FUNDAMENTALS OF SOFTWARE

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Monitoring and Control

Lecture-14

CS4044 - Fundamentals of Software Project Managment 1

Project Management Process Groups
 Project Monitoring and Control

■ Monitoring – collecting, recording, and

reporting information concerning project
performance that project manger and others
wish to know
■ Controlling – uses data from monitor activity
to bring actual performance to planned
performance
■ Outputs include performance reports,
requested changes, and updates to various
plans
 Why do we monitor?
■ Simply because we know that things
don’t always go according to plan (no
matter how much we prepare)
■ To detect and react appropriately to
deviations and changes to plans
Project Control
■ Ongoing effort to keep your project on track
■ 4 primary activities:
■ 1. Planning performance
■ schedule, and a control process
■ 2. Measuring status of work performed
■ Actuals
■ 3. Comparing to baseline
■ Variances
■ 4. Taking corrective action as needed
■ Response
■ Prerequisite to good control is a good plan
 Project Control
■ “Control”
■ Power, authority, domination. No.
■ Guiding a course of action to meet an objective. Yes.
■ Principles
■ Work is controlled, not workers
■ Control helps workers be more effective & efficient
■ Control based on work completed
■ Balance
■ Appropriate level between too much and too little
■ Includes:
■ Micro-managing vs. neglect
■ Too much tracking detail vs. too little
Progress Monitoring
■ The 3 key Progress Monitoring
Questions
■ What is the actual status?
■ If there’s a variance, what is cause?
■ What to do about it?
■ Possible responses
■ 1. Ignore
■ 2. Take corrective action
■ 3. Review the plan
Progress Monitoring
■ Monitoring rates
■ Daily, weekly, monthly
■ If problems occur – then adjust
■ You may have to monitor problem areas more closely
■ For some period of time
■ Almost always there’s one or more areas under closer
scrutiny
■ Status Reporting
■ Part of the communications management plan
Status Reports
■ From team to PM, from PM to stakeholders
■ Typical format for letter
■ Summary
■ Accomplishments for this period (done)
■ Tasks, milestones,
■ Plans for next period (to-do)
■ Risk analysis and review
■ Issues & Actions
■ Shoot for weekly updates
■ Email notes, then hold brief meeting
■ More frequently during crises
Traffic Light Assessment (RAG
Reporting)
■ Traffic Light Assessment (RAG Reporting) is a
method in project management to visually
indicate the status of project elements:
• Red: Not on track, needs immediate attention.
• Amber: Not on track but recoverable with
effort.
• Green: On track, meeting targets.
■ Used in reports and meetings for quick
understanding and decision-making.
Traffic Light Assessment (RAG Reporting)
■ Identify the key element
■ Break these key element in constitute element
■ Access each second level element
■ Green (on target)
■ Amber (not on target but recoverable)
■ Red (not on target but recoverable with difficulties)
■ Review all the second level assessment to arrive at
first level assessment
Project Control Cycle

PLAN
Specifications
ACTION Project Schedule
Correct Project budget
Resource plan
deviations
Vendor contracts MONITOR
from plan Record status
RE-PLAN as Report progress
Report cost
necessary
COMPARE
Actual status
against plan
-Schedule
-Cost
Project Control
■ Control – process and activities needed to
correct deviations from plan
■ Control the triple constraints
■ time (schedule)
■ cost (budget, expenses, etc)
■ performance (specifications, testing results, etc.)
Techniques for monitoring and
control
■ Earned Value Analysis
■ Critical Ratio
Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
■ Earned Value analysis is a method of performance
measurement
■ EVA is also called Variance Analysis
■ Metric of project tracking
■ “What you got for what you paid”
■ Physical progress
■ Pre-EVA ‘traditional’ approach
■ 1. Planned time and costs
■ 2. Actual time and costs
■ Progress: compare planned vs. actual
■ EVA adds third dimension: value
■ Planned, actual, earned
Earned Value Analysis
■ If total value of the work accomplished is in balance
with the planned (baseline) cost, and actual cost then
top mgmt has no particular need for a detailed
analysis of individual tasks
■ Old models include cost & expenditure
■ EVA adds schedule estimation
■ Measured in dollars or hours
 Earned Value Analysis
1. PV- Planned Value, estimated value of the planned work
Budgeted Cost
2. EV– Earned Value, estimated value of work done Actual
work completed
3. AC – Actual Cost, what you paid
4. BAC – Budget at Completion, the budget for the total job
 Derived EVA Variances
1. Planned Value (PV). Authorized budget assigned to scheduled work
for an activity or WBS component. Total PV for the project is also
known at Budget At Completion (BAC).

