Baselines, Metrics and Measures...Oh My! (Part 3 of 3)

  Schedule Management   Scheduling   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)  

A baseline is a common term in project management. Recall that a baseline is a record or "snapshot" taken at a specific point in time. Baselines are used in two instances in project management: (1) project schedules and (2) project documents.

The baseline process for project schedules differs slightly from baselines for project documents. The goal in baselining project schedules is to set a baseline that does not change--and to serve as a timeline for the entire project. The baseline goal in baselining project documents to set a new baseline each time there is an incremental improvement with the idea of achieving 100 percent compliance.

The process for establishing and measuring progress is the same in both the project schedule baseline and the project document baseline:

• Establish the baseline
• Collect data and compare results to the baseline
• Make adjustments to reduce the variation from the baseline (project schedule) and to make incremental improvements to the baseline (project document)

Project Schedule Baseline
A project baseline should be viewed as a learning tool. The current schedule represents the best estimate of how the project should proceed and what resources it will take.

A baseline is set once a project schedule is created and the resource and task conflicts have been resolved. When a baseline is set, those dates, times and …

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