Using Graphic Indicators to Summarize Project Status

Quick view of both tasks and projects

Dave Hulse: dhulse@cox.net

Agenda

2. Why Use Indicators? 2. Why Use Indicators?

3. Identify What Should be Measured3. Identify What Should be Measured

4. Task Indicators 4. Task Indicators

5. Enterprise Indicators5. Enterprise Indicators

1. Overview1. Overview

6. Complex Indicators6. Complex Indicators

7. Tips, Tricks and Best Practices 7. Tips, Tricks and Best Practices

Indicators

• Visual indicators help managers focus on what is important

• Available in both Project Pro and Project Web Access

• Support improved project management metrics– Project Management Maturity (PMM) is a measure of

the extent to which a specific project management process is defined, repeatable, managed, measurable, and effective.

Common Measures of Variance

• Work variance– Planned vs. actual hours worked

• Cost variance– Over/under budget– Earned value

• Schedule variance– Variance from baseline– Slack time to deadline

Task vs. Project Variance

• Task variance– Track every task in the project schedule– Available in both Standard and Enterprise

editions of Microsoft Project

• Project variance– Useful for digital dashboards that summarize

overall performance of multiple projects– Project indicators only available in EPM– May require more complex logic (Example:

final deadline may not be the best milestone)

Work and Cost Variance

• Easy indicators to create

• Typically compare work to baseline work or cost to baseline cost

• Cost is calculated as resource hours X resource cost– Some organizations don’t expose resource

cost in Project

Useful Functions

• IIf( expression, truepart, falsepart )– IIf( [Work]>[Baseline Work], ”Over”, ”OK”)

• Switch( expression1, value1, expression2, value2, ... )– Switch( [Work]/[Baseline Work]>1.1, 3,

[Work]/[Baseline Work]>1, 2, True, 1)

• ProjDateDiff( date1, date2, calendar )– ProjDateDiff( [Baseline Finish] , [Finish])– Usually divide by 480 (60 min X 8 hours)

Baseline Variance

• A baseline saves the following– Cost– Finish– Work

• You can easily create variance indicators for any of these

– Duration– Start

Schedule Variance

• Typically measures slippage based on the end date of the task or milestone

• Work best for flexible project plans where the end date is affected by update of actual work– Fixed duration tasks do not “float”– Entering progress by percent complete does

not push out end dates

Schedule Variance

• Finish date variance from baseline– Easy indicator to design– Easy for project managers to establish

• Finish date slack from deadline– Easy to design and very flexible– PM must set deadlines on individual tasks

• Actual progress vs. expected progress– Requires more complex logic– Can be used for fixed duration tasks

Track Pct. Complete

Logic Value Color

Task not due to start 0 White

Task is complete 1 Green

Task underway and on schedule 1 Green

Task is behind schedule 2 Red

Project & Enterprise Indicators

• Within a single project, rollup capability can be used to show overall project status– Supported in Standard edition– Rollups use same logic as tasks

• Enterprise edition allows true project level indicators– Indicator logic can be different and more

complex than task logic

Complex Indicators

• Create indicator logic to distinguish certain types of tasks– Critical path– Custom flags– Key milestones

• Roll up values based on task type or flag fields

Best Practices

• Don’t create too many different indicators• Indicators that roll up should be based on

algorithms that return simple numeric values

• Higher numbers indicate “worse” conditions

• Be sure to trap all conditions (including no value”

• Create and save a project plan that tests all logic

Best Practices (cont.)

• Document your logic• Keep your plans current—move

uncompleted time to the future• Global template changes don’t take effect

until you close Project and re-open– Hint: Test logic in local fields, then import into

Enterprise fields

• Divide duration by minutes times hours per day

• Hint: Service Pack 1 may impact roll-ups

Advanced Customization

• SQL Reporting Services or custom code can be used to generate e-mail alerts– Slipping critical tasks

• Project metrics can be linked to other data– ERP resource cost to EPM resource hours

Code Samples

• Work variance from baseline– IIf([Baseline

Work]=0,0,Switch([Work]/[Baseline Work]>1.1,3,[Work]/[Baseline Work]>1,2,True,1))

• Schedule slip from deadline– IIf(IsDate(1+

[Deadline])=0,0,Switch(ProjDateDiff([Deadline],[Finish])/480>5,3,ProjDateDiff([Deadline],[Finish])/480>0,2,True,1))

Code Samples 2

• Fixed duration task check– Switch([Current Date]<[Start],0,[%

Complete]=100,1,ProjDateDiff([Start], [Current Date])/ProjDateDiff( [Start], [Finish])<([% Complete]/100),1,True,2)