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4.4 Calculating the remaining flexibility of projectsBased on the reduction lists and due dates, it was possible to illustrate how the due dates of the items on thereduction list expire on a time scale. Quality assurance reports were typically delivered a few months prior to thefinal decision in parliament to go ahead with the projects. The time span of the projects are equal to the time fromthe date of the quality assurance report, until the planned delivery date of the final project result. To perform thecalculations, the time span of each of the projects was divided into quarters of years. For each quarter, the value ofthe still open items on the reduction list was calculated as percentage of the total project budget. Remainingflexibility of the project decreased each time a due date for an item on the reduction list passed. This value can beseen as an indication of the remaining flexibility, or room to maneuver. It was possible to perform such calculationsfor 19 of the projects. The shortest of these projects had duration of 1 year, the longest 10 years and average was 4.1years.Table 6 shows values of the remaining flexibility for each quarter of the projects. The value is presented as average,maximum, minimum and standard deviation, for each quarter. In this table, all projects are analyzed (and usuallyapproved by parliament) at year number 0. In reality, all projects did not begin at the same time, but in a sequence,usually independent of each other. As the number of projects decrease in the right column, this indicates that theprojects reach their completion. When the number of projects drops from 19 to 16 between year one and two, thismeans that the three shortest of the projects only had duration of less than two years. Only one project had durationover 7 years. The average remaining flexibility drops sharply during the first year of the projects, from almost six toless than two percent. After 6 years, none of the projects had any remaining items on their reduction lists. Only threeprojects had such long duration.Year Average St.dev Max Min N0 5,9 % 5,0 % 18,2 % 0,2 % 191 1,8 % 2,1 % 7,4 % 0,0 % 192 1,2 % 2,1 % 7,4 % 0,0 % 163 1,0 % 1,7 % 5,2 % 0,0 % 124 1,0 % 1,5 % 3,8 % 0,0 % 105 0,3 % 0,5 % 1,2 % 0,0 % 76 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 37 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 18 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 19 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 110 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 0,0 % 1Table 6. The size of the reduction lists as percentage of total budget at the end of each year of the project tinespan, beginning from the date when consultants supplied their reports, and ending when the projects aredelivered.To achieve a uniform presentation of the projects, regardless of their duration, the time scale was then converted topercentages of time span. Thus, all projects begin at 0% on the time scale. At this point, the initial remainingflexibility is represented by a full reduction list (on average 5.9%, the same as for year 0). The projects werecompleted at the 100% mark on the time scale, which in reality varied from a little more than one year to ten years,with an average of 4.1 years. At 50%, all projects were halfway between the delivery of the quality assurance reportand their planned finish date. At this stage, the average project had open items on the reduction list equivalent to0.8% (and 3,4% at the most) of the total budget. Table 7 shows remaining flexibility presented as average,maximum, minimum and standard deviation on the uniform time scale.12