Project Control. Ongoing effort to keep your project on track Prerequisite to good control is a good plan Four primary activities:

Transcription

1 Project Control 1

2 Project Control Ongoing effort to keep your project on track Prerequisite to good control is a good plan Four primary activities: 1. Planning performance Software Development Plan, schedule, and control process 2. Measuring status of work performed Actuals 3. Comparing to baseline Variances 4. Taking corrective action as needed Response 2

3 Project Control..2 Control Guiding a course of action to meet an objective 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 3

4 Change Control Board (CCB) Structure Representatives from each stakeholder group Development, Quality Assurance, Marketing, Management, Customer support Change Analysis Importance of change Priority Cost and benefit 4

5 Change Control Board..2 Triage Allocating scare resources Some changes will not be done What is critical to the project? Will say No more than Yes Watch for bureaucracy 5

6 Change Control Change Control System CM System CM Tool Quality Software Project Management, Futrell, Shafer, Shafer 6

7 Configuration Control Includes Requirements and design changes Program code changes Version release changes Essential for developed items Code, documentation, and so on Example Code that used to work but broken for the demo 7

8 Configuration Control Terminology Software Configuration Control Item (SCCI) a.k.a. Source Item (SI) Anything suitable for configuration control Source code, documents, diagrams, and so on Change Control The process of controlling changes Proposal, evaluation, approval, scheduling, implementation, tracking 8

9 Configuration Control Terminology..2 Version Control Controlling software version releases Recording and saving releases Documenting release differences Configuration Control Evaluating changes to SCCIs Approving and disapproving changes Managing changes 9

10 SCM Software Configuration Management Formal engineering discipline Methods and tools to identify and manage software throughout its use 10

11 Configuration Control Needs Clearly defined management authority Established control standards, procedures and guidelines known to the entire team Appropriate tools and infrastructure Configuration Management Plan must be produced during planning phase 11

12 Progress Monitoring Progress Monitoring Questions What is the actual status? If there is a variance, what is the cause? What to do about it? Possible responses 1. Ignore 2. Take corrective action 3. Review the plan 12

13 Progress Monitoring Monitoring rates Daily, weekly, monthly If problems occur, then adjust May have to monitor problem areas more closely For some period of time One or more area under closer scrutiny Status Reporting Part of the communications management plan 13

14 Status Reports From team to Project Manager From Project Manager to stakeholders Generally weekly updates notes, then hold brief meeting More frequently during crises 14

15 Stakeholder Status Report Executive Summary Accomplishments for this period (done) Tasks, milestones, metrics Plans for next period (to do) Risk analysis and review Issues & Actions 15

16 Programming Status Reporting A programmer reports that he s 90% done What does this mean? A programmer reports completing 4,000 LOC on an estimated 5,000 LOC effort Is this 80% complete? What does the ratio mean? estimated to completed? (estimates could have been wrong) What is the Quality? 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? 16

17 Binary Reporting Work packages (tasks) can only be in one of 2 states: complete or incomplete No partial credit This is 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 17

18 Earned Value Management 1. Define project scope (WBS) 2. Plan and schedule the project (CPM) 3. Tie cost accounts to specific functions 4. Establish a performance measurement baseline 5. Monitor project performance to forecast earned value 18

19 Earned Value Analysis (EVA) a.k.a. Earned Value Management (EVM) a.k.a. Variance Analysis Project tracking metric What you got for what you paid Physical progress 19

20 Earned Value Analysis..2 Pre-EVA traditional approach 1. Planned time and costs 2. Actual time and costs Progress: compare planned to actual EVA adds a third dimension: value Planned, actual, earned 20

21 Earned Value Analysis..3 Forecasting Old models include cost and expenditure EVA adds schedule estimation Measured in dollars or hours Often time is used in software projects 21

22 Earned Value Analysis..4 Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB) Time-phased budget plan against which contract performance is measured Cost and schedule variances go against this plan Best calculated via a bottom-up plan 22

23 Earned Value Analysis..5 Different methods are available Binary Reporting Based on % complete Weights applied to milestones EVA can signal errors as early as 15% into a project 23

24 Earned Value Analysis..6 BCWS: Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled Now called Planned Value (PV) How much work should be done? BCWP: Budgeted Cost of Work Performed Now called Earned Value (EV) How much work is done? BCWS times % complete 24

25 Earned Value Analysis..7 ACWP: Actual Cost of Work Performed Now called Actual Cost (AC) How much did the work done cost? 25

26 Derived EVA Variances SV: Schedule Variance BCWP BCWS Planned work vs. work completed CV: Cost Variance BCWP ACWP Budgeted costs vs. actual costs 26

27 Derived EVA Variances..2 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 27

28 Earned Value Analysis 28

29 Derived EVA Ratios CPI: Cost Performance Index BCWP / ACWP SPI: Schedule Performance Index BCWP / BCWS Problems in project if either is less than 1 because actuals exceed budget 29

30 EVA Example As of 1-July where are we? BCWS BCWP ACWP 30

31 Earned Value Analysis Benefits Consistent unit of measure for total progress Consistent methodology Across cost and completed activity Ability to forecast cost and schedule Can provide warnings early Success factors A full WBS is required (all scope) 31