#percentcomplete

[cloudedwishes-blog]

13% Complete

I lost apart of me before you took a piece of me. I was never whole, even when you thought I was.

[ethanalangroup]

Capturing accurate performance of work in place on a project

One of the more critical components of proper project controls is capturing actual progress or performance on assigned tasks.  This information is critical in evaluating and assessing where a project is currently, and charting the course for where it is heading.  Accuracy, agreement and transparency can be one of the more challenging aspects in collecting performance.  Resources may overstate or understate performance, inexperienced resources may not have the background to accurately evaluate work in place, and complicated tasks such as software coding or specialized subject matter may be difficult to quantify. Oracle's Primavera P6 has a nice feature to help ensure accurate performance is taken.  Use of steps can be used for the purpose of measuring physical percent complete.  Steps are an appropriate method to define scope and/or better describe physical progress of an activity through weighted elements.  Each step can be weighted based on the step's proportion to the overall activity.  The sum of the step weight percent will be equal to 100% effort of the task.  It is recommended that no incremental progress should be taken on steps, and that steps will either be 0% or 100% complete.  The steps must also be at a detail enough level to assist the project manager in managing the scope of the project.  Additionally, because steps are what measure physical percent complete and what allows the schedule to earn value (BCWP), they must be at an adequately detailed level in order to demonstrate progress on the activity. Example of steps and step weight: Task:  03200-0010, Pour East Wall      Step 1:  Form wall (one-side); Weight = 10%      Step 2:  Install block-outs; Weight = 10%      Step 3:  Install reinforcing; Weight = 10%      Step 4:  Install M.E.P. rough-in; Weight = 10%      Step 5:  Button up wall; Weight = 10%      Step 6:  Pour concrete; Weight = 25%      Step 7:  Strip formwork; Weight = 25% Buy in by the project team on task steps and their weighted values take the guessing out of determining progress and performance.  Use of steps promotes transparency, eliminates future disagreement, and helps keep the project team properly informed of progress.