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I was recently asked to join a troubled program as a program management consultant. The program has 8 major workstreams and the team recently developed an integrated Microsoft Project schedule with new launch dates. The program launch date had several times before and this was the final attempt to deliver the program with the new round of funding. The project team was confident the project schedule for 3500 tasks was realistic and on schedule to deliver.
In order to assess the project's schedule status, I wanted to review the integrated project schedule to answer 3 questions:
- Is the project on schedule?
- What areas of the project schedule are running behind schedule?
- What specific tasks are late?
Reviewing a 3500 task project schedule could've been a nightmare if I didn't have my Metrics In Minutes tool. Fortunately, I was able to configure the tool for the project schedule and in a few minutes I had all the metrics I needed to answer the questions. Below are several screenshots that help me assess the situation.
Is the Project On Schedule?
I grouped the lowest level tasks into several categories and the Task Dashboard quickly revealed the project schedule was off by 14%. This is a huge concern as the project team had just completed re-planning all the work.
Task Dashboard
What areas of the project schedule are running behind schedule?
The next step was to analyze the specific areas of the project schedule that were causing the delay. The Task Dashboard provides on indicator however the Late and Complete Task Groups view provides a graphical view.
Late and Complete Task Groups
This graph depicts completed tasks in blue, late tasks in red, and future tasks in green. A quick glance at the chart indicates Conversion, Mainframe, Release 1 Testing, Website development, and Legacy integration have late tasks.
Since this is a snapshot in time, it is useful to know the overall percentage of tasks that are late for the entire project.
The pie chart graph tells me 2% of my overall project is behind schedule and I've successfully completed 11% of the project.
Pie Chart Graph
What specific tasks are late?
Now that I understand the specific areas of the project schedule that are running behind, I want to dive into specific tasks. The Metrics in Minutes tool provides the late tasks. In this example, I filtered on the Mainframe task group to identify the specific late tasks that I need to follow up with the workstream project manager and individual resources.
Key Benefits
The key benefit of the schedule assessment is the TIME SAVED in assessing the project schedule's status. Without this tool, I would've spent hours filtering tasks, making notes and printing several reports. The tool also provides the objective metrics needed to work with the project team to determine the specific tasks that are running behind. Instead of a subjective feeling that the project is on schedule, I have objective metrics that tell me the project is not on schedule.
Next Steps
My next step is to work with each of the project managers in their workstream to update their individual project schedules. One cause of the variance could be the project schedule isn't up to date and there really is a significant amount of work completed. The other cause is the project is simply running behind. This isn't the first time and surely won't be the last.
Interested in the tool?
If you'd like a copy of the Metrics in Minutes tool, you can get it with my MS Project Tutorial #3: How to Effectively Analyze and Report Project Status solution. I hope you can use it on your projects and programs. Its been a useful tool in my project management toolkit for years!
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