1. Software Project Management
Session 9: Project Control
Q7503, Fall 2002

2. Today Session 8 Review Project Control Status Reporting
Earned Value Analysis
MS Project
Q7503, Fall 2002

3. Session 8 Review Project roles and team structure CMM Requirements
Q7503, Fall 2002

4. Project Control Ongoing effort to keep your project on track
4 primary activities:
1. Planning performance
A SDP, 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
Q7503, Fall 2002

5. Project Control “Control” Principles 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
Use concrete deliverables
Balance
Appropriate level between too much and too little
Includes:
Micro-managing vs. neglect
Too much tracking detail vs. too little
Q7503, Fall 2002

6. 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
Q7503, Fall 2002

7. 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
Which is usually just a section of SDP
Q7503, Fall 2002

8. Status Reports From team to PM, from PM to stakeholders
Typical format for latter
Summary
Accomplishments for this period (done)
Tasks, milestones, metrics
Plans for next period (to-do)
Risk analysis and review
Issues & Actions
Shoot for weekly updates
notes, then hold brief meeting
More frequently during crises
Q7503, Fall 2002

9. Programming Status Reporting
A programmer reports that he’s 90% done.
What does this mean?
A programmer reports completing 4,000 LOC on estimated 5,000 LOC effort.
Is this 80% complete?
Quality?
Ratio, estimated to completed?
Your estimates could have been wrong
If you can’t measure scope or quality you don’t know “reality”
You really only know cost (hours spent)
How can you improve this?
Q7503, Fall 2002

10. Binary Reporting
Work packages (tasks) can only be in one of 2 states: complete or incomplete
No partial credit
Preferred to anything subjective!
“90% Complete Syndrome”
Software is 90% complete 90% of the time
Use lower-level task decomposition
Tangible exit criteria
Plan for 4-80 staff hours of effort per task
Q7503, Fall 2002

11. Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
a.k.a. Earned Value Management (EVM)
a.k.a. 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
Q7503, Fall 2002

12. Earned Value Analysis Forecasting Measured in dollars or hours
Old models include cost & expenditure
EVA adds schedule estimation
Measured in dollars or hours
Often time used in software projects
Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB)
Time-phased budget plan against which contract performance is measured
Cost & schedule variances go against this
Best via a bottom-up plan
Q7503, Fall 2002

13. Earned Value Analysis Different methods are available
Binary Reporting
Others include
Based on % complete
Weights applied to milestones
EVA can signal errors as early as 15% into project
Alphabet Soup
Q7503, Fall 2002

14. Earned Value Analysis 3 major components
BCWS: Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled
Now called “Planned Value” (PV)
“Yearned”
How much work should be done?
BCWP: Budgeted Cost of Work Performed
Now called “earned value” (EV)
“Earned”
How much work is done?
BCWS * % complete
ACWP: Actual Cost of Work Performed
Now called “Actual Cost” (AC)
“Burned”
How much did the work done cost?
Q7503, Fall 2002

15. Derived EVA Variances SV: Schedule Variance CV: Cost Variance
BCWP – BCWS
Planned work vs. work completed
CV: Cost Variance
BCWP – ACWP
Budgeted costs vs. actual costs
Negatives are termed ‘unfavorable’
Can be plotted on ‘spending curves’
Cumulative cost (Y axis) vs. Time (X axis)
Typically in an ‘S’ shape
“What is the project status”?
You can use variances to answer this
Q7503, Fall 2002

16. Earned Value Analysis
Q7503, Fall 2002

17. Derived EVA Ratios SPI: Schedule Performance Index
BCWP / BCWS
CPI: Cost Performance Index
BCWP / ACWP
Problems in project if either of these less than 1 (or 100%)
Q7503, Fall 2002

18. Earned Value Analysis Other Derived Values BAC: Budget At Completion
Sum of all budges (BCWS). Your original budget.
EAC: Estimate At Completion
Forecast total cost at completion
EAC = ((BAC – BCWP)/CPI) + ACWP
Unfinished work divided by CPI added to sunk cost
If CPI < 1, EAC will be > BAC
CR: Critical Ratio
SPI x CPI
1: everything on track
> .9 and < 1.2 ok
Can be charted
Q7503, Fall 2002

19. EVA Example
As of 1-July where are we?
BCWS
BCWP
ACWP
Q7503, Fall 2002

20. EVA Example CV SV
CPI
SPI CR
Q7503, Fall 2002

21. Earned Value Analysis BCWS Remember it’s an aggregate figure
Use ‘loaded labor’ rates if possible
Direct pay + overhead
Remember it’s an aggregate figure
May hide where the problem lies
Beware of counterbalancing issues
Over in one area vs. under in another
Q7503, Fall 2002

