Project TrackingProject Tracking

Questions...Questions...

Why should we track a project that is underway?

What aspects of a project need tracking?

Reasons for Late ProjectsReasons for Late Projects

1. overly optimistic scheduling bad estimations during proposal or planning

2. tardy identification of schedule and budget problems

noticing too late that we are late

3. tardy reactions to important events bad risk management

Software Quality Assuranceby Galin page 401

Solution to previously listed problems

1. better estimation

2. better project tracking

3. better project tracking

PMPBOK on MonitoringPMPBOK on Monitoring

For the PMP Exam, monitoring and controlling entails a total of 10 out of the 42 project management processes defined in the PMPBOK.

There are 3 core elements that support effective monitoring and controlling:Effective definition of project baselines and milestonesEffective tracking of project activities and resource utilizationEffective risk definition

PMP Exam Cram, pg 169

PMPBOK on MonitoringPMPBOK on Monitoring

""Why is monitoring and controlling important?"Why is monitoring and controlling important?"

"In general, all project failure and cancellations can be tracked back to the lack of effective controls in one or more of these areas:scope,cost,quality, and risk management."

PMP Exam Cram, pg 171

Objectives of Project Tracking

Short Term: early detection of irregular events

Long Term: creation of preventive actions improvement of estimation accuracy

modified from Galin page 402

What do we need to track? Project Schedule

are we hitting the milestones on time what about the "critical path" tasks

Risks what might happen how likely is the problem what can/should we do

Resources Humans Budget

Galin section 20.1

How do we track projects?

Use tools!!! a tool can track the critical path a tool can track the budget a tool can alert you to potential resource conflicts

Status Reports formal - eg weekly status presentations informal - MBWA - manage by walking around

PMP Tracking MetricsPMP Tracking Metrics EV - earned value

budgeted cost for work performed

AC - actual cost actual cost for work performed; how much $ used so far

PV - planned value budgeted cost for work scheduled

SPI - schedule performance index SPI = EV / PV < 1 -- project is behind schedule

CPI - cost performance index CPI = EV / AC < 1 -- project is using more money than expected

Example use of PMP metricsExample use of PMP metrics Your project plan:

12 milestones, each of equal cost, each of equal time

duration = 10 months budget = $200,000

Today: 4 months into project at milestone 6 expended $75,000

Project Status: EV = $100K PV = $80K AC = $75K

SPI = EV / PV = 1.25 your are ahead of schedule

CPI = EV / AC = 1.33 you are under budget

Rajesh is working on a project to create a new inventory management system for a food manufacturer in Sheffield, England. The CEO has told the shareholders that the new system will be in place in six months, without discussing this first with the PMO.

At the start of the project, the costs of the project were estimated as $150,000 for design, $700,000 for development, $225,000 for quality assurance. 

The project has spent $450,000 so far. The value of the work completed is $375,000. The CPI for the project is 0.83 and the SPI is 0.8.

What is the Estimate At Completion?

Estimate At Completion = Actual Cost + [(Budget At Completion - Earned Value) / (Cost Performance Index X Schedule Performance Index)]

= $450,000 + [($1,075,000 - $375,000) / (0.83 X 0.8)]

= $1,510,606.06

http://testeagle.com/blog/2012/03/how-to-calculate-estimate-at-completion-eac-for-the-pmp-exam/

Example 1 You notice that design, implementation,

and testing of the database component is running about a week behind.

Instead of one week for each of the three tasks, the database tasks will take a total of four weeks.

However, the database can be a week late because it is not on critical path.

Any potential problems?

Example 2 Task:

Testing the Database

Estimated Duration: 3 days

Required Resources: the database requirements specs the implementation (source code) real data from customer test person that has a DB Test certificate

Any Special Scheduling / Tracking Issues?

Example 3 Initial Unit Testing reports indicate a bug

rate of 4.5 / KSLOC. Should you be concerned? Further checking finds

Average initial bug rate is 3.1 per KSLOC StdDev of 0.5 weighted rate is also higher than average

What actions should be taken?

Example 4 Well into development, you get an email

indicating changes in the interface requirements are necessary based on a demo of the prototype done for the customer. The changes will require a good amount of recoding.

Any SQA tasks necessary?

Example 5 Your project is using a spiral model. The 9-

month project is in the third of four planned iterations.

During the "prototype" phase, a quick monthly audit of Change Requests finds a much higher than normal quantity of requests to modify various design documents.

Any actions necessary?

Sep 3Oct 2Nov 8Dec 5Jan 9Feb 4Mar 20AprMay

And of course, Follow Up

Audit the Tracking Procedures are we really seeing what is going on? are the progress reports reporting the important info? are we tracking what needs to be tracked? are we talking to the right people?

Maintenance

Types of Maintenance

Corrective bug fixes, security fixes, etc

Adaptive new hardware, new OS, …

Perfective adding new functions

Preventative Y2K

Where the money goes

Software Quality Assuranceby Galin, page 256

40%

12%15%

33% Rest of Project

CorrectiveCorrective

AdaptiveAdaptive

FunctionalFunctional

The big questions…The big questions…

Why does so much money go into maintenance?

How do we reduce the maintenance costs?

Essential SQA Maintenance TasksEssential SQA Maintenance Tasks Maintain Accurate Design Documents

Quality Source Code is Cheaper to Maintain set and maintain coding standards

conduct peer code reviews set testing guidelines via a Maintenance Test Plan

Track Maintenance Metrics mean time to correct errors mean time to add new function …

Determine Root Cause of ErrorsDetermine Root Cause of Errors

Does software wear out?

errorsper KSLOC

Time

Expected Actual - due to Maintenance Effective

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