Cost Control and Project Scheduling

Build on the fundamentals of monitoring and controlling to master schedule control using project metrics and schedule related key performance indicators.

Analyze project characteristics such as raw numbers, percentages, funding amounts, counts, and ratings to identify targeted values measured with reasonable accuracy, aligned to project goals.

Metrics provide information to stakeholders, focus on target, and equip projects with a reasonably accurate basis for measures, enabling proactive management and helping assess likelihood of success, challenge, or failure.

Apply a worksheet to differentiate CSFs from KPIs by labeling each description as a CSF or KPI. Determine whether metrics measure end-of-project success or ongoing tracking.

Use a worksheet to distinguish CSFs from KPIs by marking each metric as a critical success factor or KPI, then debrief and review the prescribed responses.

Learn how key performance indicators act as measurable metrics that can be quantified, adjusted and controlled, unlocking project success or preventing failure while accounting for current and forecasted performance.

Reflect on KPI concepts and describe schedule-related KPIs that could guide your project, then compare your list with the presented ones to refine your planning.

Learn how the schedule performance index (spi) measures time utilization against the schedule baseline. Investigate the root causes of under or over performance when spi deviates from 1.0.

Explore a project management methodology centered on schedule control, applying standardized planning, monitoring, and controlling techniques including earned value management, key performance indicators, templates, and tailoring for improvement.

Apply earned value analysis to track schedule and budget using EV, PV, and SV. Calculate SPI, percent complete, and EAC forecasts to monitor performance and guide decisions.

Identify key project management KPIs, including forecasted schedule baseline changes, schedule variance, the percentage schedule performance index, and percent complete, to inform a TISS project review meeting.

Identify schedule kpis on the evm data sheet by locating each kpi in the leftmost column and its description in the center, then apply the formula to count second kpi.

The project forecasts a three-month delay with a 15-month end date, red status, and negative schedule variance, yielding a sub-1.0 performance index and 16 percent complete.

Determine schedule KPI measures using an earned value management debrief, interpret results, and prepare a leadership presentation, then decide monitoring and control actions at the project review.

Exercise 2.3 demonstrates determining schedule KPIs with an earned value management debrief, showing zero schedule variance, green status, and forecasted on-time completion with 20 percent complete.

Apply earned value management to determine schedule KPIs from a revised data sheet, calculate results, and interpret them using critical thinking and control thresholds for the review meeting.

Explore how to determine schedule KPI measures and interpret results for a leadership debrief, and contrast recommended actions with those from the previous two scenarios.

Explore the fundamentals of cost, cost account codes, and cost centers, and learn how these elements interrelate to manage project expenses.

Cost accounting records and reports cost measurements in manufacturing or services to guide management toward cost efficiency. It provides cost information to control operations and support planning and decision making.

Understand how four-digit cost centers map to cost accounts and decompose costs from divisions to work packages, with a PMO split into knowledge management, project management, and business analysis.

Explore how cost centers enable ongoing monitoring and control of cost efficiency by delegating management, preventing losses, and reducing expenses, while enabling cost recovery and profit optimization through period comparisons.

Identify cost data types such as labor, materials, overheads, and other direct charges, and ensure timely, accurate charging to the correct call center for costs data collection.

Compare your cost concept with the covered material on cost accounting and cost centers, and explore how cost account codes relate to call centers.

Identify cost-related KPIs from work packages, lowest level of the work breakdown structure, 40 to 80 hours of one-person effort across activities, mapped to cost accounts for monitoring costs.

Cost variance compares budgeted amount for the work performed to actual expenditure within a defined range. When variance deviates from zero, teams take action to address it.

Calculate the cost variance percentage from the cost variance to simplify understanding of cost variance, like schedule variance percentage, and trigger aggressive actions when the variance increases.

Explore cost control through key performance indicators, mirroring the approach used for schedule control with KPIs, and learn how KPIs guide cost management.

Update this case study to focus on cost control, with a project performance baseline, 10-month schedule, and a leadership review of costs, status, and forecasts per the project management methodology.

Revisit the project management methodology for a to C corporation and outline cost variance thresholds: within 5% recoverable, 5–10% recoverable, over 10% not recoverable, with green, yellow, red color status.

Calculate cost variance, cost performance index, and estimate at completion from earned value and actual costs to forecast project spend and monitor KPI measures.

Present key cost KPIs for the project review, including cost variance, percent spent, and the cost performance index. Track baseline changes and outcomes to guide cost control and scheduling decisions.

Examine the first data sheet, combine planned value and earned value from the prior chapter with the added actual cost, and calculate results using the provided formulas.

Work through the worksheet for exercise 3.1, take your time, pause as needed, and participate in the debrief to reinforce cost control concepts.

Interpret earned value results at the review, engage the sponsor to implement actions, investigate labor rates, competencies, and material costs, identify cost-cutting opportunities, and plan recovery with lessons learned.

Engage the sponsor to implement approved actions and analyze work packages with 10 percent funding variances in an EVM debrief to refine estimates and align future costs with the plan.

Determine cost-related KPIs via earned value management from data sheet, applying worksheet and control thresholds; assume zero schedule baseline change for the project management performance baseline meeting with TISS leadership.

Assess how EVM informs cost KPI decisions by comparing overbudget, under budget (yellow), and on budget outcomes, and outline actions for staying on budget within +/-5%.

Monitor and control project performance using EVM debrief to derive cost KPIs, generate reports, and engage the sponsor to keep the plan on track in a dynamic environment.

Explore how cost accounting, cost codes, and cost centers map to the work breakdown structure for time charging, enabling earned value management, KPIs, monitoring, forecasting, and cost control.

Explore monitoring and controlling fundamentals and the necessity of pairing them for project control, focusing on schedule KPIs, cost control, and earned value calculations to assess status and forecast.

Monitor by collecting performance data at bottom rung of the model to produce performance measures, generate information, and disseminate project reports, turning data into knowledge for cost control and scheduling.

Define control as comparing actuals to plan and using collected data to analyze, compare, assess, and evaluate, then recommend corrective actions to maintain or adjust the project plan.

Leverage cost-related earned value management formulas to keep your project within budget and on plan, guided by our methodology.

Define KPIs as metrics that set target values to guide proactive measurement and stay on plan, guiding forecast, schedule, and cost decisions.

Explore how project metrics differ from financial metrics and can change during the project lifecycle or between projects, including the impact of rebaselining and a new budget at completion.

Identify how types of metrics and KPIs signal favorable or unfavorable project conditions while highlighting critical success factors essential to achieving project objectives and keeping the project on track.

Identify schedule-related KPIs such as schedule variance, schedule performance index, baseline changes, and percent of work packages to measure time to achieve outcome value and overall project performance.

Identify cost-related KPIs and track budgets, baseline changes, cost variants, and the cost performance index to achieve outcome value.