I am managing an outsourced project for my company. Two months after the project started, the vendor has asked to change the project schedule due to delay in some tasks. We have different views of what has caused the delay. My question is: when is it allowed for a vendor to change the project schedule baseline? Saving Changes...
If your contract includes schedule controls, delay payments, or schedule penalties, then the contract should govern when a re-baseline is allowed.
Assuming you are not under contract for a certain schedule, or the contract does not specify these issues, then it is an issue that should be negotiated.
Generally, a baseline change should only happen when a change-control item is approved. A new baseline is clearly demanded if new work is added to the project. Unless you baseline the new work, it will have no baseline budget or schedule, and it will be impossible to track and control.
I have also worked on projects where there was a massive delay, due to poor estimates and some faulty assumptions. Management sometimes re-baselined the work, because trying to manage to the old dates and the old budget was just ridiculous. The new schedule bore almost no relationship to the new one, so we set a new baseline. We still kept a copy of the old baseline, for post-project reviews and to remind the vendor of their original commitment. We used the new baseline for day-to-day tracking and project control, though.
If the schedule and the baseline is very important to you, I strongly recommend working out these questions in the contract negotiation phase. I have occasionally seen contracts with delay penalties specified, but no mention of the change-control process. The vendor was able to get out of the delay penalties, because as soon as the customer accepted even one change control, they re-baselined the entire schedule, eliminating any delay.
Also keep in mind that you can set a new baseline for just some tasks. "Re-baselining" does not need to include the entire schedule. When I accept a change-control item, I only set a new baseline for the new or changed tasks. I do not reset the baseline for the entire schedule. Saving Changes...
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