Forum Post # 3 Week 6 Reporting and Earned Value – Meredith explains the three most common project-reporting systems are “routine, exception, and special analysis” (Meredith, 2009, p. 447). Regular can refer to a calendar date, but most often, refers to the publication of a project milestones. Exception reporting occurs when decisions affecting the team members and the project status occur. These usually involve a deviation from plan that the project manager needs to document for protection of the team as well as self-preservation. The astute project manager uses this reporting type sparingly. Special analysis reporting results from extraordinary circumstance that arises during the project. Material substitutions or process exception can trigger such a report. Effectively communicating a project’s status means the project manager must avoid common reporting mistakes. Too much detail will frustrate management, result in the report not being read (or understood) and “prevent project team members from finding the information they need” (Meredith, 2009, p. 449). The project must have a comparable reporting system to the organization’s reporting systems. The project cannot use separate recording, accounting and information systems that are not directly compatible with the host organizations. Finally, the monitoring system tracking the project must “relate directly to the project’s plan” or the data is meaningless (Meredith, 2009, p. 450). To measure the progress of a project, the project manager needs to design a reporting structure that compares actual activity associated with the project, against the desired output anticipated from the initial justification of the project. Many project managers manage and repor... ... middle of paper ... ...t manager to indentify and report problems early enough to allow corrective action and hopefully maintain the project schedule and budget. If not, variance reporting can document and help the project manager and the organization in correcting issues for the future. References: Meredith, J. M. (2009). Project Management A Managerial Approach. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Mind Tools. (2011, April 5). Drill Dwon Breaking Problems Dwon onto Manageable Parts. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from Mind Tools: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_02.htm Nagrecha, S. M. (2002). An Introduction to Earned Value Analysis. PMIGLC Symposium 2002 (p. 12). Project Management Institute, Great Lakes Chapter. Project Management Institute. (2008). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Kerzner, H. (2013). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Graham, R. J. & Randall, L., Creating an Environment for Successful Projects: The Quests to Manage Project Management, second ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 65-113, 2003.
Jugdev, K. (2012). Learning from Lessons Learned: Project Management Research Program. American Journal of Economics and Business Administration , 4(1), 13-22.
Project Management Institute . (2008). A Guide to the Project Management body Of Knowledge. Newton Square, PA: Project Management Institute, Inc.
Ramroth, Jr., William G., 2006, Project Management for Design Professionals, . Chicago, Illinois : AEC Education.
Project Management Institute (PMI) (2013). Project Management Professional (PMP) Handbook. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pmi.org/certification/~/media/pdf/certifications/pdc_pmphandbook.ashx. [Last Accessed 20 April 2014].
The project manager will record and keep track of the issues related in the issues log, assign a proper ordering like ID, and keep all type of information.
Status reporting allows management to spend only a few seconds to flying on project to determine what sort of progress is made. Outstanding status report creates clarity from confusion. As the manager of a project is to take a agitating, disordered cloud of data and cleanse it down into its most basic elements and then present them so that hundreds of hours of work can be understood in seconds. Status report helps the stakeholders and other employees to check the status of the project online. It also clearly describes any changes made to the project on the day to day basis.
Booth, R. (January 1997). Appreciating the Value Before Counting the Cost. Management Accounting: Magazine for Chartered Management Accountants. 57(1). Retrieved 11/10/2006 from EBSCOhost database.
Project control should be a fact finding and remedial action process to predict what may happen in the future and take corrective action to meet project outcomes (Cleland & Ireland 2002, p. 319). Benefits of project monitoring and control are measuring the status of the project during the life cycle and assessment of success at completion of the project (Cleland & Ireland 2002, p.
Time-phased project work is the basis for project cost control. Work package duration is used to develop the project network. Further, the time-phased budgets for work packages are timetabled to establish fiscal measures for each phase throughout the project. The time-phased budgets are to emulate the real cash needs of the budget, which will be used for project cost control. This information is useful to estimate cash outflows. The project manager's attention is on when the costs are to occur, when the budgeted cost is earned, and when the actual cost materializes. This information is made up to measure project schedule and cost variances (Gray & Larson, 2005). The following are typical types of costs found in a project:
Value added (VA) report is a statement of an entity wealth created and distributed in a financial year and intended to shift an organization away from the profit and loss account. It is simply an entity’s revenue for a given period less outside purchases or payment for supplier of services and materials. VA is a measures performance through the collective efforts of management, provider of capital and employees. According to Bao & Bao (1998, p252), VA statement shows “how the benefits of the effort of a firm were shared among its stakeholders including stockholders, creditors, management, employees, and government”. Morley (1979, p.620) expresses it as “the wealth creation for the company team, in which employee are seen as responsible participants”.
Overview – This chapter is about controlling projects. This is the logical follow-on to the previous discussion on monitoring. Monitoring detects a problem; control does something about it. There are many reasons that projects go off their plan and require control. It’s especially important for the PM, particularly one with a technical background, to remember that all project problems have a human element. Real people, each with his or her unique abilities, are the “actors” that must make all the carefully analyzed plans actually happen. PM’s may find it hard to exercise control over a close-knit project team to whom they feel strongly attached. Further, many people are of the opinion that exercising any type of control is akin to the great evil of micromanaging.
Hendrickson, C. (1998). Project Management for Construction Fundamental Concepts for Owners, Engineers, Architects and Builders. Prentice hall, Pittsburgh, PA.
When planning a new project, how the project will be managed is one of the most important factors. The importance of a managers will determine the success of the project. The success of the project will be determined by how well it is managed. Project management is referred to as the discipline that entails the processes of carefully planning, organizing, controlling, and motivating the organization resources so as to foster and facilitate the achievement of specific established and desired goals and meet the specific criteria of success required in the organization (Larson, 2014). Over the course of this paper I will be discussing and analyzing the importance of project management.