You are managing a construction project to build a new office building. During the execution phase, a key supplier notifies you that the specialized steel components will be delayed by three weeks due to manufacturing issues. The critical path includes the steel frame installation, and this delay will impact the project completion date. Your project sponsor is very concerned about meeting the contractual deadline. What should you do first?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is B. The first step when facing a critical path delay is to analyze the schedule to identify recovery options before committing to any changes. Options like fast-tracking (overlapping activities) or crashing (adding resources) might allow you to maintain the original deadline. Simply updating the schedule (option A) accepts the delay without exploring alternatives. While negotiating with the supplier (option D) may help, analyzing internal schedule options should come first to understand all possibilities. Submitting a change request (option C) is premature before evaluating whether the delay can be mitigated through schedule compression techniques.

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