22. Earned Value Analysis Benefits Success factors
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)
Beware of GIGO: Garbage-in, garbage-out
Q7503, Fall 2002

23. The MS-Project Process
Move WBS into a Project outline (in Task Sheet)
Add resources (team members or roles)
Add costs for resources
Assign resources to tasks
Establish dependencies
Refine and optimize
Create baseline
Track progress (enter actuals, etc.)
Q7503, Fall 2002

24. Project Overview This is a ‘quickie’ overview
We will return to all of these steps individually over the next few weeks
Sample project from McConnell
Q7503, Fall 2002

25. Project UI Views Default is Gant Chart View View Bar on far left
2 panes
Task Sheet on left (a table)
Gantt Chart on right
View Bar on far left
Q7503, Fall 2002

26. Project UI
Q7503, Fall 2002

27. Create Your Project File/New Setup start date Setup calendar
Menu: Project/Project Information
Often left with default settings
Hours, holidays
Q7503, Fall 2002

28. Enter WBS Outlining Sub-tasks and summary tasks
Do not enter start/end dates for each
Just start with Task Name and Duration for each
Use Indent/Outdent buttons to define summary tasks and subtasks
You can enter specific Start/End dates but don’t most of the time
Q7503, Fall 2002

29. Establish Durations Know the abbreviations Can use partial
h/d/w/m
D is default
Can use partial
.5d is a half-day task
Elapsed durations
Estimated durations
Put a ‘?’ after duration
Q7503, Fall 2002

30. Add Resources Work Resources Material Resources People Things
Can be used to track costs
Ex: amount of equipment purshased
Not used as often in typical software project
Q7503, Fall 2002

31. Resource Sheet Can add new resources here Setup costs
Or directly in the task entry sheet
Beware of mis-spellings (Project will create near-duplicates)
Setup costs
Such as annual salary (put ‘yr’ after ‘Std. Rate’)
Q7503, Fall 2002

32. Effort-Driven Scheduling
MS-Project default
Duration * Units = Work
Duration = Work / Units (D = W/U)
Work = Duration * Units (W = D*U)
Units = Work / Duration (U = W/D)
Adding more resources to a task shortens duration
Can be changed on a per-task basis
In the advanced tab of Task Information dialog box
Task Type setting
Beware the Mythical Man-month
Good for laying bricks, not always so for software development
Q7503, Fall 2002

33. Link Tasks On toolbar: Link & Unlink buttons Or via Gantt chart
Good for many at once
Or via Gantt chart
Drag from one task to another
Q7503, Fall 2002

34. Milestones Zero duration tasks
Insert task ‘normally’ but put 0 in duration
Q7503, Fall 2002

35. Make Assignments Approach 1. Using Task Sheet
Using Resource Names column
You can create new ones by just typing-in here
2. Using Assign Resources dialog box
Good for multiple resources
Highlight task, Tools/Resources or toolbar button
3. Using Task Information dialog
Resources tab
4. Task Entry view
View/More Views/Task Entry
Or Task Entry view on Resource Mgmt. toolbar
Q7503, Fall 2002

36. Save Baseline Saves all current information about your project
Dates, resource assignments, durations, costs
Q7503, Fall 2002

37. Fine Tune Then is used later as basis for comparing against “actuals”
Menu: Tools/Tracking/Save Baseline
Q7503, Fall 2002

38. Project 2002 3 Editions: Standard, Professional, Server
MS Project Server 2002
Upgrade of old “Project Central”
Includes “Project Web Access”, web-based UI (partial)
Workgroup and resource notification features
Requires SQL-Server and IIS
“Portfolio Analyzer”
Drill-down into projects via pivot tables & charts
“Portfolio Modeler”
Create models and “what-if” scenarios
SharePoint Team Services integration
Q7503, Fall 2002

39. Project 2002 MS-Project Professional “Project Guide” feature
“Build Team” feature
Skills-based resource matching
Resource Pools: with skill set tracking
Resource Substitution Wizard
“Project Guide” feature
Customizable “process component”
Q7503, Fall 2002

40. MS-Project Q&A Your WBS in Project How did it go? Any questions?
Q7503, Fall 2002

41. Homework Schwalbe: 7 “Project Quality Management” URLs Project plan:
“Introduction to Software Testing”
“Introduction to Software Testing Principles”
Project plan:
Develop and submit an initial copy of the project plan (limited to tasks & milestones) for your individual project
Q7503, Fall 2002

42. Questions?
Q7503, Fall 2002