Assessing extension of time delays on major projects

This paper describes the standard methods currently available for assessing Extension of Time delays on major projects, and issues around such assessment. Network-based techniques have been much developed, and are powerful and credible tools for assessing the effect of a small number of discete impacts on a project, where major reactive management actions have not been needed. The paper points to the problems inherent in such methods in other, more complex situations, and describes the contribution that other methods using cause mapping and System Dynamics can make. These, however, are also not universally useful, and the paper describes how the two methodologies can be used together to produce useful analyses of the impact of delays on a project.