January 7th – 10th, PMA Consultants’ Founder and CEO Emeritus Dr. Gui Ponce de Leon, along with COO Eric Lowther and Senior Director Brian Sullivan, presented at the Project Management College of Scheduling (PMCOS) Fellows Meeting in West Palm Beach, FL. The College of Fellows honors Critical Path Method (CPM) scheduling professionals who have made significant contributions in the field, with an invitation-only, peer nomination system.
The PMA team presented “Integrated Delay Theory: Delay Fundamentals.” When analyzing delay, analysts have historically fixed their attention on methods 1) sourcing contemporaneous schedules, unconcerned about the limited predictive value and the lack of forensic modeling value of deterministic schedules, or 2) ex post facto forensic schedules, unconcerned about algorithmic precision. This dialog on the integrated delay theory explains classes of delay by causal event category: 1) overt delay, 2) covert delay from progress interruptions, and 3) covert delay from pre-use of total float before starting activities.
Further, it introduces the variance disassociation theorem postulating that it is an error to infer delay from duration variance merely reflecting duration variability, and the schedule overrun mitigation theorem addressing the combined effect of duration variability and merge bias in the later stages of execution.
PMCOS is a select group of professionals with representatives around the world, leading the way in project management, planning, scheduling, and delay analysis. Being selected by one’s peers is a prestigious honor. The opportunity to present at this meeting highlights the important work that PMA’s leaders are conducting, as well as their commitment to sharing it with the wider industry.