2. Earned Value (EV). A measure of work performed expressed in

terms on the budget authorized for that work. It’s often used to
calculate the percent complete of a project.

3. Actual Cost (AC). It is the total cost incurred in accomplishing the

work that the EV measured.
 EVA Variances
Variances from the approved baseline will also be monitored:
■ Schedule Variance (SV).

SV = EV – PV

■ Cost Variance (CV).

CV = EV – AC
Derived EVA Ratios
■ SPI: Schedule Performance Index
■ EV/PV
■ CPI: Cost Performance Index
■ EV/AC
■ Interpretation of Indexes
Earned Value Formulas
Activity
Activity
 EVA Example-1
■ You have a project to be completed in 12 months and total
cost of project is $100,000. Six months have been passed
(and schedule says that 50% of work should be
completed).
■ Six months have been passed and $60,000 is spent but on
closer look you find that only 40% of work is completed so
far.
 EVA Example-1
■ Planned Value (
■ Project duration – 12 months
■ Project Cost (BAC) = $100,000
■ Percent complete – 50% (as per the schedule)
■ Planned Value = 50% of value of total work
■ = 50% of BAC
■ = 50% of $100,000
■ = (50/100)X $100,000
■ = $50,000
EVA Example-1
■ Earned Value (EV)
■ Hence, Earned Value is = 40% of value of total work
■ = 40 % of BAC
■ = 40% of $100,000
■ = 0.4X$100,000
■ = $40,000
■ Therefore, Earned Value (EV) is $40,000

■ Actual Cost (AC)

And in our question, you have spent $60,000 on the project so
far.
■ Hence, Actual Cost is $60,000
■ Calculate CV, SV, SPI and CPI?
Earned Value Analysis
■ Benefits
■ Consistent unit of measure for total progress
■ Consistent methodology
■ Across cost and completed activity
■ Apples and apples comparisons
■ Ability to forecast cost & schedule
■ Can provide warnings early
■ Success factors
■ A full WBS is required (all scope)
Critical Ratio
■ CR: Critical Ratio
■ CR = SPI x CPI
■ 1: everything on track
■ > .9 and < 1.2 ok
Prioritizing monitoring
We might focus more on monitoring certain
types of activity e.g.
■ Critical path activities

■ Activities with no free float – if delayed

later dependent activities are delayed
■ Activities with less than a specified float

■ High risk activities

■ Activities using critical resources

Getting back on track: options
■ Renegotiate the deadline – if not possible
then
■ Try to shorten critical path e.g.
■ Work overtime
■ Re-allocate staff from less pressing work
■ Buy in more staff
■ Reconsider activity dependencies
■ Over-lap the activities so that the start of one
activity does not have to wait for completion of
another
■ Split activities
Typical change control process
1. One or more users might perceive the need
for a change
2. User management decide that the change is
valid and worthwhile and pass it to
development management
3. A developer is assigned to assess the
practicality and cost of making the change
4. Development management report back to
user management on the cost of the
change; user management decide whether
to go ahead
 Change control process contd.
5. One or more developers are authorized to
make copies of components to be
modified
6. Copies modified. After initial testing, a
test version might be released to users
for acceptance testing
7. When users are satisfied then operational
release authorized – master configuration
items updated