 |
||
By Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP When I am tracking my projects, my teammates say to use percentages rather than actual work, but I feel that approach may not be capturing all of the significant data about the tasks. What should I record in my tracking chart?
Answer: B. Actual work and remaining duration are the best indicators for planning the future of the project and capturing data for analysis. Having a process to track your projects is essential. But what good is it if you record only percentages and don’t capture accurate statistics about the work of the project that you can use to shape the remainder of the project? Here is a sample showing the columns of information that are important to capture.
Ask your team members to report their progress in terms of how many hours they spent on the task (Actual Work) and how many hours they need to complete it (Remaining Duration). If you do your tracking in an automated software tool, the columns will automatically fill to balance your entries between columns. If you’re working manually, you’ll need to fill in the columns and balance them on your own. For example, we have a task, Remove Fence. Baseline Duration is estimated at 10 hours and we work 10-hour days on this job, so the duration is 1 day. Our resource, John, makes $50 an hour. The week ends and John has worked 10 hours on Remove Fence. Place 10 hours in the Actual Work column and place 0 days in Remaining Duration. Percent Complete = 100 and Actual Cost = $500. (John worked 10 hours at $50 per hour.) Remove Signage is also estimated at 1 day (10 hours). John started at 1:00 p.m. and got part-way through by 6:00 p.m. He worked 5 hours and estimates that he needs 5 more hours to finish the task. Enter Actual Work = 5 hours and Remaining Duration = 5 hours. John is 50 percent complete and the remaining duration is 5 hours, or .5 of a day. The Actual Cost is $250 (5 hours at $50 per hour). Level Field has a Baseline Duration of 1 day. You assigned 9 laborers at $8 an hour to this task, so show 900 percent in your Resource Name column to designate nine people. When you track their completed task, place 90 hours in the Actual Work column (10 hours per day times 9 people). Place 0 in the Remaining Duration column. Now you are 100 percent complete. Your Actual Cost is $720. But what if you had 9 laborers (90 hours Baseline Duration) scheduled for 1 day to Remove Sprinkler Heads. Only 8 showed up, but they finished anyway. It took 1 day (10 hours) times 8 workers = 80 hours. If you record only 80 hours in Actual Work, you’ll still technically have 10 hours of baseline work remaining (.11 day or 11 percent), although everything is done. That is wrong! But recording 90 hours in Actual Work and $720 for costs (what the original 9 workers would have earned at $8 an hour) is also wrong! The solution is to place the 80 hours in the Actual Work column, but then put 0 (zero) in the Remaining Duration column. You had 80 hours of work and you are all finished. It cost $640. Have your team report Actual Duration and Remaining Duration column numbers and save 100% Complete exclusively for completed milestones. You will have clearer information to guide the remainder of the project and more useful statistics to use when you plan schedules for similar projects in the future.
Her new book, 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know, includes practical tips from experienced project managers around the world. Ms. Davis is available for speaking engagements and encourages your questions or comments. |
||
Quick Quiz
Barbee Davis, MA, PHR, PMP, is a reviewer for the global PMI Registered Education Provider Review Team. She owns Davis Consulting and is a published author, speaker, writer of training materials and an innovator in presentation skill workshops for corporate trainers. She holds a Black Belt in MS Project and teaches at the university level. | Home BACK TO TOP
|