Project Portfolio-Program Management

budget (Photo credit: 401K ) What is earned value : It measures cost , schedule, and work done .Its a way to measure projects progress and provide budget variances. Its a indicator of schedule, budget,and milestone.It also gives us percentage of work done, budget spent, and time consumed. So the units to measure it is dollars and and work hours. So whats the next step to calculate EV: Prepares a WBS (work break down structure) to quantify each task as phases and then phases into modules, modules into more detail units as it descends with time-frame for each task have fixed time which gives us a baseline structure. Lets understand some terms: BCWS - Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled ACWP - Actual Cost of Work Performed BCWP - Budgeted Cost of Work Performed From above terms earned value will be defined as "Cost incurred to accomplish the work that has been done to date." Derived metrics known as Schedule variance and Cost variance, if they fall into ne...

Risk Management road sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) So what is a risk ? First understands and identify a risk is most important part of risk management.A risk is a probability of uncertainty associated with executing certain item/task/process/work etc.  A risk generates out as soon as we initiates a task. A critical resource in terms of skill set, in a team is a potential  risk of leaving the project in between because of unavoidable reasons. So a risk is inevitable, only thing we can do is ; manage and mitigate. Just like handling/catching error in software program . Always plan for the element of risk in project from the start and reiterate control over it for any contingencies. Steps to assess risk: Identify---------->Analyze--------------> Set priority to each risk Steps to control risk: Mitigate------------>Plan for contingency----------> Quantify it and Set a control process Design a Solution process at the team level: Taking help of the ex...

software_sin_medida (Photo credit: elprosumidor ) What ever it takes to execute a project whether it is a fixed bid or Time and material based what matters is how you are managing your finances in terms of billing. Lets take a closer look to difference between fixed bid and time and material based project.  A fixed bid project is the one which is having a fixed budget from client and defined set of scope. So, in a fixed bid project the ball is in your court. You define how efficiently you can manage on resources to utilize them fully to balance on your margins. There is other side of the coin also by having a scope creep if you really blow up your work. Obviously a fixed bid project later can managed by the delivery team and driven by project team. While a time and material project is like a billing of resources involved on hourly basis for actual worked performed with agreed on terms and conditions. Also here one can get reimbursement for overheads. Here there is one possibility...