The individual assignment. Project progress tracking and control

Transcription

1 The individual assignment Project progress tracking and control X-TremeIT Zimenkova Valeria

2 Version history Version Date Description Initial version of the document, draft plan of the document Updated plan, added introduction and theory part of the assignment Updated Chapter 1, added chapter Final version to be submitted in the I1 phase

3 Table of contents 1 Introduction Theoretical background of project progress tracking and control Project control Methods for progress tracking Project tracking based on milestones Earned Value Calculations Estimating percent complete Project progress tracking and control practices to be used in the project Planning Milestone plan: Iteration planning Earned value calculations Analysis of the results Implementation results Acronyms and definitions References:... 19

4 1 Introduction This document is created as part of the SW project and presents the individual assignment Project progress tracking and control. It examines project control, an important area in managing project progress. It discusses the stages methodologies of the project control. The last part of the document presents the plan how project control will be implemented in practice and what methodologies will be used.

5 2 Theoretical background of project progress tracking and control 2.1 Project control The basic processes of management control are the cycle activities of planning, organizing, executing, monitoring and control. Planning the first step in management control is through planning of the project activities. The planning should be done with the respect to scope, time and cost. Organizing the project is the second basic step is an extension of the planning process. A careful analysis must be made of the various activities required in planning and executing a project, to provide a closely related project team structure. For every project activity (e.g. programming, estimating, design, planning, procurement, construction) there must be a very clear definition of who is responsible, and who has the authority to execute the activity. That person must have a very clear definition of the scope, cost and time budget for that activity. After that team members start to execute the planned project activities. Project manger begins to monitor and control how the project succeeds. Control can be defined as comparing actual progress with planned progress, analysing variances, evaluation alternatives, and taking corrective action if needed. Monitoring refers to acquiring and analyzing data on an ongoing basis so that action can be taken when progress fails to match plans and meet objectives. Control is exercised through monitoring, reporting, analyzing of output and sending corrective signals to the input of data and resources. This cycle is illustrated in Figure 1.

6 Figure 1: Elements of the project control cycle 1 Actually, the real process is continuous and rather more complex. The cycle of monitoring, comparing and correcting never ceases until a project is completed. 2.2 Methods for progress tracking There are number of project monitoring methods: Earned Value analysis monitor the project by using an aggregate performance measure (Earned Value) Cost/Schedule Control System criteria (C/SCSC) it is an extension of EVA. It spells out a number of standards of organization, accounting, budgeting Milestone Reporting These reports show project status at a specific time Project tracking Activity tracking, error tracking, issues tracking, etc. This section describes in more details two basic methods to calculate and estimate project progress: milestones and earned value Project tracking based on milestones Milestone can be defined as a key point in time during the progress of a project, such as a delivery date, deadline, or significant point of achievement

7 If the project has identified a certain number of equal-effort units milestones to be achieved during the course of implementation, then the mere number of such milestones achieved by a certain date is an indicator of the progress toward the goal. 3 If there are N milestones in the project and each variable mi is defined to be 1 if milestone i has been achieved and 0 otherwise, then progress (P) can be expressed as 4 : mi P= *100 N For the milestone method it is very important that milestones task required more or less the same amount of effort. If this is not the case, some tasks will require more effort that others and therefore, some milestones will be more difficult to achieve then others. As a result of defining milestones as delimiters for equal-effort tasks the variable P measuring progress is linear in time. However, if the development method chosen is effort-intensive at the beginning of the cycle, P is exponential. In the case of a development method that is effort intensive at the end (as most software projects proven to be) P will be parabolic Earned Value Calculations. The background of the earned value methodology is in developments of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Energy (DoE) to control large military and energy facility investments. Integrated cost and schedule control is described in detail in DoD s Cost/Schedule Control System Criteria (C/SCSC) document, and project management processes described in several military standards are based on applying C/SCSC. 5 An estimate and budget are prepared to serve as the bases for controlling project. Thus, the estimate and budget structure is derived to facilitate the project control process. Actual performance is compared against budget figures. Project schedule and cost control should support in identifying variances and planning of corrective measures to be taken. 6 Earned value analysis is used for monitoring of performance of the entire project. It measures overall performance by using an aggregate performance measure Earned 3 Tausworth, Robert. The Work Breakdown structure in the Software Project Management, Alejandro danylyszyn. Prject progress tracking. Summer Independent Study, Karlos Artto. Managíng Business by projects, 2001, p Karlos Artto. Managíng Business by projects, 2001

