Onboarding with Success

When you’re asked to jump on a new project how do you go about doing that to ensure your best chance for success? That may often depend on why you’re being asked to take over the project … and it can be for any one of the following reasons:

• Previous project manager failed to manage the team and project effectively
• Previous project manager lost the customer’s confidence
• Previous project manager lacked the expertise to lead the project based on new direction
• An emergency necessitated an early departure for the project manager
• Co-management became a necessity due to changes on the project Read more »

Earned Value Reporting – To Complete Schedule Performance Index

In this article on Earned Value Reporting we’ll look at something similar to the To Complete Cost Performance Index – the To Complete Schedule Performance Index, or TCSPI. The To Complete Schedule Performance Index tells us the required schedule performance index that will be needed to meet the schedule.

The book “The Project Management Question and Answer Book” by Michael Newell and Marina Grashina is the source for much of this overview.

What is the to complete schedule performance index?

The to complete schedule performance index, or TCSPI, is similar to the TCCPI except that it calculates a required schedule performance index that will be necessary to meet the project schedule. This measure is rarely used. It is included here for completeness. It has the same problems as the TCCPI and is even more abstract and difficult for people to understand.

The calculation for the TCSPI is done by dividing the work remaining by the remaining schedule.

TCSPI = (BAC – BCWP) / (BAC – BCWS)

It can be seen that as a project’s schedule performance index moves below one, the TCSPI will increase and become greater than one. Although called an “index”, this is not really accurate since all indexes indicate something bad when they fall below one and this index indicates something bad when it is greater than one.

There is a mathematical difficulty with this term as well. If a project is over budget toward the end, it is possible for the BAC and the BCWS to be equal. This produces a division by zero and a point of discontinuity.

Under normal conditions it results in a value that indicates the required performance that the project must have from now until the end of the project.

Example:

Suppose a project is somewhere near 50 percent complete:

BCWS = $100,000

BCWP = $95,000

ACWP = $97,000

BAC = $200,000

SV = BCWP – BCWS

SV = -$5,000

What is the TCSPI?

TCSPI = (BAC – BCWP) / (BAC – BCWS)

TCSPI = (200,000 – 95,000) / (200,000 – 100,000)

TCSPI = 1.05

Notice that if the schedule variance remains the same as the end of the project approaches, the TCSPI increases rapidly. Suppose we have the following when the project is approximately 95 percent complete:

BCWS = $195,000

BCWP = $190,000

ACWP = $192,000

BAC = $200,000

SV = BCWP – BCWS

SV = -$5,000

What is the TCSPI?

TCSPI = (BAC – BCWP) / (BAC – BCWS)

TCSPI = (200,000 – 190,000) / (200,000 – 195,000)

TCSPI = 2.00

As we approach the end of the project, the schedule variance has not changed, but the TCSPI has changed from 1.05 to 2.00. This means that the work that must be accomplished from now to the end of the project must take place at a rate that is twice as fast as was originally planned.

Earned Value Reporting – Schedule Performance Index

In this article on Earned Value Reporting we’ll look at the Schedule Performance Index. The Schedule Performance Index refers to how the project is performing in terms of actually following the project schedule.

Much of the following information came from Newell and Grashina’s book entitled “The Project Management Question and Answer Book.”

What is the schedule performance index?

The schedule performance index is a measure of how well the project is doing in terms of following the project schedule. It is a comparison of the project tasks that were planned to be accomplished to the work that was really accomplished. The index is a value that allows projects of different sizes to be compared.

The schedule performance index is like the schedule variance discussed previously with one important difference. When we calculated the schedule variance, the result was a figure in dollars. If the dollars were negative, the variance was considered bad, and if the dollars were positive, the variance was considered good. The problem with this method is that it is difficult to compare projects of different size to one another. It would be better to have a measure that gives the health of the project regardless of its size. For this purpose we will use indexes.

Instead of subtracting the budgeted cost of work scheduled from the budgeted cost of work performed, as we did when we calculated the schedule variance, we will divide the same two numbers.

SPI = BCWP / BCWS

SPI = EV / PV

We can see that if the project is following its plan, the amount of work accomplished and the amount of money spent to accomplish it are the same, and the resulting value will be one. So, an index of one means that the project is following its plan.

If the budgeted cost of work scheduled is greater than what is being accomplished, the denominator in the fraction will be larger than the numerator, and the resulting value will be less than one. This is a bad condition. If the budgeted cost of work scheduled is less than what is being accomplished, the resulting number will be greater than one and this is considered good.

Example:

A project is two weeks behind schedule at the time of the calculation. The project has fifteen people working full-time. Assume that each person costs $1,000 per week. BCWS at this point in the project is $500,000. What is the schedule performance index?

The project is two weeks behind schedule and there are fifteen people working full-time on the project. This results in being behind schedule by thirty person-weeks or $30,000.

SPI = BCWP / BCWS

The BCWP is $500,000 ? $30,000 = $470,000.

The BCWS is $500,000.

