Physical percent complete methods

Manual entry — the project manager judges it. Simple, subjective, appropriate for knowledge work. Cost-based — percent complete derived from cost incurred against budget. Objective, and misleading — because spending is not progress. Effort-based — derived from hours against planned hours. Better for labour-intensive work. Deliverable or milestone-based — progress recognized when something is delivered. Most objective; requires well-defined deliverables. The cost-based trap. It is the easiest to automate and the least meaningful. A task eighty per cent spent may be thirty per cent done — and the one method that reports purely on spend is structurally incapable of noticing. Deliverable-based where deliverables exist. Effort-based for labour tasks. Manual only where nothing better applies. Avoid cost-based unless the client insists and understands what it means. Mixed methods. Different task types can use different methods on the same project. That is usually right, and the lab requires two. CONFIGURATION CANNOT FIX…

In this module: Module 10 · Budgeting, Forecasting and Progress

1. 1The planning cycle
2. 2Creating and baselining a budget
3. 3Progress collection
4. 4Physical percent complete methodsFree preview
5. 5Generating a forecast
6. 6Progress exception thresholds
7. 7Variance analysis
8. 8Earned value basics
9. 9What breaks
10. 10Lab: run one full cycle and time it