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WRENCH-TIME [average hours/shift that a craftsperson spends directly working to execute construction, maintenance or shutdown activities]. It’s estimated that a worker spends on average only 3.5 hours actually working during a ten-hour shift; this is a startling figure. With industry already lacking in skilled labor, wouldn’t it make sense to try and increase worker performance? The savings of
Create A Festive Gantt Chart Xmas Tree In Primavera P6
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For all you creative types out there who love to create something awesome in a manner which is rather non-traditional....this tutorial is for you. We've already shown you have to colorize the P6 Gantt chart, but in the spirit of the holidays, here are the steps to create a festive Gantt chart Xmas tree (Holiday Wreath) in Primavera P6, complete with decorations. Getting Started with the Gantt
What is the DCMA 14-point schedule assessment?
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In 2005, US Defense Contract Management Agency implemented a 14-point schedule assessment to help the Department of Defense evaluate the enormous volume of contracts and schedules they were tasked with managing. Years later, the DCMA's 14-point Schedule Assessment has become a guideline that is widely used and has been incorporated into many software tools such as Deltek Acumen Fuse and
Benefits of Cost-Loading Your Construction Schedule
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Should you cost-load your construction project schedule? What are the benefits of cost-loading your schedule? Whenever either construction Owners or Contractors are looking at a new project, that's when these important questions come up. I'm going to look at the benefits and tradeoffs of cost-loading a construction schedule from the perspectives of both the Owner and the Contractor. Let's
Construction Project WBS – Examples to Get You Started
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When it comes to planning a construction project, many of us prefer to re-use elements from previous plans and schedules. But what if you're starting from scratch with no construction project examples to draw from? And are your past projects adhering to construction WBS best practices? Most project planners start building their construction schedule by establishing a Work Breakdown Structure.
How To Import & Export Activity Layouts in Primavera P6
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Primavera P6's Activity Layouts can be a super-feature for helping you to plan, analyze, and progress a schedule. But what about exporting Activity Layouts to other copies of Primavera P6? In this post I'll show you how to import and export those precious Primavera P6 Activity Layouts. The Activity screen is where we spend 95% of our time as Primavera P6 users. Having a facility to configure
Use Primavera P6 Reflections To Merge Scenario Projects
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Reflection projects are a little-known but very handy feature in Primavera P6 Professional. A Primavera P6 Reflection project is essentially a copy of a project but with one snazzy built-in trick - the ability to merge the copied project back into the original at any time. If the genius of this trick hasn't struck you yet, it will. This merging ability was designed to help planners work with
How To Build A Winning Report Even When You’re Off Track
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Tracking a project effectively is one of the most challenging requirements a project manager will face. Every customer has its own set of requirements and data that they want to consider; but in general, it’s all about costs, schedule and scope. The effectiveness of a project tracker is vital for a project progress as it represents a snapshot of the current conditions and can be useful for
5 Tactics To Get Your P6 Project Taken Seriously
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The other day I spoke with a scheduler friend of mine by phone to see how his construction project was coming along. From the moment I asked question “So how is the project going?” I could hear that something was up. “Good…. It’s fine. Things are moving.” “Still making progress?” “Yeah, sure.” He answered. But I could hear the frustration in his voice. I dug a bit deeper to see just
Pull Planning or Traditional CPM – Here’s Why You Should Start Using Pull Planning
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One common question that is always present in every project conversation: how do you engage the stakeholders to provide their input and convert it into a collaborative approach? Pull planning is a collaborative process that can help to get buy-in from all project participants using a backward pass, pulling activities into the process. Pull planning is a lean process and is starting to
Boring Project Reports? 11 Project Timeline Tools To Help You Create Visual Reports
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Let's face it, our attention spans are short. And they are getting shorter. All the content we digest from the internet is developed to capture our attention and hold it for as long a possible, but we all know that something shinier or sexier will show up any second now. When it comes to conveying important project information to stakeholders, clients or colleagues, we have to take the same
How To Do Rolling Wave Planning in Primavera P6
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One of the biggest challenges with building project schedules is that often you don't know the details of a piece of work but you need it on your schedule regardless. Yes, you know you need to say remediate an area once you've installed the watermain underground. But early in the project, the finer details of what that remediation might look like are scarce. Enter Rolling Wave
The Surprising Benefits of Project Risk Analysis
