project simply has to be overcome in a later phase.
As the project manager, you are responsible for staying on schedule and meeting the deadline. It does not matter what caused the delay. You are personally responsible for controlling the activities, monitoring progress, anticipating problems, and taking corrective actions before delays cause you to miss the final project deadline.
Although your goal should be to meet the project deadline, it is unwise to let the quality of the project suffer. Your final results should be accurate and of high quality, even if it means requesting an extension. You should try, of course, to work faster, put in overtime, or modify your original plan in order to meet the deadline. Ultimately, if the trade-off is between meeting the deadline or doing quality work, the project’s quality should take top priority.
Project Scorecard
A project scorecard measures the characteristics of the deliverables produced by a project. It also measures the progress of the internal project processes that create those deliverables.
Exhibit 2 provides the types of metrics that could be reported. This list is not exhaustive by any means but may help provide additional ideas for you.
Exhibit 2: Project Scorecard Metrics
| BALANCE CATEGORY | SAMPLE METRICS |
| Cost | Actual cost vs. budget (variance) for project, for phase, for activity, etc. |
| Total support costs for x months after solution is completed | |
| Total labor costs vs. nonlabor (vs. budget) | |
| Total cost of employees vs. cost of contract vs. cost of consultant (vs. budget) | |
| Cost associated with building components for reuse | |
| Total cost per transaction | |
| Ideas for cost reductions implemented and cost savings realized | |
| Effort | Actual effort vs. budget (variance) |
| Amount of project manager time vs. overall effort hours | |
| Duration | Actual duration vs. budget (variance) |
| Productivity | Effort hours per unit of work/function point |
| Difficult to | Work units/function points produced per effort hour |
| measure | Effort hours reduced from standard project processes |
| accurately unless function | Effort hours saved through reuse of previous deliverables, models, components, etc. |
| points are | Number of process improvement ideas implemented |
| counted | Number of hours/dollars saved from process improvements |
| Quality of deliverables | Percentage of deliverables going through quality reviews |
| Percentage of deliverable reviews resulting in acceptance the first time | |
| Number of defects discovered after initial acceptance | |
| Percentage of deliverables that comply 100 percent with organization standards | |
| Percentage of deliverables that comply with organization architectural standards | |
| Number of customer change requests to revise scope | |
| Number of hours of rework to previously completed deliverables | |
| Number of best practices identified and applied on the project | |
| Number of successfully mitigated risks | |
| Customer satisfaction with deliverables | Overall customer satisfaction (survey) with deliverables in terms of:ReliabilityMinimal defectsUsabilityResponse timeEase of useAvailabilityFlexibilityIntuitivenessSecurityMeets customer needsUnderstandableUser documentationApplication response time (calculated by the system)Number of approved business requirements satisfied by the project |
| Customer satisfaction with project team | Overall customer satisfaction (survey) with the project team in terms of:ResponsivenessCompetenceAccessibilityCourteousnessCommunication skillsCredibilityKnowledge of the customerReliability/following through on commitmentsProfessionalismTraining providedOverall customer satisfactionTurnaround time required to answer customer queries and problemsAverage time required to resolve issuesNumber of scope change requests satisfied within originalproject budget and duration |
| Business value | Overall customer satisfaction (survey) with deliverables in terms of:ReliabilityMinimal defectsUsabilityResponse timeEase of useAvailabilityFlexibilityIntuitivenessSecurityMeets customer needsUnderstandableUser documentationApplication response time (calculated by the system)Number of approved business requirements satisfied by the project |
Terminating the Project
The fourth and final phase of the project life cycle is terminating the project. It starts after the project work has been completed and includes various actions to properly close out the project.
The purpose of properly terminating a project is to learn from the experience gained on the project in order to improve performance on future projects. Therefore, the activities associated with terminating the project should be identified and included in the project’s baseline plan—they should not be done merely as spontaneous afterthoughts. These activities might include organizing and filing project documents, receiving and making final payments, and conducting post-project evaluation meetings within both the contractor’s and the customer’s organization.
The termination phase starts when performance of the project is completed and the result is accepted by the customer. In some situations, this might be a somewhat formal event in which an automated system satisfies a set of criteria or passes tests that were stated in the contract. Other projects, such as a weekend of homecoming activities at a university, are completed merely with the passage of time.
CHAPTER 3Project Management Concepts and Process
A project is an endeavor to accomplish a specific objective through effectively utilizing resources in order to complete a unique set of interrelated tasks. The following attributes help define a project:
►A project has a well-defined objective—an expected result or product. The objective of a project is usually defined in terms of scope, schedule, and cost. For example, the objective of a project might be to introduce to the market— in 10 months and within a budget of $400,000—a new food preparation appliance that meets certain predefined performance specifications. The project team must complete a scope statement for developing a common understanding of the project scope among stakeholders. This lists project deliverables – summary level sub-products, whose full and satisfactory delivery marks the completion of the project. Furthermore, it is expected that the work scope will be accomplished in a quality manner and to the customer’s satisfaction.
►A project is carried out through a series of interdependent tasks—that is, a number of nonrepetitive tasks that need to be accomplished in a certain sequence in order to achieve the project objective.
►A project utilizes various resources to carry out the tasks. Such resources can include different people, organizations, equipment, materials, and facilities. For example, a wedding is a project that may involve resources such as a caterer, a florist, a limousine, and a reception hall.
► A project has a specific time frame, or finite life span. It has a start time and a date by which the objective must be accomplished. For example, the refurbishing of an elementary school might have to be completed between June 20 and August 20.
►A project may be a unique occurrence or one-time endeavor. Some projects— like designing and building a space station on Mars—are unique because they have never before been attempted. Other projects, such as developing a new product, building a house, or planning a wedding, are unique because of the customization required. For example, a wedding can be a simple informal occasion, with a few friends in a chapel, or a spectacular event staged for a royal family.
►A
