Contingency Planning

[toast88]

I have a project that will have 5 phases with phases overlapping (Phase 1
overlaps w/ #2, #2 overlaps with #3, etc..). I need to build in resource and
schedule contingency planning per phase. Any suggestions/experiences on the
best way to do so since there is no clean cutoff that one phase must be done
before the other can start?

My initial thoughts are to setup a task per phase and assign resources to
the task for the desired duration of the contingency amount of the phase.

Any thoughts from you on your experience is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[JackD]

You will have to find a cut-off between phases, otherwise how can you tell
which phase you are working on? If there is no cut-off then there is no
phase

The problem might be that there are multiple cut-offs between the phase. If
I were asked to do this I'd consider inserting a number of tasks - one in
each chain of dependencies between the two phases. For example if I have a
person or group of resources which are working on a certain type of work
(call it A) another set working on B stuff and another on C then I'd have
something like


Task A1.1->A1.2->A1.3->A1.4->Phase1contingencyA->A2.1->A2.2->A2.3...
Task B1.1->B1.2->B1.3->B1.4->Phase1contingencyB->B2.1->B2.2->B2.3...

Perhaps the contingencies align, but quite possibly they don't. Assign the
appropriate resources to the contingencies.
Use the grouping feature in project to view all phase1 contingencies as a
group if you want to see them all together.