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    Planning Using Primavera

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    • How to avoid negative float in primavera time schedule

    How to avoid negative float in primavera time schedule

    • Posted by Hany Ismail, MSC, PMP
    • Categories Planning Using Primavera
    • Date November 9, 2013
    • Comments 3 comments

    Negative float is annoying problem in any time schedule, i will tell you how to avoid the negative float in a primavera time schedule by applying these simple steps.


    A- Reasons of negative float:

    Negative floats mainly occurs as a result of activities constrains. these constrains prevent the activities to move forward as they impacted from another activities or from the project data date. lets assume that the project activity is represented by a spring, this spring has a start point and end point (start date and finish date), if  this spring was free to move from both directions and you pushed one end of it, it will simply move in the direction you pushed it on. In the other hand, if this spring was fixed from one end (start date or finish date), and you pushed this spring, it will not move, and alternatively, it will be compressed. This compression of the spring represents the negative float on an activity which has a constrain (i.e. must start by or must finish by).


    B- How to avoid negative float:

    We have to commit that dates constrains are fact on the construction projects, however the method of applying these constrains may cause a confusion to the project schedule if we used the imposing tasks to must finish / start by and no later than in primavera. Alternatively, we can use a control milestone which link the activity required to start / finish on certain date to another activity in the project as we will see in the example below.


    C- Why we should avoid negative float in the primavera time schedule?

    Schedule negative floats gives a misleading forecast dates, For example if you have a negative float in your schedule -10 days, and the schedule is showing a forecast completion date of 1-Jan-2014, unfortunately this forecast completion date is not correct and should be 1-Jan-2014 + 10 days. and in complicated projects with lot of activities with negative floats, it is hard to accurately define the project forecast completion date.


     

    D- Example of avoiding negative float using control milestones:

    Scenario 1 : Impose that start date of the task investigate the ground water levels to start on 12-nov-2013, then update the schedule with data date 15-Nov-2013 which represents a 3 days delay to the task start date, you will notice the -3 days negative float (slack).

    scenario 1 Imposed dates

     

     

    scenario 1 Imposed dates after update

    Scenario 2 : create an intermediate milestone linked to the project start date FS with 6 days lag to control the start date of the task investigate the ground water levels on 12-nov-2013, then update the schedule with data date 15-Nov-2013 which represents a 3 days delay to the task start date, you will notice that no negative float.

     

    scenario 2 Intermediate Milestone

     

    scenario 2 Intermediate Milestone after update


     

    Note: Because my example schedule has only one activity, the forecast completion date has not been impacted, however, if the schedule contains many activities you will find a variance in the forecast completion date between scenario 1 and scenario 2.

    This method should be applicable to all project management software such as primavera, Microsoft project. Try this method by yourself and tell me your feedback.


     

    Tag:avoid negative float, featured, negative float, Primavera, primavera time schedule, Reasons of negative float, time schedule

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    Hany Ismail, MSC, PMP
    Hany Ismail, MSC, PMP

    Hany Ismael is the founder and CEO of Planning Engineer Est. in Egypt. He has started his career back in 2003 as a site engineer, technical office engineer, planning engineer, planning manager, and finally planning department manager where he has been involved in several mega construction projects in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In 2016, he established his own company in Egypt “Planning Engineer Est.” Hany gained his MSc degree in project management from Liverpool University-UK 2013-2016, PMP certified from PMI-USA 2010, and BSc Civil Engineer Tanta University-Egypt 2003. Hany provided more than 3,500 hours of planning and project management training on his website planningengineer.net, YouTube channel, and offline courses since 2011. He enjoys teaching project management in simple and practical way, and he developed several planning tools, techniques and courses.

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      3 Comments

    1. blank
      imran.rana
      November 11, 2013
      Log in to Reply

      I do the same exercise in Primavera3 but results were not same, When I put Project must finish date in schedule and on delay, Float becomes negative & on doing this exercise no change come in Float.

      • Hany Ismail, MSC, PMP
        Hany Ismael
        November 11, 2013
        Log in to Reply

        do not project must finish date, impose an activity by start or finish date and then update the schedule to make the data date exceed the imposed date.

        • blank
          Prince
          April 9, 2016
          Log in to Reply

          Dear Sir Hany,

          Good Evening,

          I’m working as a project engineer right now.

          And i would like to say Thank you very much for the free account and all the training videos, it really helps me a lot.

          Best Regards,

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