Surveys show that only around 30% of organisations are likely to deliver projects on time. This means that 70% of organisations need to find ways to manage project delays better.

One of the attributes of projects is that they have a defined start and a defined end. And often one of the key objectives for project managers is to complete their project by the end date.

However, not everything goes to plan, and risks turn into issues and delays occur.

But not all delay events will impact the end date of a project, sometimes they just cause a task to be a little later than planned.

One of the tools that we have to help us identify which delays are going to impact the end date of the project and which delays are not, is the critical path method or CPM.

CPM is a process to identify the critical path of a project. The Society of Construction Law of the UK defines the critical path as “the longest sequence of activities through a project network from start to finish, the sum of whose durations determines the overall project duration…”

In more layman terms the critical path are the activities that need to start and finish as planned to avoid delays to the completion date.

However, the critical path is not always easy to identify, and when this is the case, delay experts rely on six different methods to identify and assess delays on projects, which are:

• As-planned vs as-built method
• Impacted as-planned method
• Time slice or windows method
• Retrospective longest path method
• Time impact analysis method
• Collapsed as-built method

One way to help avoid delays in the first place is to keep good records of the following:

• Statused and updated project schedules
• Diaries
• Meeting minutes
• Photographs
• Correspondence
• Progress reports

By maintaining regular updates of the project schedules and good records you can identify any potential issues early and take action to mitigate or rectify and make sure that you bring the project back on track.

If you find yourself in trouble, please give us a call at Core Project Advisory, and we will be more than happy to see what we can do to assist you. Sign-up to our newsletter to be kept informed of future updates from the team here at Core Project Advisory.