As part of your efforts in tracking and controlling your project, you might want to analyze certain aspects of project performance. Project analysis, which you might think of as "project data crunching," can give you a closer look at the overall execution of the project. For first-time efforts at managing a particular kind of project or for new variations on an established project theme, you and your stakeholders might want to see performance indicators and estimates for the remainder of the project. These indicators help assess the effectiveness of the plan and define the amount of corrective action needed to make actual performance in the project conform to the baseline.
A good method for such an examination of project performance is earned value analysis, which is a systematic method of measuring and evaluating schedule, cost, and work performance in a project. A set of calculations is performed on certain types of project data. The result of these earned value calculations allows you then to do your earned value analysis. Earned value provides a variety of comparisons between baseline and actual information. The basis of earned value calculations are the following:
The project baseline, including schedule and cost information for assigned resources
Actual work and costs reported
Variances between actuals and baseline information
A status date
As soon as you set a baseline, Microsoft Office Project 2007 begins calculating and storing earned value data. You can use three earned value tables and an earned value report to view this data.
Earned value data begin to be generated as soon as you set a project baseline. Then as you start entering progress information, such as actual start or finish dates, actual percentage completed, and so on, Office Project 2007 compares the actuals against the baseline, calculates variances, and plugs those variances into earned value calculations. There are three categories of earned value fields, each with a different focus:
Cost
Schedule
Work
Set the project baseline when you have built and refined the project plan to your satisfaction and just before you start entering progress information against tasks. The project plan should show all tasks and resources assigned, and costs should be associated with those resources. The project plan should reflect your target schedule dates, budget amounts, and scope of work.
To set a baseline, click Tools, Tracking, Set Baseline.
You can now save up to 11 different baselines. However, earned value is calculated on only a single baseline. To specify which baseline should be used for earned value analyses, follow these steps:
Click Tools, Options and then click Calculation.
Click the Earned Value button.
The Earned Value dialog box appears (see Figure 13-1).
In the Baseline For Earned Value Calculations list, click the baseline you want to use.
Note
For a complete discussion of baselines, see the section titled Saving Original Plan Information Using a Baseline in Chapter 10.
The counterpart to baseline information for earned value calculations is the actuals information. To enter task progress information manually, click Tools, Tracking, Update Tasks and then complete one or more of the progress fields indicating percentage complete, actual and remaining duration, or actual start and finish dates.
If you want to enter true timephased actuals, that is, the actual amount of work performed per day or other period of time, record them in the timephased portion of the Task Usage or Resource Usage view. Otherwise, Microsoft Project derives timephased actuals by dividing any total amount entered into the timespan of the assignment.
If you’re set up for enterprise project management using Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, progress information can be updated in your project plan as team members submit task updates via Microsoft Office Project Web Access.
If you and your project server administrator have set up Office Project Web Access to record actual work performed per time period (days or weeks), you’ll receive true timephased actuals from team members. However, if Project Web Access records actuals by percentage complete or total actual work and remaining work, again, Microsoft Project derives timephased actuals by dividing any total amount entered into the timespan of the assignment.
Note
For more information about manually entering progress information, see the section titled Updating Task Progress in Chapter 10.
Microsoft Project can calculate variances as soon your project plan contains baseline as well as actuals information. With variances, the earned values fields begin to populate.
Earned value data is calculated based on a particular cutoff date, or status date. Unless you specify otherwise, the status date is today’s date. However, you are likely to specify a different status date, for example, if you want to see figures based on the end of the month, which was last Thursday. Also, the status date is typically the date up to which you have collected status information. There is almost always a lag between the date of the latest status information and the date when you are running your earned value reports.
To enter a status date, do the following:
Because Microsoft Project stores timephased data for values such as baseline and actual work, cost, and so on, earned value can be calculated based on the specified status date.