Project Management

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Forecasting Project Completion Dates

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Peter Hasek Commerce Township, Mi, United States
Objective: Use project metrics to forecast the project completion.

Findings:

1. Literature search yielded no information on use of SPI except in conjunction with CPI to forecast VAC.

Concepts already explored:

2. Analyze project data and develop distribution curve of actual durations vs baseline durations.

3. Using data from 2, do a PERT analysis on remaining tasks. Drawback: Ability to analyze the data is not within everyone's capability, and the result is a single point estimate.

4. Using data from 2, do a Monte Carlo simulation on remaining tasks. Drawback: Ability to analyze the data is not within everyone's capability, and a Monte Carlo tool is not available to everyone, but gives best results on a limited number of samples.

5. Calculate project SPI, then divide the durations of the remaining tasks by that SPI, and recalculate the project end date. Drawback: SPI goes to 1 as project nears completion; may not be much of a drawback, but I don't have enough data and experience with that concept yet.

6. Use trend charts of cumulative number of finishes per reporting period, baseline and actual, and project the trend forward to determine the completion date. Drawback: Assumes that the number of finishes per reporting period is relatively constant so that the cumulative number of finishes per reporting period is a relatively straight line; this is not a valid assumption, especially for IT projects.

I would like to know if fellow ganttheads have used any of these techniques, or any other technique, and whether or not it was considered successful.


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Michael Wood Project Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent Contractor Gig Harbor, Wa, United States
WOW - very sophisticated.
I have used a simple technique that continuously measures actual performance against estimates to develop an ongoing recalibration of the most likely completion date given the current rate of progress. I believe it is important to factor in the talent level of the people performing the tasks. People's performance levels are impacted by more variables than can be quantified so it requires a constant recalibration process. I also use a pull method for developing project plans working backward from a completion date and then gapping tasks in terms of the windows of time that they must be completed within to keep the project on track. In this way I can make resource adjustments based on recalibrated progress rates, give people some degree of flexibility on their work pace and still deliver projects on time. This has worked well for small and large projects alike. The largest being a $6 million IT project with over 3,000 tasks. I realize it is not the most sophisticated of methods but it has worked.
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Frank Patrick Boonton, Nj, United States
In the Critical Chain world, we also like simplicity. We don't need to use Monte Carlo to deal with integration effects of feeding chains since feeding buffers help to isolate the critical chain from variation in the feeding chains. We also eschew earned value measures that, when they're not driving the wrong behaviors, provide meaningless guidance (SPI approaching 1, for example). There is also no basis in reality to say that past performance is a good predictor of future performance.

In a CC environment, project project completion is easy. A simple recalculation of the project buffer for the remaining critical tasks plus remaining critical chain length would give one a reasonable view of project completion. If there was, my IRA portfolio would be in a lot better shape.

By the way, this all assumes that the project has also been isolated from interference with other projects through shared resources, through something like synchronized multi-project management. If you're living in a multi-tasking world, all bets are off on any prediction of completion.

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Eileen Bazin Rochester, Ny, United States
Peter,
Have you considered use of function point analysis,or COCOMO (or variants such as MkII)in order to determine the optimum schedule?

Since you said you're looking to "forecast" the project completion I'll assume that a sound estimate and not an exact figure will suffice. I like the idea of using program volume as one of the factors for calculating an estimate of both cost and schedule. It appeals to my sense of logic...(afterall, if I were managing a construction project I'd base my estimate, in part, on the sq. footage of the building I had to construct).

More information on function point analysis is available through IFPUG (International Function Point Users Group)www.ifpug.org
The IFPUG web site also has links to several other metrics related web sites that may be helpful to you.

Other sites that might be helpful include www.brint.com (it's a research site-I've found piles of stuff on software dev. metrics off here) or www.costxpert.com (they sell a tool for use in schedule and cost estimation).

Good luck to you.

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