Using Percentage Complete to Measure Progress
The most common way to measure progress is to simply estimate percentage complete. This is the BCWP measure, but BCWP is expressed as a dollar value, whereas percentage complete does not make that conversion.
When percentage complete measures are plotted over time, you tend to get a curve like the one shown in Figure 9-8. It rises more or less linearly up to about 80 or 90 percent, then turns horizontal (meaning no further progress is being made). It stays there for a while; then, all of a sudden, the work is completed.
Figure 9-8. Percent complete curve.
The reason is that problems are often encountered near the end of the task, and a lot of effort goes into trying to solve them. During that time, no progress is made.
Another part of the problem is in knowing where you are to begin with. We have already said that you are generally estimating progress. Consider a task that has a ten-week duration. If you ask the person doing that task where he is at the end of the first week, he is likely to tell you, “10 percent”; at the end of week two, “20 percent”; and so on. What he is doing is making a reverse inference. It goes like this. “It is the end of the first week on a ten-week task, so I must be 10 percent complete.” The truth is, he really doesn’t know where he is. Naturally, under such conditions, control is very loose. Still, this is the only way progress can be measured in many cases.
Key Points to Remember
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