Development of a forward chain approach for calculating self-delay of project activities

In the field of management, the delay within projects is a prominent and contentious issue. Due to the fact that delay leads to cost and time over-runs, it is often the subject of litigation claims and creation of managerial tensions. In a bid to bring such delays under control and also to diminish managerial tensions, it is necessary to recognize and understand the following four concepts:"types of delay", "extent of delay", its "causality" and "responsibility". Existing methods would just compare actual and target progresses with each other for project and its activities aimed at providing the extent of individual activity delay based on planned time schedule. This paper represents a forward chain approach to calculate self-delay while distinguishing the activities affecting project delay. Self-delay specifically deals with the activity itself and is irrelevant to the other activities. It consists of Stand By delay and progressive delay. Indeed, in the developed approach, quota of each activity in project delay is calculated. When analyzing a project status, a manager must calculate and analyze not only the delay in the entire project but also the delay in each activity and self-delay.