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Using Graphic Indicators to Summarize Project Status. Quick view of both tasks and projects. Dave Hulse: dhulse@cox.net. Agenda. 1. Overview. 2. Why Use Indicators?. 3. Identify What Should be Measured. 4. Task Indicators. 5. Enterprise Indicators. 6. Complex Indicators.
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Using Graphic Indicators to Summarize Project Status Quick view of both tasks and projects Dave Hulse: dhulse@cox.net
Agenda 1. Overview 2. Why Use Indicators? 3. Identify What Should be Measured 4. Task Indicators 5. Enterprise Indicators 6. Complex Indicators 7. Tips, Tricks and Best Practices
Indicators • Visual indicators help managers focus on what is important • Available in both Project Pro and Project Web Access • Support improved project management metrics • Project Management Maturity (PMM) is a measure of the extent to which a specific project management process is defined, repeatable, managed, measurable, and effective.
Common Measures of Variance • Work variance • Planned vs. actual hours worked • Cost variance • Over/under budget • Earned value • Schedule variance • Variance from baseline • Slack time to deadline
Task vs. Project Variance • Task variance • Track every task in the project schedule • Available in both Standard and Enterprise editions of Microsoft Project • Project variance • Useful for digital dashboards that summarize overall performance of multiple projects • Project indicators only available in EPM • May require more complex logic (Example: final deadline may not be the best milestone)
Work and Cost Variance • Easy indicators to create • Typically compare work to baseline work or cost to baseline cost • Cost is calculated as resource hours X resource cost • Some organizations don’t expose resource cost in Project
Useful Functions • IIf( expression, truepart, falsepart ) • IIf( [Work]>[Baseline Work], ”Over”, ”OK”) • Switch( expression1, value1, expression2, value2, ... ) • Switch( [Work]/[Baseline Work]>1.1, 3, [Work]/[Baseline Work]>1, 2, True, 1) • ProjDateDiff( date1, date2, calendar ) • ProjDateDiff( [Baseline Finish] , [Finish]) • Usually divide by 480 (60 min X 8 hours)
Baseline Variance • A baseline saves the following • Cost • Finish • Work • You can easily create variance indicators for any of these • Duration • Start
Schedule Variance • Typically measures slippage based on the end date of the task or milestone • Work best for flexible project plans where the end date is affected by update of actual work • Fixed duration tasks do not “float” • Entering progress by percent complete does not push out end dates
Schedule Variance • Finish date variance from baseline • Easy indicator to design • Easy for project managers to establish • Finish date slack from deadline • Easy to design and very flexible • PM must set deadlines on individual tasks • Actual progress vs. expected progress • Requires more complex logic • Can be used for fixed duration tasks
Project & Enterprise Indicators • Within a single project, rollup capability can be used to show overall project status • Supported in Standard edition • Rollups use same logic as tasks • Enterprise edition allows true project level indicators • Indicator logic can be different and more complex than task logic
Complex Indicators • Create indicator logic to distinguish certain types of tasks • Critical path • Custom flags • Key milestones • Roll up values based on task type or flag fields
Best Practices • Don’t create too many different indicators • Indicators that roll up should be based on algorithms that return simple numeric values • Higher numbers indicate “worse” conditions • Be sure to trap all conditions (including no value” • Create and save a project plan that tests all logic
Best Practices (cont.) • Document your logic • Keep your plans current—move uncompleted time to the future • Global template changes don’t take effect until you close Project and re-open • Hint: Test logic in local fields, then import into Enterprise fields • Divide duration by minutes times hours per day • Hint: Service Pack 1 may impact roll-ups
Advanced Customization • SQL Reporting Services or custom code can be used to generate e-mail alerts • Slipping critical tasks • Project metrics can be linked to other data • ERP resource cost to EPM resource hours
Code Samples • Work variance from baseline • IIf([Baseline Work]=0,0,Switch([Work]/[Baseline Work]>1.1,3,[Work]/[Baseline Work]>1,2,True,1)) • Schedule slip from deadline • IIf(IsDate(1+[Deadline])=0,0,Switch(ProjDateDiff([Deadline],[Finish])/480>5,3,ProjDateDiff([Deadline],[Finish])/480>0,2,True,1))
Code Samples 2 • Fixed duration task check • Switch([Current Date]<[Start],0,[% Complete]=100,1,ProjDateDiff([Start], [Current Date])/ProjDateDiff( [Start], [Finish])<([% Complete]/100),1,True,2)