It is possible in Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) to perform the Defense Contract Management Agency’s (DMCA) standard 14-Point schedule quality assessment. So, it’s not uncommon for folks to perform a DCMA 14-Point Assessment in P6.
The DCMA 14-Point assessment is a rigorous assessment for inspecting the quality of project schedules. Schedules that are judged high quality by the DCMA 14-Point Assessment have a significantly greater opportunity for success. It is important to note that exceeding an assessment threshold does not does not necessarily fail the schedule.
The assessment is not a pass/fail criteria, but rather is meant to be the starting point for dialog on ways to improve the schedule. The 14-Point assessment has been applied to an abundance of schedules and found to be a reliable indicator of future project success. The foundation of the assessment are sound scheduling practices. Several software companies, like Deltek Acumen, have embedded the DCMA14-point assessment principles in their schedule quality analysis. However, it is also possible to perform a comprehensive 14-Point assessment analysis in Primavera P6 EPPM using the built-in ”Check Schedule” feature.
Doing a DCMA 14-Point Assessment in P6 EPPM
This article discusses and demonstrates how to perform a DCMA 14-Point Assessment in P6 EPPM.
We have in figure 1 our demonstration Primavera P6 EPPM schedule.
Figure 1
This schedule is for a pipe repair and improvement project. Let’s proceed and perform a 14-point assessment on this schedule. Select Actions and Check Schedule from the drop down menu, Figure 2.
Figure 2
The check schedule dialog appears, Figures 3.
Figure 3
The complete list requires two screen shots. Scroll down to view the assessments listed in Figure 4.
Figure 4
With some minor differences this check schedule dialog includes the DCMA 14-assessments listed as follows:
- Missing Logic
- Leads (Negative Lag)
- Positive Lags
- Relationships
- Hard Constraints
- High Total Float (Total Slack)
- Negative Total Float (Total Slack)
- High Duration Activities
- Invalid Dates
- Resources
- Missed Tasks
- Critical Path Test
- Critical Path Length Index (CPLI)
- Baseline Execution Index (BEI)
Primavera P6 EPPM check schedule additions to the 14-pont assessment include the long lags inspection. The exceptions are the critical path test, assessment 12, and the critical path length index review, assessment 13. Note, each assessment’s target percentage, Figures 3 and 4. The long lags, large float, and large duration’s thresholds are all 352-hours or 44-days. We proceed in Figure 4 and click the check schedule button.
The results of the 14-point assessment analysis are in Figure 5.
Figure 5
Our pipe repair and improvement project misses three targets: logic, positive lags, and relationship types. Below the check summary is a logic report. Contract award is missing a predecessor and project management is missing a successor. Two out of fifteen activities or 13% are missing logic, Figure 6.
Figure 6
This exceeds the below 5% threshold. This is not cause of significant alarm, as the schedule is short, and it is usually acceptable for the first activity not to have a predecessor and the last activity not to have a successor. Our schedule also barely misses the acceptable threshold for positive lags, Figure 7.
Figure 7
The lags report below shows a positive lag on pour concrete. So our schedule has one positive lag for 16 links or 6%. Again, no cause for great alarm. However, the schedule misses the relationships assessment by a wide margin. This definitely is cause for more inspection and dialog. Below Figure 8 is a relationship types report.
Figure 8
Our schedule has 3 start to start (SS) and 3 finish to finish (FF) relationships. We can adjust our SS relationships and make them FS. And we can also update most of our FF relationships to FS. The only FF relationships we cannot replace are the FF relationships between strike forms & insulate piping and project completion date & project management. Our updated schedule is displayed in Figure 9.
Figure 9
We, again, analyze the 14 assessments using the schedule check feature. The resulting schedule check report is in Figure 10.
Figure 10
The report indicates that our schedule updates increase our FS relationships to 14 out of 16 or 88%, so our schedule just misses the relationships types’ assessment after some minor adjustments.
Summary
It is possible to perform a comprehensive DCMA 14-Point Assessment in P6 EPPM. Schedulers can therefore perform this helpful assessment during the schedule planning phase, and before stakeholder schedule review. As demonstrated, project managers can adjust their schedule accordingly, and almost instantaneously receive a14-point assessment report update of their schedule.
Primavera P6 EPPM, thus, supports early on and ongoing 14-Point Assessment analysis. This helps project managers focus in on scheduling issues before they become serious project management scheduling problems. Don’t forget that some of these metrics, such as the BEI require the project to be in progress, so these checks should be performed regularly for maximum benefit.