8 Value. The basic idea of the earned value calculation is to follow-up the progress of project work associated with scope and results. Project schedule, and cost simultaneously, in an integrated manner. The purpose is to get an unbiased and realistic conception of the project progress and performance in the project. The Earned Value analysis uses the following terminology: Time Now - up to which actual data has been captured and processed Percentage Complete (PC) the percent of completed part of particular activity at time now. Budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS) - Cost of work to be completed at time t according to baseline schedule and budget Budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP) - Cost of work actually completed at time t according to actual data in progress reports and baseline budget Actual cost of work performed (ACWP) - Cost of work actually completed at time, t according to actual data in progress reports The relationships between these rates are presented in the chart below. Figure 2: Earned value chart To determine whether the project is overspent or under spent, actual expenditure is compared to the schedule cost, and, if less. However, this assumption may be false because no measure is made of what work has been done for the expenditure. In the most extreme case no work may have been done, and yet expenditure accrued. To control the project the actual expenditure should be compared not to schedule expenditure, but to some measure of the value of work done. As an element of work is complete, we can compare how much it actually cost against what it was budgeted to

9 cost. This budgeted cost of the actual work done is called Budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP) or Earned Value. Earned Value (BCWP) can be derived multiplying the Budget at Completion (BAC) by the percent complete: BCWP = %Complete*BAC Costs are controlled by comparing the earned value to the actual expenditure, and calculating a cost variance: Cost variance (CV) = BCWP ACWP If the variance is negative, the project is overspent, and if it is positive it is underspent. Action should be taken if this variance is non-zero. The relative performance interpretation fro the cost performance is: Cost Performance Index (CPI) = BCWP/ACWP Cost Variance Index% (CVI) = 100%*CV/BCWP The comparison between the earned value and the scheduled cost tells us whether the project is early or late: if the earned value is greater than the scheduled cost, the project is on average early, and if it is less, it is on average late. The schedule variance is calculated as following: Schedule variance (SV) = BCWP BCWS The relative performance interpretation for schedule performance is: Schedule Performance Index (SPI) = BCWP/BCWS Schedule Variance Index% (SVI) = 100%*SV/BCWS If CPI = 1,0, the project has a perfect performance. If CPI > 1,0, the project have exceptional performance. If CPI < 1,0, the project has a poor performance. Similar reasoning can be applied to the SPI. Variance indices present the same as variances but compared to budget figures. If the percent value is positive, the performance has been exceptional. If the variance index is zero, the performance has been perfect, and if a variance index is negative, the performance has been poor Estimating percent complete In the earned value calculation, the completed part of the work may be used by applying equivalent units completed, or achieved results measured, or some other 7

10 appropriate rule. 8 However, at the end the estimate must be converted to a percent complete form, and the Budget at Completion be multiplied by percent complete. If to use strict definition of earned value, based only on work complete, a bias would be introduced, because no allowance is made for work in progress. At some WBS (work breakdown structures) or project levels some allowance is made for activities started but not finished. A subjective estimate of the percentage completion of activities can be made, but this is usually an over estimate. It is often more accurate to assume that activities I progress are, on average, half finished. This principle could be adopted especially when WBS elements represent a sufficient level of detail. In this case applying roughly half complete estimates on activities does not implicate the risk of biasing the project control too much. Therefore it could be applied for activities that percents completed are always 0%, 50% or 100%. Zero percent would represent an activity that is not started, 50% an activity already started but not completed, and 100% would be a completed activity. For the whole project percent complete could be calculated by summarizing the lower level of the tasks values to calculate the value at an upper level. The percent complete is the ratio of Earned value/budget at Completion, where Earned value is the sum of % Complete*BAC, with the sum taken over the constituent activities. 8 Karlos Artto. Managíng Business by projects, 2001, p. 232

11 3 Project progress tracking and control practices to be used in the project The model of project progress practices that to be used in the project is presented in the figure below. It is a cycle process of planning, project tracking and analysing results. Figure 3: Project progress tracking and control cycle model Planning Project tracking Analyzing results This chapter presents how these practices will be applied to our project, what methodologies and tools will be used. 3.1 Planning The planning practice basically includes two main activities: milestone planning and project tasks planning for each project s iteration Milestone plan: The initial milestone plan is presented below. It is based on the schedule of the course and includes project important milestones. This plan can be updated; some new important deadlines and deliveries could be added, however we will try to avoid significant changes as it presents the project plan on the strategic level and often changes can make it useless. This plan shows how the intermediate deliverables build towards the final output. In addition it sets a stable framework for the team, provides a common vision.

