monitoring progress

Jeffrey, I use both early and late dates for monitoring. As you stated, the early dates notify us the progress and the late dates is the deadline.

Just use either one dates is not enough.

Gentlemen, For me I use both i.e early and late meaning that if your actual/achieved progress is between, you are at the right track. (Try using early ang late curves) e l e l e l e l e a l e a l e a l e a l e a l e a l e a l e a l e a l e a l eal connect thesame letter e= early a=actual l=late

Gentlemen

I think if you start to think about Progress, Position and Forecast this may help in your monitoring.

My simple definitions are:

Progress – where am I now. This is a relatively easy thing to measure, for instance an activity is 85% complete.

Position – where am I compared to where I planned to be. This is a little more difficult, having found what we have done we need to compare that to where we should be, not too difficult on an activity by activity basis but when we try to role it up to where the project is (ahead/on/behind programme) things get a little more difficult.

Forecast – when am I likely to finish. Now I think this is nearly impossible, looking into the future, any method is at beast an educated or calculated estimate ( after all forecasting is the art of saying what will happen, and then explaining why it didn’t).

So to sum up, progress as a measurement does not depend on dates, its just a measure of how much has been achieved. Position is the comparative measure, my opinion is this should be measured against what you planned – did you plan to carry out the work at the earliest or latest dates or somewhere in between? Forecast completion might take account of earliest and latest dates… if anyone would like to share their favourite method of forecasting I’m waiting!

Regards

David
dbordoli@burofour.co.uk