project tracking and scope management

Project Tracking and Scope

Management

Talha SiddiquiPMO Assistant

My Affiliations

The intent of publishing this presentation would really aid those who just entered in to the world of Project Management and don’t grasp much concept on Monitoring and controlling software projects so my story telling style will help them understand

better

My though process: Planning is essential plans are useless so the only result of planning phase is strategy not project schedule

Let’s Say

We Have a Project“XYZ”

AndThe Current Status is:

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Requirements are clear.Client has signed-off the scope of work onUser Stories and WireframesEstimations shared with the client have been approvedProject Plan is readyClient has given a go-ahead

Here are the Project’s Estimates

Cost Rs.20,000 Time 3 Weeks

Man Hours 110 Hrs Resources 03

And here is the Project Plan

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Day 1

Now What?

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Start Tracking your Project

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Why Tracking Projects?Just because I have to complete

this project in 20k within 3 weeks,110 hours and with 3

resources.

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What data you required to track a Project?

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• Actual Hours• Actual Cost

Now, where do I get actual hours spent on my project? Do

my resources record their working hours anywhere?

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Yes, I have given access to my team on a Time tracking system i.e. Freckle where they actually logged their actual hours therefore, I can pick those hours from

there

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Ok, Let’s monitor project status

what I have planned for Task 1 (planned hours) and what my

team reported in actual

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Using Status Reports for Project Tracking

Should contains these sections

• Where are we today?

• Where we will be at the next report?

• What is the Project’s budget position?

• What items hinder project completion?

• Total hours of project completion, hours spent so far and Hours remaining for project completion?

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Status Review Meeting for Project TrackingWhen milestones are not being met ask these Questions from your team and take corrective actions

• Where are the milestones not completed?

• When will the work be done/

• Is an alternative action plan needed?

• What is the date required to get the schedule back on time?

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Oh no….We are behind the schedule as

we have spent lots of hours against what we have planned

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Planned vs Actuals

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Its now time to take corrective actions and put efforts to bring the project schedule On Track

What to do?

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Lets add more resources so that we can catch up the plan

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Techniques to Control Project

• Fast Tracking look at activities that are normally done in sequence and assign them instead partially in parallel

• CrashingAdd more resources

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Project is On-Track now(In terms of scope, time and cost)

I have now updated my Project Schedule and everything looks good

Lets summarize what we have learned

Why?Control against

the BaselineContinuous

Improvement

What?Your Project’s

ResourcesSchedule

CostScope

When?During Execution

Phase of the Project

How?Through Project

Performance reports /StatusesVariance Analysis

Meeting with TeamProviding feedback

to your team

3 W’s and 1’H’s of Project Tracking

Project’s Tracking Loop

Tracking Loop

• Project Schedule• Resource plan• Cost• Scope of work

• Project Status• Project’s Progress

Actual status against plan• Schedule• Cost

• Correct deviations from plan

• RE-PLAN as necessary

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5 Step Model for Project Tracking

Step 1 Monitor status of the Project

Step 2 Analyze the Impact of Possible Variances

Step 3 Act on the Problem as stated in previous Steps

Step 4 Publish revisions to the plan(if necessary)

Step 5 Inform PMO and your Team

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Step 1 Monitor status of the Project• Project’s Review meeting with team members.

• Team members submitting their time sheets/time tracking same as in our case like Freckle.

Step 2 Analyze the Impact of possible Variances

• Compare Plan to actual results looking for variances• As a Project Manager, You need to answer the following questions

Are we ahead or behind schedule???Are we over budget or under budget???Are we using the team members' time wisely???Are we getting the results that we expected???

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• Determine the root cause of the problem. Typically causes of problem would be poorly defined project objectives, poor estimates, scope changes and team members problems/conflicts.

• Best practice is to prepare analysis/forecast report for future completion dates.

Step 3 Act on the Problem as stated in previous Steps

• Go back to your seat and open your project plan/schedule and make necessary adjustments to the schedule and solve the problem.

