Software Project Management For Dummies®

Chapter 15. Tracking Project Performance

In This Chapter

• Setting the proper project goals

• Keeping track of project performance

• Understanding the benefits and limitations of a PMIS

• Being a fine host for a project status meeting

• Communicating effectively with the appropriate stakeholders

• Communicating good and bad news

Your project is underway and things appear to be going well, or so you think. How do you know how things are really working? Is your project on time, within budget, meeting not just your, but also your stakeholders', expectations? Unless you have a system for measuring and quantifying the performance of your project and all its components, you really don't know whether you're moving things in the right direction.

To be sure that you can show that your project is progressing as planned, you must be able to not only measure the various items involved in getting the project to closure (see Chapter 14 for information on one kind of assessment, earned value management), but also to communicate to the appropriate stakeholders that things are going as anticipated. After all, if stakeholders aren't convinced, you may find yourself with a plan and no project to go with it. You might also find yourself at an employment agency trying to finagle a new software project management position.

So how do you prove that everything is as it should be with your project? Well, that's why you're reading this chapter, isn't it?

Planning Project Metrics

Setting up metrics is Step 3 of a fool‐proof, four‐step ...