12 Table 1: Milestone plan Date Milestones PROJECT PLANNING (~4 weeks) Delivery of project plan, requirements document and progress report Project reviews IMPLEMENTATION (5 weeks) Delivery of technical specifications document, test cases specifications, test report, progress report, updated old documents 1.12 Software Delivery: system s modules implemented, 3 Use cases demonstration Project reviews IMPLEMENTATION (10 weeks - holidays) 9.2. Delivery of documents and reporting 9.2 Software Delivery: system s modules integrated, more use cases implemented Project reviews IMPLEMENTATION (5 weeks) 8.3. Software Delivery: Deliver system to peer group for peer testing Delivery of documents and reporting Project reviews DELIVERY (3 weeks) 5.4. Delivery of documents and reporting Final demo Iteration planning The iteration planning is done for every iteration with use of Trapoli tool. On the basis of Trapoli plan more detailed plan is created. It is needed to overcome some drawbacks of Trapoli (for example, it is impossible to allocate group of team members to one task, if task will be done by more then one person, then ALL modifier is used to describe people responsible for the task, or in some cases only one responsible person is allocated for the task, but other team members report too). The other reason why detailed plan is important for our project is because for project progress tracking we will use Earned Value method, which requires the detailed planning. 3.2 Earned value calculations Quantity measures, such as manhours, could be used in a similar manner to monetary figures, to measure the value of work performed and progress achieved. As our project does not have any other costs but our time for earned value calculations we will use instead of money equivalent manhours. For the Earned value calculations excel file was created with the template tables and chart.

13 Figure 4: Earned value template calculations BCWS Weeks Activity Total Total Cumulative value ACWP Activity Total Total Cumulative value BCWP Activity Total 01 13, Total Cumulative value 28,

14 Earned value indicators BCWS ACWP BCWP 28,00 57,00 100,00 146,00 181,00 221,00 247,00 277,00 CV(BCWP-ACWP) SV(BCWP-BCWS) -9,00-27,00-31,00-47,00-59,00-81,00-97,00-104,00 SPI(BCWP/BCWS) 0,8 0,7 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,7 0,7 0,7 SVI(100%*SV/BCWS) -24 % -32 % -24 % -24 % -25 % -27 % -28 % -27 % costs BCWS ACWP BCWP time

15 The project progress data should be collected and analyzing weekly. In the above tables activities are activities that were planed for the current project iteration and included to the Trapoli plan. The total hours are the hours allocated for the particular activity, which then distributed between weekly hours. This information goes to the first table BCWS Project manger is responsible for monitoring weekly hours that were spent by team member for project. These figures should be put to the second table ACWP. The Earned value or BCWP is calculated based on the formula: BCWP = total hours allocated to the activity*percent completed Percent completed is calculated based on the 0%, 50%, 100% principle (see chapter 2) The result of calculations will be presented on the chart. 3.3 Analysis of the results Using the Earned value calculations we can identify nine distinct situations we could be in (see matrix below) Figure 5. Earned value results matrix 9 Earned value Ahead of plan On plan Behind Plan Ahead of plan Actual effort On plan Behind Plan In the six cases where Earned value is on or ahead of plan we should consider the following options: If our actual effort is ahead of plan, that can course us to earn value faster than we anticipated. But, will we be able to keep up that pace? Is there some special 9

16 situation that has allowed us to put in more hours? And if so, will that condition continue? If the actual effort is behind the plan, it might be that we skipped some important steps in our process. For example, if we skip reviews, or did only cursory reviews, then our testing time may take far more then we planned, because we will be finding and removing many defects that we would more economically removed in the reviews. If our earned value is behind the plan, we should have enough data to figure out why and what to do about it: If actual effort is ahead of plan, we are in the precarious position of working harder than planned, but not making progress that we expected. This indicates that the job is much harder than we expected. We should compare the actual object sizes to the planned sizes. We are likely to be building a bigger product than we expected. If not, then we simply underestimates the effort required for some or all of the tasks If our actual effort is behind the plan, then that may be the cause of the earned value problem. The results of the project progress tracking should be presented to customer and mentor in every project iteration on the project reviews. Progress report should include: A description of what happened during the project phase and an analysis how good the estimates were. What was the actual calendar time and effort spent Did the tasks change along the way Were new tasks necessary, Did we end up doing "unplanned" work Are (or were) goals of the phase being achieved Analyzing the results, especially large deviations.

17 4 Implementation results In this chapter the results of using project progress tracking and control practices will be presented in the next iterations.

18 5 Acronyms and definitions Acronym Definition ACWP Actual cost of work performed BCWP Budgeted cost of work performed (Earned value) BCWS Budgeted cost of work scheduled BAC Budget at completion CV = BCWP-ACWP Cost variance SV = BCWP-BCWS Schedule variance CPI = BCWP/ACWP Cost performance index CVI = 100%*CV/BCWP Cost variance index SV = BCWP-BCWS Schedule variance SPI = BCWP/BCWS Schedule performance index SVI = 100%*SV/BCWS Schedule variance index WBS Work breakdown structure

19 6 References: Tausworth, Robert. The Work Breakdown structure in the Software Project Management, Alejandro Danylyszyn. Project progress tracking. Summer Independent Study, Rodney Turner. The handbook of the project-based management, second edition, Stephen R Schach. Object-oriented and Classical Software Engineering, Karlos Artto. Managing business by projects. 2003