Starting points and objective

The process concerns projects that need to be updated and re-scheduled due to (significant) changes during the execution.

It may also concern projects that are imported or entered in LYNX “half-way” and have tasks that already have been completed.

The objective of this process is:

• to re-calculate a realistic and appropriate buffer-size
• To ensure a correct status and position of the project in the fever chart in terms of progress and buffer consumption 

Behavior is similar for Project Buffers and Milestone buffers. 

Example

Let's consider a project of 10 days, of which 4 days have already been completed. This leaves 6 remaining days.

There are two options to reschedule a project:

• Option A: Buffers are (re-)calculated based on the remaining length of the feeding and critical chains (excluding the length of completed tasks)

• Option B: Consider the original length of the chain(s) including already completed steps in the original plan when calculating the new buffer sizes. 

Option A: Set Feeding Chain Duration Feature / Current Progress

When a project is rescheduled based on "Current Progress," any progress already achieved, when calculating the Critical Chain (CC), only based on only the remaining tasks in a project. 

In the picture below the Reschedule behavior is set to "Current Progress" 

The remaining critical chain is only 6 days. In case of a project buffer size of 50% of the CC, LYNX will insert a project buffer of 3 days.

Now releasing the project buffer, we can see the buffer status column in the project portfolio. The updated end-date has not been set yet. In this example, there is no progress yet and no penetration.

Let's take an example where we adjust the project deadline such that there is 33% buffer consumption. As we can see below, there is buffer consumption but there is no progress. This is because in this scenario, LYNX assumes the length of the CC is 6 days and not 10. 

In order to account for progress already achieved in the past, the Original Duration of the project can be set through the set feeding chain feature.

Note: Currently the function “Setting the feeding chain duration” is available only for users with the role “Workspace Owner” (Master scheduler or portfolio manager). If you have the role of project manager, contact your portfolio manager.

To set the feeding chain duration, ensure you are positioned on either on the project buffer or the milestone buffer (the critical buffer) in the right side panel for which you want to update the feeding chain duration). 

Through setting the (original) feeding chain duration the project that has been rescheduled is  repositioned in the Progress Chart, according to a realistic progress versus buffer consumption. 

See the example below: 

Option B: Recalculate project and buffer sizes.

When a project is rescheduled based on "Original Plan," any progress already achieved, when calculating the Critical Chain (CC), only based on all the tasks in a project, including completed ones.

Using the same example as before, we will set the project to schedule based on original plan. LYNX will calculate a buffer of 5 days (instead of 3) based on the original CC of 10 days. LYNX will also show 4 day progress after releasing the project.

If the end-date is the same as the last example (18 October), the progress of 40% remains the same. However, the buffer-consumption is now 60%.