1. Are the vice president’s comments about cost and schedule variance correct?
Yes! As we have seen in the case study the Spokane industries are very particular about the earned value reports, as we seen in the reports that the Franklin electronics provided is seemed to be a very basic according their view. The values of cost variance at the 2nd month are like 6K, 2K, 3K, 3K, here the total comes to 14k ($14,000) and the same cost variance in the following month are presented as 7K, 3K, 5K, 10K ($25,000) respectively, so here we can see that the values that were provided in the 2nd month are less than 3/4th of the 3rd month. Comes to the scheduling variance the values given to the 2nd month are said to be 8K, 1K, 2K, 20K ($31,000), the 3rd month calculations are in the order 12K, 3K, 4K, 26K ($45,000), so by seeing this we can easily say that the scheduling variance is overrated nearly 50% of its value in the previous month. So, whatever the sponsor said in the case study is true.
I hope their main aim for the need of these earned value reports is to reduce the interchange meetings and to finish the project within the basic 3 constraints of a project management. That is why they opted a formalized project management. From the case study it is very easy for us to make sure that they believed earned value reports are some techniques to avoid the interchange meetings. The reduction in interchange meetings automatically reduces time for discussing the completed work rather than
Week 4 DQ 1 Resource Allocation and Leveling PROJ 592 Week 4 DQ 2 Advanced Schedule Techniques PROJ 592 Week 5 DQ 1 Earned Value Calculation PROJ 592 Week 5 DQ 2 Project Monitoring and Control & EV PROJ 592 Week 6 DQ 1 Forecasting Project Completion Cost PROJ 592 Week 6 DQ 2 Project Control PROJ 592 Week 7 DQ
The paper is divided into three sections, the first of which will establish a timeline of events. This project background will serve as a case study for the analysis in the following section that will be structured such that each of the previously mentioned facets will be independently analyzed and contrasted with project management principles. Finally the paper will conclude with a summary of the analysis and recommendations based on
may have used various techniques such as the quality, cost, time triangle to make a decision
| a) Using the traditional method of assessing project performance, we would be able to see if we have been over or under budget and timelines, and we would only have this information once the project has been completed. However, with the traditional approach would not be able to effectively track project performance at a task level and at any given point in time. Due to this, decisions that may need to be taken during the project or identifying issues or project health during project execution is more difficult using traditional approaches than using the EVM process. b) The EVM process is based on tracking the schedule and cost performance at a task level on an on-going basis, that will help determine project task level and overall status with effective indicators that would help make project related decisions. In the EVM process, a baseline plan is made for project costs and timelines and then these are tracked against actual costs and work completion to find out the cost variances and schedule variances and cost and schedule indexes, that will help determine how the project is performing on these parameters. If the variances are in negative or if the indexes are less than 1, it means that the task or the project is behind on cost and schedule and
In summation, return on investments (ROI) and its historical roots involving the Du Pont system have an extensive history which paved the way for cost accounting, financial accounting, and capital accounting. The (ROI) and (ROE) formulas are prominent in accounting, textbooks, and finance as well as health care professionals who use these formulas. Then, hard and soft benefits of projects vary depending on the for-profit and not-for-profit organization. The soft benefit also known as (qualitative data) is most useful for when a project team wishes to explore the root causes of project success or failure. Overall, hard methods primarily use data collection measure for objective realism. When it comes to softer
The project had regular meetings with the team members. These meetings were used to evaluate the progress of the project. At these meetings we evaluated the project. We also discussed how to proceed in order to plan our upcoming activities.
In this case, we need to investigate the status of the MED-X implementation project. The method we adopt is EVM, Earned Value Management. Earned Value Management is a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress. We measure the project performance not only as a whole, but also by performance of its components.
input for decision making at the corporate level, management can use the WACC to value projects being
Using project management offers a business a way for dealing with considerably lowered phase times. With businesses operating internationally projects that can have an effect on the company as a whole are not easy to manage without a proper line of attack. For this, project management would help cross functional teams to be more successful.
There are several advantages with this method : like the ARR it is very simple to calculate and easy to understand concept reducing the evaluation to a simple number of years; it has the advantage of concentrating on cash flows, which are more objective than profit ; it can be very useful for managers to make quick evaluation of projects with small investment and also it can be significant for companies with liquidity problems ( limited cash flow) that need to recover their money as quickly as possible. In addition, it is useful as screening tool when evaluating proposal, if a project pass the initial payback, then it gets further detailed analysis that use time value of money and
The information used to calculate the total direct material and total direct labor variances are retrieved from the cost/ price variance and efficiency variance data. The material variance is zero, meaning there have been no changes for the cost of materials. The labor variance was favorable due to a fall in the labor rate. The efficiency variance for direct labor tells management how efficient the direct labor was in making the actual output that was produced by the direct labor. With that being said, in this case it is considered unfavorable. This is because, both the labor rate and efficiency of the labor has been reduced. The areas that should be reviewed at Peyton Approved include product design, reduction of scrap,
One thing that the vice president forgot to include in his analysis is the fact that the schedule variance does not measure time by itself. Even though the project currently has a negative schedule variance at this point in the project, it does not mean that the project manager can’t make up the time later in the project and get the schedule variance back on track. Franklin Electronics should have included a real schedule analysis to show where the timeline really stands. It is important to see a real schedule analysis to determine if the project is truly in danger of not getting done on time.
While projects can be similar in some instances, no two projects are ever the same. For this reason, management of projects requires the application of tools and techniques to meet the goals of the temporary endeavor. Project managers apply these tools and techniques to determine what is required for project delivery such as the list of activities to completed, the time required to complete the activities, resources needed and the various risks associated with the deliverable and efforts. A multitude of tools and techniques are employed by the project manager based on the need of the effort to organize, identify and communicate the various aspects of the project. While in contrast, the repetitive nature of operations activities
Monitoring and control activities are essential components to effective project management (Chrissis, Konrad, & Shrum, 2011; PMI, 2013). The main purpose of monitoring and control activities are to having an understanding of project progress/performance against the agreed upon plan, identify potential risks, provide accurate forecasts, and to ensure corrective actions are taken when necessary (Chrissis et al., 2011; PMI, 2013). Successful cost and schedule control involves much more than merely monitoring project progress and costs, it involves thorough analysis of the data (Kerzner, 2013, p. 738). One of the most effective tools for performance measurement, monitoring, and control is earned value management (EVM); a powerful technique which employs quantitative data to objectively monitor and control project progress (De Marco & Narbaev, 2013).
The QA report had close to 50 action points in the project management space, which was another critical issue if had been identified early on in the project could have made matters better. Though the steering committee was created to solve the issues related to IAA implementation and the estimation of cost and resources, the steering committee was successful in pin pointing the issues but not addressing the issues. The steering committee was formed to address the issues faced by the project, it was unable to exercise its role due to the absence of clear information, technical nature of the debates made it harder for the steering committee to engage, lack of clarity with the hierarchical structure of power made it all the more difficult to address the issues.