Project Tracking and Scope Management

Project Tracking and Scope
Management
Talha Siddiqui
PMO Assistant

My Affiliations

The intent of publishing this presentation would really
aid those who just entered in to the world of Project
Management and don’t grasp much concept on
Monitoring and controlling software projects so my
story telling style will help them understand better

My though process: Planning is essential plans are
useless so the only result of planning phase is strategy
not project schedule

Let’s Say
We Have a Project
“XYZ”

Requirements are clear.
Client has signed-off the scope of work on
User Stories and Wireframes
Estimations shared with the client have been approved
Project Plan is ready
Client has given a go-ahead

5

Here are the Project’s
Estimates

Cost Rs.20,000 Time 3
Weeks
Man Hours 110 Hrs
Resources 03

And here is the Project
Plan

Start Tracking your Project

11

Why Tracking Projects?
Just because I have to complete
this project in 20k within 3
weeks,110 hours and with 3
resources.

12

What data you required to
track a Project?

13

• Actual Hours
• Actual Cost

Now, where do I get actual
hours spent on my project? Do
my resources record their
working hours anywhere?

14

Yes, I have given access to my team on a
Time tracking system i.e. Freckle where
they actually logged their actual hours
therefore, I can pick those hours from
there

15

Ok, Let’s monitor project
status
what I have planned for Task 1
(planned hours) and what my
team reported in actual

16

Using Status Reports for Project
Tracking
Should contains these sections

• Where are we today?

• Where we will be at the next report?

• What is the Project’s budget position?

• What items hinder project completion?

• Total hours of project completion, hours spent so far and Hours remaining for
project completion?

17

Status Review Meeting for Project Tracking
When milestones are not being met ask these Questions from your team and take
corrective actions

• Where are the milestones not completed?

• When will the work be done/

• Is an alternative action plan needed?

• What is the date required to get the schedule back on time?

18

Oh no….
We are behind the schedule as
we have spent lots of hours
against what we have planned

19

Planned vs Actuals

20

Its now time to take corrective
actions and put efforts to bring
the project schedule On Track
What to do?

22

Lets add more resources so that we
can catch up the plan

23

Techniques to Control Project
• Fast Tracking
look at activities that are normally done in
sequence and assign them instead partially in
parallel

• Crashing
Add more resources

24

Project is On-Track now
(In terms of scope, time and cost)
I have now updated my Project
Schedule and everything looks good

25

Lets summarize what
we have learned

3 W’s and 1’H’s of Project Tracking

What? When? How?
Why? Through Project
Your Project’s During Execution Performance reports
Control against Resources Phase of the /Statuses
the Baseline Project Variance Analysis
Schedule
Continuous Cost Meeting with Team
Improvement Scope
Providing feedback
to your team

Project’s Tracking Loop
• Project Schedule
• Resource plan
Plan • Cost
• Scope of work
• Correct deviations from
plan
• RE-PLAN as necessary

Action
Tracking Monitor
• Project Status
• Project’s Progress
Loop

Actual status against plan
Compare • Schedule
• Cost

5 Step Model for Project Tracking

Step 1 Monitor status of the Project

Step 2 Analyze the Impact of Possible Variances

Step 3 Act on the Problem as stated in previous Steps

Step 4 Publish revisions to the plan(if necessary)

Step 5 Inform PMO and your Team

29

Step 1 Monitor status of the Project
• Project’s Review meeting with team members.

• Team members submitting their time sheets/time tracking same as in
our case like Freckle.

Step 2 Analyze the Impact of possible
Variances
• Compare Plan to actual results looking for variances
• As a Project Manager, You need to answer the following questions

Are we ahead or behind schedule???
Are we over budget or under budget???
Are we using the team members' time wisely???
Are we getting the results that we expected???

30

• Determine the root cause of the problem. Typically causes of problem would
be poorly defined project objectives, poor estimates, scope changes and team
members problems/conflicts.

• Best practice is to prepare analysis/forecast report for future completion
dates.

Step 3 Act on the Problem as stated in
previous Steps
• Go back to your seat and open your project plan/schedule and make necessary
adjustments to the schedule and solve the problem.

