Measurement & Metrics Plan

What cannot be measured cannot be managed! Measurements help track, control and take corrective actions for the project.

Using data driven project management, projects should measure (at a minimum):

• Cost
• Defects
• Effort
• Schedule
• Size

Benefits include being able to measure:

• Performance
• Productivity
• Quality
• ROI

A data driven “project management dashboard” helps projects to ensure they are on track.

Metrics Calculation

Earned Value (EV)

Earned Value is an approach where you monitor the project plan, actual work and work-completed value to see if a project is on track. Earned Value indicates how much of the budget and time should have been spent, with regards to the amount of work done to date. It answers the “What did we get for the money we spent?” question.

When properly applied, EVM (Earned Value Management) provides an early warning of performance problems. Additionally, EVM promises to improve the definition of project scope, prevent scope creep, communicate objective progress to stakeholders, and keep the project team focused on achieving progress.

EVM can play a crucial role in answering management questions that are critical to the success of every project, such as:

• Are we ahead of or behind schedule?
• How efficiently are we using our time?
• When is the project likely to be completed?
• Are we under or over our budget?
• What is the remaining work likely to cost?
• What is the entire project likely to cost?
• How much will we be under or over budget?

The project manager can use the EVM methodology to help identify:

• Where problems are occurring
• Whether the problems are critical or not
• What it will take to get the project back on track

EV Management Terms

Term	Description	Interpretation
PV (BCWS)	Planned Value (Budgeted Cost of Work Schedule)	What is the estimated value of the work planned to be done?
EV (BCWP)	Earned Value (Budgeted Cost of Work Performed)	What is the estimated value of the work actually accomplished?
AC (ACWP)	Actual Cost (Actual Cost of Work Performed)	What is the actual cost incurred?
BAC	Budget at Completion	How much did you BUDGET for the TOTAL JOB?
EAC	Estimate at Completion	What do we currently expect the TOTAL project to cost?
ETC	Estimate to Complete	From this point on, how much MORE do we expect it to cost to finish the job?
VAC	Variance at Completion	How much over or under budget do we expect to be?

Earned Value Management Formulas & Interpretation

Name	Formula	Interpretation
Earned Value (EV)	Total Estimated Cost * % Complete	Amount of budget earned so far based on physical work accomplished, without reference to actual costs
Cost Variance (CV)	EV – AC	NEGATIVE is over budget POSITIVE is under budget
Schedule Variance (SV)	EV – PV	NEGATIVE is behind schedule POSITIVE is ahead of schedule
Cost Performance Index (CPI)	EV / AC	I am getting _____ cents out of every $1
Schedule Performance Index (SPI)	EV / PV	I am progressing at ___% of the rate originally planned
Estimate At Completion (EAC) Note: There are many ways to calculate EAC	BAC / CPI	As of now how much do we expect the total project to cost $_____. Used if no variances from the BAC have occurred
	AC + ETC	Actual plus a new estimate for remaining work. Used when original estimate was fundamentally flawed
	AC + BAC – EV	Actual to date plus remaining budget. Used when current variances are atypical
	AC + (BAC – EV) / CPI	Actual to date plus remaining budget modified by performance. When current variances are typical
Estimate To Complete (ETC)	EAC – AC	How much more will the project cost?
Variance At Completion (VAC)	BAC – EAC	How much over budget will we be at the end of the project?

Project Execution

Never confuse effort with results

You have a project – a sponsor, a customer, a project plan, a budget, and resources – now it is time for project plan execution.... Time for action now! You will now hold a formal kickoff meeting to start the execution phase of your project during which you will direct your team’s activities in order to produce the agreed upon deliverables as detailed in the project plan.

Kickoff Meeting

This is your first opportunity to work with the entire team in a group setting. The purpose of holding a Kickoff Meeting is to:

• Ensure your project team’s buy-in of the project
• Reinforce their understanding of and focus on the achievement of the project objectives
• Obtain their understanding and concurrence of individual responsibilities

Tip: Throughout the project always send out reports after each meeting. All of these reports along with the project documentation should be put in a centralized location accessible to the stakeholders.

