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From: Marc on 13 May 2008 09:27
When I worked in software development, it was somewhat easy to track true
progress because every task was estimated via hours, then we tracked actual
hours against remaining hours.

However, I have since moved into an Infrastructure area of the business and
the this particular area of the business simply isn't at a point where they
can/will estimate work and track against it via hours.

To that end, is there any other way to track progress? I have some ideas
that mostly take into consideration where we are in the year versus how many
weeks remaining before the deadline, but I haven't been able to actually
implement anything yet.

Any ideas??
From: Trevor Rabey on 13 May 2008 11:24
You suggest (state) that tracking Hours is the only right way to measure
"true progress".
It aint necessarily so.
Even without Work, progress occurs and it can be measured.
Hours are not progress.
They are just what has to be done to get progress.
Tasks are progress.

You always have a need to track:

the task itself (how many bricks have been laid? how many remain?)
Duration
Cost
Work (Hours)

all together, if you have modeled them.
All 4 have an actual, remaining, total and %.
If you don't have Work (with or without resources) or costs, either from
resource costs or fixed cost, you are still left with the task itself and
its duration.
You have the duration of individual tasks and then you have the duration of
the overall project.
So at any given status date a task is 0%, 100% or something in between
according to % Complete = actual/total.
If started, it has an actual start date and an actual duration and if
finished also has an actual finish.
So, if you just track duration, including a re-estimate of remaining
duration for tasks in progress, you are measuring progress.
If you are not doing the right tasks, ie the critical ones, and doing them
on time, your progress can be measured by the shift of the project finish
date.
Another way of measuring progress is by whether or not you are preserving
free float and total float.
If noncritical tasks get done later than planned, float evaporates.

You also have what we could call the "cumulative duration". For example, say
you have two 10 day tasks and say they overlap by 5 days, so task A runs 5
days and then task B kicks in and they both run 5 days and then just task B
runs alone for 5 days. That's 20 days cumulative in 15 days of duration
At the end of Day 10, you have planned 5+5+5 cumulative days. If you haven't
got them, progress is not up to as-planned, but you can't say much about how
good or bad that is unless you know which tasks and why. You can make $
stand in for cumulative days by assigning a work type resource at $1/day,
then read actual, remaining, total and % Cost as actual, remaining, total
and % cumulative duration.

Trevor Rabey 0407213955 61 8 92727485 PERFECT PROJECT PLANNING
www.perfectproject.com.au
"Marc" <Marc(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:438B115A-60E8-43F7-8920-DF0293609E25(a)microsoft.com...
> When I worked in software development, it was somewhat easy to track true
> progress because every task was estimated via hours, then we tracked
> actual
> hours against remaining hours.
>
> However, I have since moved into an Infrastructure area of the business
> and
> the this particular area of the business simply isn't at a point where
> they
> can/will estimate work and track against it via hours.
>
> To that end, is there any other way to track progress? I have some ideas
> that mostly take into consideration where we are in the year versus how
> many
> weeks remaining before the deadline, but I haven't been able to actually
> implement anything yet.
>
> Any ideas??


From: John on 13 May 2008 11:46
In article <438B115A-60E8-43F7-8920-DF0293609E25(a)microsoft.com>,
Marc <Marc(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> When I worked in software development, it was somewhat easy to track true
> progress because every task was estimated via hours, then we tracked actual
> hours against remaining hours.
>
> However, I have since moved into an Infrastructure area of the business and
> the this particular area of the business simply isn't at a point where they
> can/will estimate work and track against it via hours.
>
> To that end, is there any other way to track progress? I have some ideas
> that mostly take into consideration where we are in the year versus how many
> weeks remaining before the deadline, but I haven't been able to actually
> implement anything yet.
>
> Any ideas??

Marc,
Have you looked into using classical earned value methodology? Classical
earned value, (that used by Project), tracks performance in terms of
cost for both cost performance, (that one makes sense), and schedule
performance. In my opinion the latter, (SPI tracked in terms of cost),
does not make sense. Nonetheless, classical earned value methods
prevail. You can read more about earned value in the Project help file.

Hope this helps.

John
Project MVP
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