• Start negotiating trade off-I mean to say adding time, additional resources, more money and resizing the scope of the project.

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Step 4 Publish revisions to the plan(if not required then leave it)

Publish the revisions to the plan(if necessary)

• Since the plan is the document that the project relies on, its should be updated regularly.

• Every minor changes create a need to publish a revised project plan

Step 5 Inform PMO and your Team• During the controlling process, you need to inform management about the

problem being encountered in the project also, you have to inform to your team members too

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ClientI have just review the application

but my team suggested me to add 2 more features. Can you please

add more features in it

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PMSir, It’s a change in scope as it was not a part of initial scope so Do send me

the change by filling our change request form.

I will get back to you once, I assess the change with my team

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Managing Scope

• Controlling and managing scope change is critical to the success of any project, as scope changes can significantly impact the cost, schedule, and quality of the entire effort.

• The key to successful scope management is defining, communicating emerging requests throughout the project lifecycle

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Managing Scope

There are four strong reasons why scope management must be a top priority for the successful project manager:

Cost: Scope change can affect work that has been already performed. This means rework costs for work that has already started or worse, been completed.

Schedule: With each scope change, precious project resources are diverted to activities that were not identified in the original project scope, leading to pressure on the project schedule.

Quality: When not analyzed thoroughly, scope changes lead to quick fixes that can affect product quality.

Morale: Scope changes can cause a loss of control of the team’s planned work. Changing focus or direction to meet the change requests poorly impacts team morale.so always facilitate your team members as much as you can

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PMTeam-Here is the changes in the scope so figure it out how much time it takes to implement and

its impact on original scope

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PM to ClientSir, The change would take extra

25 days and cost 5k more. Please confirm if we can go for

it

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ClientAm willing to PayYou can proceed

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PM to Sponsor/PMOThis is the scope change request

Also, client is willing to pay us for the change

Please Approve!

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Sponsor/PMO to PM

Approved!Please proceed

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PMTeam-Lets incorporate new

requirement changes in original scope and let me revise the

Project plan and project documents

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PM to ClientYour change request has been

processed and here is the revised schedule

Scope Change Request WorkflowClient request you for a change

PM assess change along with team members

Team informs PM on how long this change should take to implement

PM inform client regarding the impact of the changes(in terms of time, cost)

Is client agree on change

PM mandate Team to implement change

Reject Changes

Once you start changes to the scope, always revise your plan, documents, code. I mean Software Configuration Management, Continuous Integration v1.0,1.1,1.2

Best practice is to maintain a change request log ask client to fill change request log

Is PMO/spo

nsor agree

Intimate client that change would be cater later

Inform client that change will now be implement

Why?Control against

the freeze project's

requirements/Scope

What?Project’s

Requirements

When?During Execution

Phase of the Project

How?Through Change request processProject Reviews

3W’s and 1H’s of Project’s Scope Management

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Scope Creep?• define a series of small scope changes that are made to the project without scope-

change management procedures being used.

• Scope creep is one of the most common reasons projects run over budget and deliver late. Often done with the best intentions, changes to scope during a project are a negative event best avoided.

What Causes Scope Creep?

• Poor Requirements Analysis.

• Not Involving Users Early Enough.

• Underestimating the Complexity of the Project.

• Lack of Change Control.

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The latter a change is addressed, Higher the time and cost

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Techniques for preventing scope from a change

Proactive Change Identification: • Scope changes are waiting to happen• You should take an active role in identifying these changes with stakeholders by

being proactive.

Communicate Changes: • changes can be overlooked if they are not communicated in a timely way. People

like to know what they are working on and to be kept informed of project decisions.

Avoid Scope Creep: • Scope creep occurs when changes are allowed without proper impact analysis,

and without reviewing schedule and cost implications.

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Suggested Readings

http://www.techrepublic.com/

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You will find this ebook on CCPM under my training folder

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Thank You“If you have no plan, you can't possibly have control”