Hybrid Project Management

19Metrics for Predictive Deliverables

As your project advances you will want to check the progress. For predictive deliverables you will focus on cost and schedule measures and provide forecasts for future work. There are many ways to measure progress. This chapter covers looking at variance from the critical path and how resource variances influence cost variances. Earned value management entails four key metrics and several calculations to provide performance information for schedule and cost status. You can also use these metrics to forecast cost information.

In this lesson you will learn common performance measures for predictive deliverables. You will learn to calculate variances and efficiency indexes. You will also learn ways to forecast future performance given the current status of the project.

PREDICTIVE MEASURES

Most predictive projects measure progress against baselines, for example, comparing planned schedule progress to actual progress, or budget estimates to actual costs. There is an expectation that the project will have some cost and schedule variance, but how much is too much? Organizations usually set cost and schedule performance thresholds, but if the organization doesn't have them, then the team will want to establish thresholds so they can determine how the project is doing. Common thresholds are:

Threshold: A value that indicates action is required.

• Acceptable: Performance variance within ±5% indicates the project is going as planned. Variances ...