Transcript B. SW Project planning & scheduling

F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
• Part 3.4 of “3. Managerial process” of the software
development plan template presented earlier consists of
• “
– 3.4 Monitoring and controlling mechanisms
• State how progress towards reaching project objectives will be
measured ...
• State how difference, for both resource and schedule, between planned
and actual "expenditure" will be analysed (for example by “earned
value analysis”).
• State frequency & content of project status reports (to give visibility on
progress).
• State how project reviews will be prepared for and organised…
• ”
• We next present some detail on these and related aspects.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
• - Up to now have covered the project planning (what is to be
done, by whom, by when, to what standards, what are the
risks, what can be done about them)
• Next, we look at running projects day by day.
• First we look at the mechanisms needed to monitor progress
• Afterwards look at what can be done to exercise control when
things are not going to plan
• In general, a project needs to be managed from the 3
perspectives of time, cost and quality. Very often,
management decisions involve a trade-off between these 3
elements.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting:
Monitoring Progress - Effort
• The basic means of collecting information on
actual effort expended on a project are Timesheets.
• These are normally completed weekly by the staff
on a project.
• Be aware that timesheets can be resented if they
have not normally been used before in an
organisation, there may be HR issues, etc. Some
political skills needed by the Project Manager!
• A typical timesheet layout is as follows:
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress - Effort
• Typical Time-Sheet Layout:
Name:
Proj.
Code
Week Beginning:
Activity Code & Title
Mo
Tu
We
Th
Fr Sa
Su
Total
To
go
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress - Effort
• The “To go” column is an estimate of the effort
needed to finish the task and can be really useful.
• However, it should not be
– “[Original estimate] – [Effort spent to date]” as this
may be (probably is) wishful thinking!
• - The Project Manager needs to examine carefully
the reason for each activity overrun in order to
correct for it and to see if there are implications
beyond that activity. For example, other similar
activities may also overrun for the same reason.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress - Effort
• The full set of information that’s needed for each activity consists of
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–
–
–
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1. Its current status – not started, in progress or completed
2. The original effort estimate
3. The original cost estimate (effort (2) times daily rate)
4. The original start date
5. The original end date
6. The actual start date
7. The effort booked to date
8. The cost booked to date (effort (7) times daily rate)
9. The effort estimated still to go [“To Go” col of timesheet]
10. The cost estimated still to go (effort (9) times daily rate)
11. The current predicted total effort (7 + 9)
12. The current predicted total cost (effort (11) times daily rate)
13. The current estimated end date.
• Clearly, some of these data are derived from others, especially cost
from effort, but also possibly duration (and hence start/end dates).
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress - Effort
• Given the individual activity information, the Project
Manager can summarise it at work package and at overall
project level.
• This is probably best done with a tool like Microsoft
Project or with a spreadsheet.
• The facilities provided by Microsoft Project, for tracking
project progress, are quite sophisticated and we do not
have scope in this module to cover them. However we do
have a simple example to illustrate what can be done [See
separate Gannt charts, baseline and tracking].
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress – Other Costs
• The kinds of costs that may arise include
– Project-specific training
– Specially-arranged (rented) office accomodation
– Subsistence costs (where staff are working away from base over
appreciable periods)
– Travel costs (e.g. to go to project meetings)
– Consumables (stationery, etc)
– Insurance (esp. where project-specific insurance is needed)
– Contract staff payment
• A general point, in terms of monitoring, about such costs is that there
may be a delay between “signing them off” and when they appear in
accounts.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress –Quality
• Quality is the third of the three elements (time,
cost and quality). This is largely covered, in fact, by the
Verification and Quality Assurance processes (to be
touched on later).
• On the Verification side, typical methods, apart from
testing, are peer reviews, walk-throughs and inspections
(of analysis documentation, design descriptions, source
code etc).
• On the Quality Assurance side, the primary tools are
independent audits of both project artifacts, especially
delivewrables, and project activities (e.g. observation of
how unit testing is being done).
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress –Milestone slip chart
Actual
Time
Scheduled Time
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress –Milestone slip chart
•
Note: Above diagram is not quite drawn exactly right!
• The diagonal line shows where the project should be if it proceeds
according to plan.
• Four milestones are indicated where the diagonal cuts the horizontal
lines.
• The first milestone is reached as planned and it was predicted then that
the others would also be reached on time.
• The second milestone had some slippage (red) and the others were
assumed to slip similarly.
• The third milestone slipped and the fourth assumed to be delayed
similarly (blue).
• Finally, the fourth milestone had some further slippage.
• Overall, this chart illustrates project slippages and what their final
effects will be.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting
Monitoring Progress –Earned Value Analysis
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This relies on the following measures of the project’s current status:
The Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP) is the expenditure to date
(which may have been spent on scheduled and unscheduled tasks and
overruns)
The Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS) is the amount the plans say
should have been spent at this point on scheduled activities.
The Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP) is an analysis of the work
actually done, scheduled or not, priced on the same basis as the scheduled
work.
We then can calculate
– Cost variance = BCWP – ACWP
– Schedule variance = BCWP – BCWS
• These two variances provide a good measure of where the project is in
terms of meeting its requirements against the planned cost and effort
budgets.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting Exercising Control
•
The previous slides dealt with monitoring progress in a project. However, to be useful, monitoring must lead
to exercising control on a project, via corrective actions where needed. The following figure (from Yeates &
Cadle) indicates where “exercising control” applies in managing a project:
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting Exercising Control
First, as a general consideration in exercising control, the nature of the project must be taken into account. The
following figure (from Yeates & Cadle) recalls that there must always be trade-offs between time, cost and quality
– it depicts three “extreme” project types but it is very unusual not to have to take all three aspects into account to
some extent.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting Exercising Control
• Possible corrective actions, that may be appropriate according to
circumstances, include
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Do nothing i.e. allow things to continue as they are
Add more staff (+ Cost, -Time (maybe))
Add different skills (+ Cost, -Time, +Quality)
Use overtime (+ Cost , -Time)
Re-assign tasks
Increase/Decrease individual supervision (+/- Cost, +/-Quality, -/+Time)
Find improved methods of working
Streamline procedures
Re-plan the project
Change phasing of deliverables (e.g. iterative life-cycle)
Decrease number of inspections
Encourage team
Introduce incentives
Sub-contract part of work
Negotiate changes in the specification
• Question: What are likely impacts on Cost, Time, Quality of the various
actions listed above? (Some suggestions are given for the first few actions)
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting Exercising Control
• Having decided on some control actions, Yeates and Cadle
suggest that there are two things a project manager should do,
namely
– Make sure that everyone knows about the changes being made and how
they will impact on the project as a whole.
– Evaluate, through the normal monitoring procedures, whether the changes
have had the desired effect.
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F. Performance, Tracking & Reporting –
Reporting (summary)
• Who are the recipients of progress reports? Typically, Project Manager’s own
line manager and the customer.
• Format and content of report may vary according to recipient. Typically,
would indicate progress on each work package against plans, list planned
work before next report, identify any problems arising, indicate status of any
identified risks, etc
• Frequency of reports will be project-dependent. For example, weekly for a
very short project, monthly for a year long project, longer for a more
extended project.
• Above reporting matters should be agreed with the customer prior to project
commencement.
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