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“How do I convince my team that this is worth the effort?” This is one of the frequently asked questions that we run across during our discussions with project teams and it is a good question that deserves an answer. Project risk analysis is not without cost. It takes time and effort to develop the culture, processes and tools to perform them effectively and often, in the same way it takes
How To Find Relationship Lag in Primavera P6
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It's not very easy to find Relationship Lag in Primavera P6 project schedules. There aren't really any features to highlight which relationships have lag or lead time. But understanding how leads or lags are used on your Primavera P6 project is a vital part of analyzing a project schedule. We need a process to find relationship lag in Primavera P6 schedule. And I'm going to show you
4 Things Construction Owners Don’t Know About Scheduling
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Construction owners include a wide range of individuals, corporations, and governments. Their knowledge in construction project management also differs vastly. Owners hire contractors to build projects for them obviously because the contractor possesses the knowledge and capability to do so. The question remains: what is the Owner’s role in monitoring the project, and how can he/she/they do it
5 Ways A Project Viewer Will Fix Your Project’s Communications
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Project-oriented organizations are often spending valuable time and resources to find ways to share the project activities and schedule to team members in the hopes of saving bucks on the total number of deployed software licenses. This contingency plan is usually applied for the team members that are only executing the project tasks and need not change anything in the overall project plan. It is
Primavera P6 Activity Calendars Don’t Match WBS Calendar
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Ask Plan Academy. Primavera P6 is a great scheduling tool, but I hear from people who struggle with P6's Calendars alot. Here's another Ask Plan Academy question about WBS bars and Calendars from Tom, a project scheduler: "In Primavera P6, the Calendar on the WBS lines is different than the calendars that I'm on seeing on each activity. What gives? How do I fix this
Ask Plan Academy: How To Fix P6 Partial Durations
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Today we're starting a new series on Plan Academy where will be answering your Primavera P6 and project controls questions in video rather than in text. Video is such a great medium to explore and it's one that I want to continue to hone my skills with. So welcome to Ask Plan Academy. Here's a great question from Raj that we'll be answering in the video below. "In Construction, is it
Location Based Management System: Better Than CPM?
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A location based management system (LBMS) might not be something that is on your radar as a project planner or scheduler -- but it likely will be soon. The concept has deep roots in the United States. The Empire State Building is one of the most well-known examples of using a LBMS, and its use is considered a key factor in the building's rapid completion. While this method of tracking construction
Accelerating a Construction Project & Direct Costs
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Accelerating a construction project seems pretty straightforward right? Work more, pay more, save time, right? Well that's pretty close, but not quite. In fact, without digging into this a bit more, you could easily work more, save time, pay A LOT more. Let me explain. When accelerating a construction project, it's pretty self-explanatory that the job's costs will be impacted by our decision to
BIM – What Does It Mean For Construction Professionals?
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The acronym BIM stands for building information modeling. It’s a 3D digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a building. BIM is also a coordinated set of processes that allow for the creation, management and sharing of the properties throughout the entire lifecycle – before, during and after construction. Its models incorporate operational, graphic, environmental,
What is a KPI [in under 100 words]
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How do you know if your car is performing well? I’m assuming one would monitor the dashboard - tracking gas level, oil and engine lights, speed etc. Just like that, a KPI is a metric that helps you track whether you're going to reach your targeted goal. KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. It helps you determine if a project is succeeding or failing, and if the goal will be met. KPIs are a
5 Things You Should Know About Primavera P6 Calendars
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Primavera P6 has a pretty smart scheduling engine built-in, but it's not quite smart enough to know what time to tell the electricians to start in the morning and when to have lunch. That's where Primavera P6 Calendars come in. You can't build a schedule in Primavera P6 without at least one calendar. So to help you master P6's Calendaring features and understand how Calendars work with the
How To Link A P6 Schedule To The BOQ With Different Levels Of Detail
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Tutorial Files Excel Spreadsheet (Excel 2007+): PlannerTuts_BOQ_Pay_Item.xlsx P6 Schedule and BOQ challenges A contract's Bill of Quantities is always meant to be more details than the schedule, at least in theory. In many cases, the planner and the estimator are not working in perfect coordination and you may end with two different level of details for the same project. In case you need
The Ultimate Playlist for Primavera P6 Planning and Scheduling
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We all know that some days feel longer than others. And on those long long long days, we might not be feeling our most productive. It's well known that if you inject a bit of music into your day, things start to look brighter. So we recently sat down and came up with the ultimate list of song to plan by- songs to get you motivated, to get you through that tough bit of planning, and best of all,
