Project Management Book

...chapter 7 continued

The Key Controls report contains some of the most valuable data a tracking tool will ever give you. Again, we are at the end of week 4 of this 24 week stage. Please look at block D, Total Project Hours.

KEY CONTROLS REPORT

		June	June	June	June	July	July	July	July	Aug	Aug
		9	16	23	30	7	14	21	28	4	11

A. Non-project hours	Week Plan	57	196	145	170	264	306	170	96	187	147
	Week Actual	48	177	172	155
	Week Actual/Plan	.84	.90	1.19	.91

	To Date Plan	57	253	398	568	832	1138	1308	1404	1591	1738
	To Date Actual	48	225	397	552
	To Date Actual/Plan	.84	.89	1.00	.97

B. Project investment hours	Week Plan	71	313	332	297	268	281	317	395	296	365
	Week Actual	38	303	372	354
	Week Actual/Plan	.54	.97	1.12	1.19

	To Date Plan	71	384	716	1013	1281	1562	1879	2274	2570	2935
	To Date Actual	38	341	713	1067
	To Date Actual/Plan	.54	.89	1.00	1.05

C. Project real work hours	Week Plan	57	404	436	442	381	326	426	422	430	401
	Week Actual	65	438	383	355
	Week Actual/Plan	1.14	1.08	.88	.80

	To Date Plan	57	461	897	1339	1720	2046	2472	2894	3324	3725
	To Date Actual	65	503	886	1241
	To Date Actual/Plan	1.14	1.09	.99	.93

D. Total project hours	Week Plan	128	717	768	739	649	607	743	817	726	766
	Week Actual	103	741	755	709
	Week Actual/Plan	.80	1.03	.98	.96

	To Date Plan	128	845	1613	2352	3001	3608	4351	5168	5894	6660
	To Date Actual	103	844	1599	2308
	To Date Actual/Plan	.80	1.00	.99	.98

In week 4 the team should have worked 739 hours on the project but only recorded having worked 709, so it looks as though we lost 30 hours last week. However, over the first 4 weeks in total they should have worked a total of 2352 hours and they have in fact worked 2308 hours - very close to the planned number. So would you agree we have a very healthy project on our hands? Did you say "yes"? Please look at block F, tasks started.


E. Percent complete	To Date Plan	0.9	5.9	11.3	16.5	21.0	25.2	30.4	36.2	41.2	46.6
E. Percent complete	To Date Actual	0.9	6.0	11.2	15.2

F. No. of tasks started	Week Plan	6	24	29	25	22	25	26	19	10	5
	Week Actual	5	26	21	13
	Week Actual/Plan	.83	1.08	.72	.52

	To Date Plan	6	30	59	84	106	131	157	176	186	191
	To Date Actual	5	31	52	65
	To Date Actual/Plan	.83	1.03	.88	.77

Still happy? To date your team should have started 84 tasks but they have in fact only started 65 tasks, so they're a quarter behind despite putting in roughly the right number of hours. Please look at block I, task completed.


G. Tasks started, not due		-	1	-	2

H. Tasks overdue starting		-	-	3	21

I. No. of tasks completed	Week Plan	4	13	19	27	26	21	34	16	11	8
	Week Actual	3	10	10	19
	Week Actual/Plan	.75	.77	.53	.70

	To Date Plan	4	17	36	63	89	110	144	160	171	179
	To Date Actual	3	13	23	42
	To Date Actual/Plan	.75	.76	.64	.67

J. Tasks completed, not due		-	1	4	5

K. Tasks overdue completing		1	5	17	26

L. Hours for completed tasks	Week Plan	25	118	167	391
	Week Actual	44	139	135	475
	Week Actual/Plan	1.26	1.18	.81	1.21

	To Date Plan	35	153	320	711
	To Date Actual	44	183	318	793
	To Date Actual/Plan	1.26	1.20	.99	1.12

M. Hours ahead of schedule		-11	-65	23	-177

How do you now feel about your project? Your team should have finished 63 tasks by now but have only finished 42. Ouch.

One last number: near the bottom right hand corner of the table is a figure of 1.12. What is that telling us? The 42 finished tasks took on average 12% more hours to complete than estimated. What rather worrying thought is in the back of your mind about all the remaining tasks in your plan: will they all run over by 12% as well? Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but today at the end of week four we have some investigating to do. We're getting early warning of a possible overrun here, we should not ignore it.

Please take a few moments to study this Key Controls Report to get a feel for what it is telling us. In the tracking, controlling and reporting chapter we will explore how reports such as this provide the raw material for crisp and concise project status reporting.

But where do all these nice numbers come from?

...next

Project Management Book
Copyright M Harding Roberts 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
This book must not be copied either as is or in modified form to any website or other medium
www.hraconsulting-ltd.co.uk

Home Sitemap Contact Us Project Management Articles Project Management Book