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 factthat delay leads to cost and time over-runs, it is often the subject of litigation claims and creation of managerialtensions. In a bid to bring such delays under control and also to diminish managerial tensions, it is necessaryto recognize and understand the following four concepts:types of delay, extent of delay, its causalityand responsibility. Existing methods would just compare actual and target progresses with each other forproject and its activities aimed at providing the extent of individual activity delay based on planned timeschedule. This paper represents a forward chain approach to calculate self-delay while distinguishing the activitiesaffecting project delay. Self-delay specifically deals with the activity itself and is irrelevant to the otheractivities. It consists of Stand By delay and progressive delay. Indeed, in the developed approach, quota ofeach activity in project delay is calculated. When analyzing a project status, a manager must calculate andanalyze not only the delay in the entire project but also the delay in each activity and self-delay.