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There’s just something about the New Year that inspires us to look back at the last twelve months, pick out the things that made us the angriest, and scheme about ways to get our revenge against those who…
Ha ha! Just kidding. We review our last twelve months of Variance Analysis Reports (whaddaymean you don’t do this? This should be a question on the PMP® certification exam: “Do you regularly spend part of the New Year’s Holiday reviewing your projects’ VARs?” Available answers:
· Yes, it’s a good opportunity to learn from the Project Team’s successes and difficulties.
· Actually, it never occurred to me. I think I’ll start doing that.
· I guess this means you PMI® types expect me to be honest in my VARs.
· Wow, you exam writers are real busybodies, aren’t you?)
…in order to see if some performance trend is emerging that perhaps went unnoticed in the tidal wave of project performance information cascading over your desk on a regular basis. But to seasoned Variance Analysis Report readers and writers, there’s a real art to teasing out the truth in a given project situation from the verbiage in a VAR, much like the reading population of the Soviet Union could read between the lines of Pravda, or Americans can with the New York Times. Some of the more common include:
|
Variance Analysis Report Verbiage |
What it REALLY Means |
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A general ledger anomaly lead to an artificially negative out-of-threshold negative Cost Variance. |
The idiots in accounting refused to set up the chart of accounts based on the Work Breakdown Structure, and now we’re in an interminable cycle of trying to re-align actual costs every month. |
|
…and we do not anticipate carrying this variance forward. |
Whatever it is, we think it’s going away. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. You can go about your business. |
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…and we do anticipate carrying this variance to completion. |
We can’t figure out how to fix it, and we’re pretty sure we can’t get you to pay for it, so we’re telling you right now that we may be looking at an overrun and/or delay, and there’s going to be a fight at project’s end to see who’s responsible. |
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The current period out-of-threshold positive schedule variance is a result of the progress made in resolving the out-of-threshold negative cumulative variance. |
If you wanted us to catch up, then why do we have to explain what’s going on when we do? |
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The current period negative cost variance is due to Actual Costs exceeding Earned Value figures. |
We have no idea what’s going on, and really don’t even want to look in to it. |
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The current period’s variances are within reporting thresholds. |
..by the thinnest of margins. But, hey, you guys signed the Project Management Plan that specified a 15% threshold, so we don’t have to tell you squat! |
|
The out-of-threshold negative cost variance is due to the added expense of executing (whatever), performed at the direction of (name of customer interface). We will be issuing a Baseline Change Proposal for the additional scope. |
Yeah, we’re going to charge you more. That’s what you get for meddling via memorandum! |
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The out-of-threshold cumulative negative cost variance was caused by the occurrence of (whatever), which was captured as a potential event in the project’s Risk Management Plan (or risk register), and represents a Contingency Event. A BCP will be issued to adjust the affected baselines. |
Because one of our professional worriers (strikethrough) risk analysts wrote down that something bad might happen, and was sufficiently specific, we’re going to charge you more. Risk Management – it’s great, isn’t it? |
Of course, this is only a partial list, and, as the financial advisor advertisements tell us over and over, past performance is no indicator of future returns.
Still, …
Posted on: January 06, 2013 07:48 PM |
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