SV = BCWP – BCWS = -$30,000

SPI = BCWP / BCWS = $470,000 / $500,000 = 0.940

Notice that a smaller project such as one that had a BCWS of $50,000 and a BCWP of $47,000 would also have a schedule performance index of 0.940. Again, this helps the project manager who is managing different parts of a project in which the sizes of the parts are different. The schedule performance index, like the cost performance index, indicates the health of the project regardless of its size.

Earned Value Reporting – Schedule Variance

We’ll continue our discussion of Earned Value Reporting by reviewing Schedule Variance in this segment. Schedule Variance refers to the amount of dollars planned to be spent on a project (or portion thereof) as compared to the corresponding work that was accomplished.

Much of the following information came from Newell and Grashina’s book entitled “The Project Management Question and Answer Book.”

What is schedule variance?

Schedule variance is the comparison of the amount of money that was planned to be spent on a project or part of a project to the amount of work that was actually accomplished.

In the earned value reporting system for projects, we are concerned with knowing how our project is doing with respect to the actual work that was done, the BCWP, and the amount of work that was expected to be completed, the BCWS. The measure for this comparison is the schedule variance.

It may seem a bit odd that we would be measuring schedule variance in terms of dollars since most of us are used to hearing that the project is ahead or behind schedule by so many days or weeks or months. Measuring schedule variance in dollars is actually a more indicative way of showing this. If, as is often the case, we say that we are ahead of or behind schedule by three weeks, it might not be serious if there is only one person working part-time on one task over the three weeks. On the other hand, it might be quite serious if there are one hundred people working on twenty tasks and they are all behind three weeks.

If a person’s time is worth $1,000 per week, the earned value report’s schedule variance for the first condition might say that the schedule variance is $1,500. The second condition would have a schedule variance of $300,000. This is quite a noticeable difference in two situations where the project is three weeks behind schedule. So, it really makes a lot of sense to consider project schedules as being ahead or behind in terms of dollars rather than weeks or months.

To compute the schedule variance, we compare the work that was actually completed to the work that was planned to be accomplished. This means that we will be comparing the budgeted cost of work performed, the BCWP or the EV to the budgeted cost of work scheduled, the BCWS or the PV.

SV = BCWP – BCWS

SV = EV – PV

As with the cost variance, people often have trouble remembering this calculation. They get them mixed up and end up having a positive variance when they are really having a negative variance. It is good to remember that bad variances are always negative and good variances are always positive. If we consider that completed project tasks are greater than what was planned, we could say that this is a good variance and it should have a positive value. If on the other hand we have accomplished fewer tasks than the plan allowed for, we could say that this is a bad condition and our variance will be a negative number.

The schedule variance is an important figure for the project manager and the other managers of the company because it is an indicator of how well the project is doing in terms of following the project schedule. It can be used to predict or forecast how much time it will take to finish the project.

Example:

Suppose a project is in progress and that as of today the ACWP is $190,000, the BCWP is $210,000, and the BCWS is $200,000.

Schedule variance is the difference between the work that was really accomplished, the BCWP, and the planned work that was supposed to be accomplished, the BCWS.

SV = BCWP – BCWS

SV = $210,000 – $200,000 = $10,000

Implementation Preparation

As the delivery team plans for deployment, or implementation – depending on what you prefer to call it, there is much preparation that must occur. How you prepare for your particular project depends on several things including the following:

• Customer requirements
• Type of system being implemented
• Policies and processes of your organization
• Logistics of customer, delivery organization, and implementation site

Personally, the type of implementation prep that I go through with my team is dictated heavily by the needs of the specific implementation and what was planned for and laid out as part of the statement of work and the kickoff sessions with the customer.

In his book “Project Management Nation,” Jason Charvat discusses his vision of typical implementation planning and preparation. While I don’t specifically endorse this process and understand that your specific situation usually dictates how implementation is handled, I believe that this is helpful and useful information.

Implementation Checklist

The project manager must be sure that the implementation follows the implementation tasks and activities as stated in the project schedule. This forms the basis against which the implementation will be done. Generally, the tasks would be to:

• Load or install the new system
• Perform a system test
• Convert to the new system
• Verify that an application works with other applications in the system
• Perform an integration test
• Perform an acceptance test

The Implementation Plan

The implementation plan, which was developed by the project manager during the design phase, should, at this stage, be approved and communicated to all project stakeholders. A successful project can be ruined by a poor implementation plan. A working implementation schedule should be developed and maintained for all parties to use and agree upon. As the project changes, the project manager must pay close attention to the schedule and update it to reflect the latest changes to the implementation date. This schedule should then be communicated to all project stakeholders.

It is important to publish an initial implementation schedule for each site early in the project. Many members of the deployment project team will reach a point where they cannot until they know the time, sequence, or date of the implementation. Experience has shown that developing a draft implementation schedule early in the project life, rather than later, resolves many problems. The project manager should remember that the implementation plan could be put on hold if the software development is late for whatever reason. However, if the implementation plan cannot be moved and there is no slack in the schedule, the project manager should immediately escalate this risk to the necessary stakeholders.

Meetings Leading up to Implementation

The implementation plan must be discussed and agreed upon by both the user management and IT support staff in order to ensure that both parties plan their work schedules to match the project schedule. For the majority of IT projects, implementation will most likely occur after hours or over weekends, during a series of working hours per day, or on public holidays.