• Start negotiating trade off-I mean to say adding time, additional
resources, more money and resizing the scope of the project.

31

Step 4 Publish revisions to the plan
(if not required then leave it)
Publish the revisions to the plan(if necessary)

• Since the plan is the document that the project relies on, its should be updated
regularly.

• Every minor changes create a need to publish a revised project plan

Step 5 Inform PMO and your Team
• During the controlling process, you need to inform management about the
problem being encountered in the project also, you have to inform to your
team members too

32

Client
I have just review the application
but my team suggested me to add
2 more features. Can you please
add more features in it

33

PM
Sir, It’s a change in scope as it was not
a part of initial scope so Do send me
the change by filling our change
request form.
I will get back to you once, I assess the
change with my team
34

Managing Scope
• Controlling and managing scope change is critical to the success of any
project, as scope changes can significantly impact the cost, schedule, and quality
of the entire effort.
• The key to successful scope management is defining, communicating emerging
requests throughout the project lifecycle

35

Managing Scope
There are four strong reasons why scope management must be a top priority for
the successful project manager:

Cost: Scope change can affect work that has been already performed. This means
rework costs for work that has already started or worse, been completed.

Schedule: With each scope change, precious project resources are diverted to
activities that were not identified in the original project scope, leading to pressure
on the project schedule.

Quality: When not analyzed thoroughly, scope changes lead to quick fixes that can
affect product quality.

Morale: Scope changes can cause a loss of control of the team’s planned work.
Changing focus or direction to meet the change requests poorly impacts team
morale.so always facilitate your team members as much as you can

36

PM
Team-Here is the changes in the
scope so figure it out how much
time it takes to implement and
its impact on original scope

37

PM to Client
Sir, The change would take extra
25 days and cost 5k more.
Please confirm if we can go for
it

38

Client
Am willing to Pay
You can proceed

39

PM to Sponsor/PMO
This is the scope change request
Also, client is willing to pay us
for the change
Please Approve!

40

Sponsor/PMO to PM

Approved!
Please proceed

41

PM
Team-Lets incorporate new
requirement changes in original
scope and let me revise the
Project plan and project
documents
42

PM to Client
Your change request has been
processed and here is the
revised schedule

43

Scope Change Request Workflow
Best practice is to maintain a Inform client that change
will now be implement
Client request you for a change change request log ask client to
fill change request log

Once you start changes to the
scope, always revise your plan,
PM assess change along with team documents, code. I mean
members Software Configuration
Management, Continuous
Integration v1.0,1.1,1.2
Reject Changes
Team informs PM on how long this
change should take to implement PM mandate Team to
implement change

Is client
PM inform client regarding the impact
agree on
of the changes(in terms of time, cost)
change Is
PMO/spo
nsor
agree
Intimate client that
change would be cater
later

3W’s and 1H’s of Project’s Scope
Management

Why? What? When? How?
During Execution Through Change
Project’s
Control against Requirements Phase of the request process
the freeze Project Project Reviews
project's
requirements/
Scope

Scope Creep?
• define a series of small scope changes that are made to the project without scope-
change management procedures being used.

• Scope creep is one of the most common reasons projects run over budget and deliver
late. Often done with the best intentions, changes to scope during a project are a
negative event best avoided.

What Causes Scope Creep?

• Poor Requirements Analysis.

• Not Involving Users Early Enough.

• Underestimating the Complexity of the Project.

• Lack of Change Control.

46

The latter a change is
addressed, Higher the time and
cost

47

Techniques for preventing scope from a
change
Proactive Change Identification:
• Scope changes are waiting to happen
• You should take an active role in identifying these changes with stakeholders by
being proactive.

Communicate Changes:
• changes can be overlooked if they are not communicated in a timely way. People
like to know what they are working on and to be kept informed of project
decisions.

Avoid Scope Creep:
• Scope creep occurs when changes are allowed without proper impact
analysis, and without reviewing schedule and cost implications.

48

Suggested Readings

http://www.techrepublic.com/

49

You will find this ebook on CCPM under my training folder

50

Thank You
“If you have no plan, you can't possibly have control”

51

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