Powerful Techniques for Project Control

So far, we have covered the value and importance of planning your control system. In this section, we’ll take a look at some powerful project control techniques that you’ll want to consider during your planning efforts and then implement during the execution of your project.

 Caution

Make sure your status meetings are scheduled and conducted in a purposeful, value-added manner. Be cognizant of the cost involved in pulling the targeted resources together. Focus on improving team synergy, project communications, managing expectations, and accountability to the team.

• Small work packages—This was a point of emphasis during our discussion on building a work breakdown structure (WBS). Recall that there are two primary reasons for advocating small work packages: more accurate estimates and better control. From a control perspective, if your work packages are scheduled to complete within one (or at the most, two) reporting period, it is much easier to detect a delayed or troubled task. With earlier notice, you are more likely to resolve the variance and protect the project’s critical success factors.
• Early and frequent work packages—In addition to small work packages, which help identify progress variances early, you should look for opportunities and approaches that emphasize prototyping (at a minimum) or early and frequent generation of the actual product result that is reviewed with the key stakeholders. This is the key aspect of agile-type methodologies. This helps identify any variances with requirements and stakeholder expectations as early as possible. And with earlier notice, you are more likely to resolve the variance and protect the project’s critical success factors.
• Baselines—A fundamental control principle is to manage to baselines. First, establish a baseline. This is generally applied to the critical success factors of schedule and budget, but you can apply it equally as well to product-oriented aspects of the project, especially requirements. Second, measure and report performance against the baseline. Third, maintain the baseline unless there is a formal agreement to reset the baseline.
• Status meetings—The simplest, and most widely known, technique is the status meeting. Consistent and regular status meetings help to keep everyone honest, accountable, and on their toes—especially if work assignments are small and have clear completion criteria. In addition, status meetings are powerful tools for improving project communications and managing expectations.
• Completion criteria—This starts during project definition with defining the acceptance criteria for the project, and it continues for each deliverable and work assignment. Answer this question in advance for each deliverable and work assignment: “How will we know when it is done?” Understanding the completion criteria upfront increases productivity and avoids many of the issues associated with status reporting on work tasks, especially the infamous “I’m 90% done” syndrome. NoteThe “90% done” phenomenon refers to the phenomenon where task progress is reported as on schedule up to the 90% completion point. Then, the last 10% ends up taking most of the total task time to complete.This can occur on projects when task status is reported subjectively by the resource assigned to the task and when there is no clear completion criteria for the task.
• Reviews—Reviews are a key technique for ensuring quality and managing expectations on project deliverables, and they can take many forms. The principle here is to plan for the review-feedback-correction cycle on most, if not all, of your key deliverables. Common examples of reviews are process reviews, design reviews, audits, walkthroughs, and testing. In addition, reviews can be combined with predefined milestones and checkpoints. NoteAgile projects leverage many of these project controlling techniques, especially the focus on small work packages, early and frequent work packages, frequent milestones and reviews, closely tracking requirements, completion criteria for all work items, and daily status/checkpoint meetings.
• Milestones and checkpoints—A key feature of most proven project methodologies is the use of predefined milestones and checkpoints. These markers are important points to stop, report progress, review key issues, confirm that everyone is still on board, and verify that the project should proceed with its mission. Besides being a powerful expectations management tool, these predefined points allow project sponsors and senior management to evaluate their project investments along the way and, if warranted, redirect valuable resources from a troubled project to more promising pursuits.
• Track requirements—A simple, yet often neglected, technique to help control both scope and expectations is the use of a requirements traceability matrix. The traceability matrix provides a documented link between the original set of approved requirements, any interim deliverable, and the final work product. This technique helps maintain the visibility of each original requirement and provides a natural barrier for introducing any “new” feature along the way (or at least provides a natural trigger to your change control system). In addition, the traceability matrix can link the specific test scenarios that are needed to verify that each requirement is met. NoteIf requirements and test cases are captured in a database or work management system, the traceability can be easily achieved with the proper data relationships.
• Formal sign-offs—Formal sign-offs are a key aspect of change control management, especially for projects that are client-vendor oriented. The formal record of review and acceptance of a given deliverable helps to keep expectations aligned and minimize potential disputes. Most importantly, the use of a formal sign-off acts as an extra incentive to make sure the appropriate stakeholders are actively engaged in the work of the project. TipFocus your project performance reports on answering the big three questions:
  • Where do we stand (with regard to the critical success factors)?
  • What variances exist, what caused them, and what are we doing about them?
  • Has the forecast changed?
• Independent QA auditor—The use of an independent quality assurance auditor is another specific example of the “review” technique mentioned earlier, and it’s often a component of project QA plans. In addition, the quality audit can be focused on product deliverables, work processes, or project management activities. The power of this technique is in establishing the quality criteria in advance and in making the project accountable to an outside entity.
• V method—The V method is a term used for a common validation and verification approach that ensures that there is a validation and verification step for every deliverable and interim deliverable created. The left side of the V notes each targeted deliverable, and the right side of the V lists the verification method to be used for each deliverable directly across. The diagram in Figure 10.2 helps illustrate this method.FIGURE 10.2V method approach for a software development project.
• Escalation thresholds—Escalation thresholds sound much more ominous than they actually are. The purpose of escalation thresholds is to determine in advance what issues and variances the project team can handle and what issues or variances demand attention by senior management. Often, these thresholds are defined as percent variances around the critical success factors. For example, if the cost variance is greater than 10% or schedule variance is greater than 15%, engage senior management immediately for corrective action steps. The key value of this technique is that it helps to define tolerance levels, set expectations, and clarify when senior management should get involved in corrective action procedures.

 Note

Performance reporting requirements should be captured as part of the project communications plan.