Designing the Monitoring System

Chapter 10: Monitoring and Information Systems

• Identify key factors to be controlled
• Scope
Monitoring - Collecting, recording, and reporting information
• Cost
concerning any and all aspects of project performance
• Time
Controlling - Uses the data supplied by monitoring to bring
• Information to be collected must be identified
actual performance into compliance with the plan
• Do not want to avoid collecting necessary data
Evaluation - Judgments regarding the quality and effectiveness
of project performance because it is hard to get
• Do not want to collect too much data
• The next step is to design a reporting system that
The Planning–Monitoring–Controlling Cycle gets the data to the proper people in a timely and
• We mainly want to monitor: understandable manner
• Time (schedule) Five Telltale Signs of Project Trouble
• Cost (budget) • Muddy waters (fuzzy scope)
• Scope (project performance) • Mysterious stakeholders (hidden stake holders
• Becoming more important as projects are troubling in stage)
increasingly complex • Unconstrained constraints (cost overrun)
• Closed-loop system • Suspicious status reports (vague & hiding facts & fig)
• Revised plans and schedules following corrective • Discord and drama (unhappy team)
actions
 Example Information Flows
Information Needs and Reporting
• Everyone should be tied into the reporting
system
• Reports should address each level (hierarchy)
• Not at same depth and frequency for every
level
• Lower-level needs detailed information
• Senior management levels need
overview reports
• Report frequency is typically high at low
levels and less frequent at higher levels

The Reporting Process

• Reports must contain relevant content & frequency as
per WBS
• Must be issued frequently
• Should be available in time for control Benefits of Detailed and Timely Reports
• Mutual understanding of the goals
• Distribution of project reports depends on interest
• Awareness of the progress of parallel activities
• For senior management, may be few milestones
• Understanding the relationship of tasks
• For project manager, there may be many critical
• Early warning signals of problems
points
• Minimizing the confusion
• Higher visibility to top management
• Keeping client up to date
Report Types Meetings
Routine - Reports that are issued on a regular basis or • Reports may/may not have to be written
each time the project reaches a milestone • They can be delivered verbally in meetings
Exception - Reports that are generated when an usual • Projects have too many meetings
condition occurs or as an informational vehicle • The trick is to keep them to as few as possible
when an unusual decision is made
Special Analysis - Reports that result from studies
commissioned to look into special
studies/problems
Meeting Rules
• Use meetings to make group decisions
• Start and end on time and have an agenda
• Do your homework before the meeting
• Take minutes
Common Reporting Problems • Avoid attributing remarks to individuals in minutes
• Too much detail • Avoid overly formal rules of procedure
• Poor interface between the data/procedures of the • Call meeting for serious problems
project and the information system of the parent
company
• Poor correspondence between the planning process
and the monitoring process
 Earned Value Analysis Rules to Aid in Estimating Percent Completion
• 50-50 rule (start 50 & end 100, no in between)
The Earned Value Chart and Calculations…why & • 0-100 percent rule (only end 100)
• Critical input use rule (input as proportion to progress)
how?
• Proportionality rule (in terms of actual time or cost wrt scheduled time
• Actual against baseline ignores the amount of
or budgeted cost )
work accomplished
• Earned value incorporates work accomplished
• Calculated by multiplying the estimated percent
work complete for each task by the planned cost
• Only need percent complete estimate for tasks
currently in progress

• Aggregate performance measure called earned

value

ST=scheduled time
AT=Actual time
EV=Earned value
PV=planned value
EAC=Estimated cost at completion
BAC=Budget at completion
ETC=estimated cost to complete
Variances
• Variances can help analyze a project Cost Variance (CV)
• • CV = EV – AC
A negative variance is bad
• • Negative variance indicates a cost overrun
Cost and schedule variances are calculated as
• Magnitude depends on the costs
the earned value minus some other measure
• Will look at some of the more common ones

Indices Schedule Variance (SV)

• Cost Performance Index • SV = EV – PV
• CPI = EV/AC • Negative variance indicates you are behind schedule
• Schedule Performance Index (>1) • Measured using costs
• SPI = EV/PV
• Time Performance Index (>1)
• TPI = ST/AT
• Cost Schedule Index ( >1) Time Variance (TV)
• CSI = EV2/(AC)(PV) • TV = ST – AT
• Negative variance indicates you are behind
schedule

Show one example of $1500

Six possible
arrangements of AC, EV,
and baseline PV
resulting in four
combinations of positive
and negative schedule
variance (SV) and cost
variance (CV)
“To complete” and “At Completion”

• Project manager reviewing what is

complete and what remains
Milestone Reporting
• Final cost and final completion date
• Reports that are created when a
are moving targets
project reaches a major
• The project manager compiles these
milestone
into a to complete forecast
• They are designed to keep
• Actual + forecast = final date and
everyone up-to-date on project
cost at completion
status
• For executives and clients, these
may be the only reports they
• ETC and EAC receive

ETC = (BAC - EV)/CPI

EAC = ETC + AC
where,
ETC = Estimated cost to complete
BAC = Budget at completion
EV = Earned value  Is earned value management/concept applicable
CPI = Cost performance index
EAC = Estimated cost at completion to agile projects? Why or why not ?
AC = Amount expended to date (actual cost)
Agile tools for Tracking Project Progress
 Concept of earned value is not particularly applicable to agile projects
as earned value is based on assumption that the project’s scope is fixed
Task board while agile explicitly embraces changes to project scope as more is learned
throughout the project

Burndown chart