If you have team members who do not know each other, consider team building exercises. Make sure you prepare and distribute an agenda several days before the meeting. Typically, project kickoff meetings are ½ to 1 working day – this depends on the complexity of your project and your need for team building. Suggestions for your agenda include:

• Project Overview: describe the business purpose, the sponsor, major project deliverables, the “customer”/stakeholders, and major milestones.
• Project Goals: short-term and long-term goals/objectives, and the metrics to measure attainment of the objectives.
• Review Critical Milestones and Deliverables
• Review the Project Schedule: focus on the near-term activities and tasks for each team member (make sure all team members know what is expected of them up to the first deliverable).
• Communications and Project Reporting: make sure all team members understand and concur with the project communications plan for all project stakeholders.

After the end of the meeting, write a kickoff meeting report and send it to all the stakeholders. Do this as soon as possible – best is to send this report the next day or at the latest 48 hours after the meeting.

Managing & Leading

The role of the project manager has often been described as an ambiguous one – chances are you will not have any clear-cut real authority over the people in your project team. There might even be people on your team who are senior to you or have far more project management experience than you. That being said, managing project teams composed of people from different departments, levels of seniority, and cultures is an achievable goal.

A vast body of literature exists on management and leadership styles. Here are three main types of project leadership styles:

• Directive: you make decisions and set the direction for your team. Such a style works in crisis but discourages participation.
• Participative: you encourage participation in decision making. Such a style helps in team building but may not be the best when you need to react quickly.
• Task-oriented: you focus on achieving the project’s objectives by organizing people and people activities.

Tip: A good project leader has the ability to know when to use one or a mix of the above styles. The style that you use should be adapted to the current project situation, people in your project, your organization, the culture/country, and your project’s outcome.

Ensuring your Team Works Well

Building a team involves much more than just putting the right people together. For a project team to gel and work effectively you need to do the following:

• Ensure that the roles and responsibilities of all team members are clearly defined.
• Encourage people to think as a group and not as individuals.
• Communicate and listen. To be a good communicator, you must be a good listener. Otherwise, your communications may not take into consideration the needs of your team.
• Be dependable. Always do what you promised. Nothing saps team moral as much as a manager who does not abide by his or her promises.
• Never miss a chance to praise/reward your team or a team member. Always communicate a team member’s achievements to his or her functional manager.
• Be enthusiastic. Being positive is infectious, and motivates your team.
• Empower your team members by giving them sufficient decision-making power so that they can get their work done. However, ensure that they follow the proper project operation procedures.
• Provide training on teamwork if your team is not working well together.

Tasks Execution

During the project’s execution phase, the project manager has to make sure that all tasks are executed as planned in terms of time, resources and budget. Measurements should be taken frequently and corrective actions should be made accordingly.

Communicating

Throughout the project communicate, communicate and communicate. Good communication is a major key success factor of any project. As a project manager you will surely communicate via phone, emails, meetings, and so on.

As mentioned earlier, to be a good communicator, you must be a good listener first. So listen intently to your project team - your team members will appreciate that you value their opinions and encourage discussion. Listening also is very useful as it provides you feedback on whether your team members understand your messages.

Giving your stakeholders access to information is a vital part of any project communications strategy. Ensure that your project team has access to an information sharing system such as an intranet or a similar collaborative environment. In large projects, a team member may be designated to supervise the project information sharing system.

Monitoring & Controlling

Drive your project don’t let It drive you

Project control consists of ensuring that your project is progressing according to plan, and taking action if any deviation from the plan is identified.

Use the project plan to monitor and control your project. During the controlling process, you may have to update the project plan and other documents such as requirements and functional specifications.

Project Tracking

The project should be tracked on regular basis and corrective actions should be taken accordingly to the project’s progress or deviation from the original baseline. Successful Project Management Principles & Controls are summarized as three main methods:

• Continually focus on the Project Plan as the basis of your project
• Continually update the Project Plan (especially the schedule, scope, and budget)
• Regularly (better still, at scheduled intervals or on achievement of milestones) measure status and project progress against the Project Plan - and make adjustments to get back on track, if necessary
• Follow up Follow up Follow up

Additionally, Project Management Principles & Controls include managing the inevitable conflicts and changes that arise during a project – Conflict Management and Change Control.

Tip: Use weekly and daily reminders, agenda or tasks list for follow up.

Review Meetings

Hold review meetings at regular intervals to control project progress. Follow these tips to ensure that your review meetings are effective:

• Have an informal discussion with your key team members before the meeting.
• Do a detailed project review on your own – carefully review all the tasks that need to be completed in the next three to six weeks. By doing so you may identify issues that need to be discussed during the meeting.
• Now circulate a meeting agenda to all participants.
• If decisions need to be made at the meeting, make sure that the person with the authority to make the decisions attends the meeting.
• Start a meeting by specifying its objectives.
• Quickly compare the project’s current status with the original project plan.
• Follow the initially established agenda and avoid straying from it.
• Ensure that the meetings are not too long and make efficient use of the participants’ time.
• Always end by recapitulating the decisions made, and the next steps.

Write a meeting report and circulate it within 24 hours of the meeting. Depending on the situation, you might want to write a detailed report or just a simple list of decisions that were made, and actions to be taken.

Resolving Conflicts

Conflicts are inevitable when people (especially from different backgrounds) work together on a project. Conflicts in projects typically fall into the following categories:

• Conflict over different objectives and expectations.
• Unclear roles and uncertainty about who has the decision-making authority.
• Interpersonal conflicts between people.

Here is a method known as the “win-win” approach to conflict resolution:

1. Before you start resolving a conflict, analyze it by asking questions from the conflicting parties.
2. Once you have sufficient information about the conflict, actively seek common ground in order to emphasize the agreement side of things – this starts the conflict resolution process on a positive note.
3. Now ask the conflicting parties to brainstorm possible solutions to the issues at hand.
4. Once you have identified resolutions, agree upon guidelines on how to implement these resolutions.
5. Document and then implement the resolutions.

The “win-win” conflict resolution method is generally accepted as being a fair one as it allows the conflicting parties to be heard and involves them in working together to find a solution to the conflict. However, the “win-win” method does not always work. In this case, you should agree with the conflicting parties that the conflict is unresolved. You can now adopt one of the following approaches:

• If the conflict is of a technical nature, bring in a technical expert whose opinion the conflicting parties value, and ask him or her to help resolve the conflict.
• If the conflict is not of a technical nature, involve the project sponsor or a senior manager to help you out. This method however, should only be used when all other methods have failed – people do not like being forced by supervisors to do something they do not feel comfortable with.

Also, note that if properly managed, certain conflicts can be actually good for your team as they may generate new, more effective ways of accomplishing activities. Careful however, when dealing with a multicultural team as conflicts are not perceived the same way in Germany, France, the UK, the US, India or China. Whenever conflicts arise, always keep the goal of your project in mind and try to resolve them as quickly as possible.

Resolving Project Problems

Every project has its share of problems, which can be classified into the following categories:

• People: your team lacks skills required to accomplish the project activities correctly. In this case, consider the following:
  • Train your people if your project’s schedule and budget allows for it. Ideally such training requirements should be identified and factored into your project plan when you were selecting project team members.
  • Consider calling in an outside consultant or vendor.
• Your project is falling behind schedule:
  • Review the priorities of tasks and see if all of them are really necessary.
  • Do not accept additional tasks. This is easier said than done, but there are times when you have to say NO.
• Project costs are exceeding the established budget:
  • Regularly monitor costs throughout the project so that you are aware of any potential cost overruns as soon as possible.
• The scope of the project keeps changing (refer to “Controlling Change”  post).

The causes of many project problems are as follows:

• Poor scoping – the scope and objectives of the project are vague. Maybe some of the stakeholders never really read the scope requirements.
• Poor planning – activities are unclear, the processes are not well-documented, risks have not been well identified and prepared for, the project manager lacks experience, ineffective project communications, and so on.

Cost Overrun & Schedule Delay

A Cost overrun, also known as a cost increase or budget overrun, is an unexpected cost incurred in excess of a budgeted amount due to an under-estimation of the actual cost during budgeting. Cost overrun should be distinguished from cost escalation, which is used to express an anticipated growth in a budgeted cost due to factors such as inflation.

Schedule delay is different than cost overrun. It refers to the late delivery of the project whether there is a cost overrun or not.

Common Overrun Reasons

All projects are prone to overrun. An overrun acceptance is directly proportional to an organization’s fault absorption capacity. Accordingly the definition of overrun is framed to demonstrate an overrun project as rightly completed project.

5 myths about Project Overrun could be:

• Planning: After the initial plan is made, customer requirements have shrunk but it is good not to revise the plan to achieve in-time project closure (or even earlier).
• Manpower: Project Plan is made after which additional manpower is inducted in the project, but no need to revise the plan.
• Cost: Customer is ready to pay the full payment to complete the project, even if it overshoots the timeframe decided as per plan.
• Time: A project had to complete in 5 months, but it took 10 months to complete. Imagine the manpower engaged in this project that could have finished another project if this project finished in time.
• Customer: Customer is not able to cope up with plan but not ready to pay for extra efforts being done by the project team on behalf of customer thereby overshooting cost and time. We have a valid reason for this overshoot.

Tip: Projects overrun because most owner and contractor organizations lack a practical and disciplined approach to Risk Management – as a result, risks are seldom understood or mitigated effectively.

Controlling Change

Seasoned project managers often identify dealing with changes and project creep as one of the most (if not the most) challenging problems that a project manager has to face. The very nature of projects makes change inevitable. Changes often impact the project’s budget and schedule (and sometimes the outcome). To cope with changes use a formal change control procedure as follows:

1. When someone asks you for a change that will potentially impact your project, insist that the requestor submit the change request in writing using a change request template.
2. Review the impact of the change on your project in terms of cost, schedule, performance and outcome. Review also what will happen if you do not implement the change.
3. Accept or reject the change – depending on the importance of the change, you can involve your team members and/or the project sponsor in making the decision. If the change has been rejected, inform the requestor and all concerned parties.
4. If the change has been accepted, document it, and update your project plan to take into account the change’s impact on your project’s schedule, budget and outcome.
5. Communicate the accepted change and its impact to the requestor and all concerned parties (include the change in your next project review meeting).

Project Closure

A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it

The closing process signals the end of your project. Project Closure is more than a milestone… it is a process, with deliverables, to successfully conclude your project. To ensure that your project does not languish and has a distinct end, follow this procedure:

• Identify the remaining work and ensure that it gets completed.
• Start releasing your staff if they have successfully completed the work that they were assigned to.
• Finish all administrative tasks such as obtaining final approvals and transactions (invoices).
• Get a final approval from the project sponsor and other key project stakeholders on the closure of the project – hold a formal project closure meeting. At the end of the meeting send out a project closure document that signals the shutdown of all project activities and the formal acceptance of the project’s results.
• Get feedback from the client.
• Individually thank all the team members and their supervisors for their work. If required, you may want to communicate your assessment of team members’ performance to their supervisors.
• Celebrate the end of the project!

Tip: Store all the documents that you produced during the project in your knowledge base for use in a similar project in the future.

Project Evaluation Report

At the end of the project, write a project evaluation report. Such a report can contain the following sections:

• Project performance: a comparison of what the project achieved with what was in the original plan (cost, schedule and outcome). Explain all deviations from the original plan.
• Team member appraisals: (should be confidential): provides an appraisal of the performance of team members during the project.
• Lessons learned: provides information about what worked and did not work during the project.
• Recommendations for future projects.

CONGRATULATIONS! You and your team have successfully completed your project!