Introduction

Through the Skill Buffer Penetration Analysis report you can find out which skill(s) are relatively "consuming" most buffer days, causing projects to move toward the "red" buffer zone.

This information allows you to start analyzing and implementing improvements focused on skills that potentially have most effect on progress of your projects. 

You can find the analysis in the reporting section of LYNX: 

The report also has a "Show Details" section at the bottom of the report. 

Note: the report is considering completed tasks only!

Definitions and Legend

Base Leadtime

The "Base leadtime" is determined through the "Estimated Time" for a task,  which sets an initial task  start date and task stop-date for a task.  The difference between these two dates is taken to the determine the Base leadtime for a task, and is calculated in days.

Operational leadtime

The Operational Leadtime is defined as the the difference between the actual Start and Actual Stop date of a task. In the example below, the Base leadtime is 10 days, but the Operational leadtime is 15 days: it took 5 days longer to complete the task, apparently:

Full Leadtime

A task may have  become "Ready-to-Start" (RTS), before the task was actually started. The Ready-to-Start" date is set once all predecessor tasks are competed.

The waiting time between the "Ready-to-Start" date and the "Actual Start" date adds more lead-time again. 

The difference between the "Ready-to-Start" and a the "Actual Start" date is especially relevant for "Critical Tasks" or "CLC Tasks".  Non Critical Tasks that are on a non-critical feeding chain and are scheduled "Just-in-Time", are actually supposed to wait!  As a result the "All tasks" only calculated the "Operational leadtime".

Filtering and Parameters

The Full Leadtime across all started tasks is measured for tasks:

• (Original) Critical Chain Tasks: Tasks are included that were on the Critical Chain, when the project was released
• CLC (Current-Longest-Chain) tasks: this filter includes tasks that the received the "On CLC" flag during the execution:
  • including Feeding tasks, that were not on the original Critical Chain, becomes critical during execution, as illustrated in the example below for the Task "Hardware":
  • including Tasks that received both the Critical Chain flag and the "On current longest chain" flag:
  • excluding Tasks that were on the Original Critical Chain, but are not any longer part of the Current Longest Chain

Skill Buffer Penetration Examples

The examples below are based on the lead-time pattern of just one example "Designer" task, which has been completed. 

Operational leadtime

In the example below the Designer Skill has added 5 days of additional buffer penetration, as the Operational leadtime was 15 days, which is 5 days more than the Base leadtime. 

 

Full Leadtime

In this example 5 days of waiting time has been added, between the Ready-to-Start date and the Actual Start date:

 

The Full Leadtime for the task is as a result 20 days. 

Tasks that are completed faster

In the example below the Base leadtime was 10 days, however it took only 5 days to complete a task. In this case the Designer Skill gained or avoided 5 days of buffer penetration:

Additional Explanation

Identification of Tasks on the "Current Longest Chain"

Tasks on the "Current-Longest-Chain" are identified during the daily schedule run for your project portfolio. 

If there is no buffer consumption yet and the project is still in the "Time Buffer Zone", than tasks are not included yet for this report!

"All tasks" filter

When the "All tasks" filter is selected, only the "Operational leadtime" is calculated and displayed: