Essay on "Metrics Basic Project"

Essay 4 pages (1035 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Despite reporting at all of the various milestones that are identified in the project's scope, the stakeholders should also be notified of any significant deviations from the original project plan. Stakeholders will also most likely want to be identified if there any significant variance or change in the project plan as well.

In addition to stakeholder reporting, there are also various internal metrics that can help the project team. The internal project members will likely have their own set of metrics to assist them with their team's performance as well as their individual contributions. For example, a project team might chose to use performance evaluations, such as the 360 feedback model, so that they can acquire feedback for their performances. In this model employees are not only evaluated from their supervisors, but also their peers, and their subordinates and can provide valuable feedback from multiple perspectives.

In order to place the performance metrics into more specific categories and properly account for the critical success factors involved in this project, a framework for categorization was identified (Nah & Delgado, 2006). These categories include (I) business plan and vision; (2) change management; (3) communication; (4) project team composition, skills and compensation; (5) management support and championship; (6) project management; (7) design analysis, selection and technical implementation. A wide array of different metric systems can be developed in each specific category to assist in a project's implementation.

Discussion

In my experience working on projects it doesn't seem as if the metrics are used enough or at least checked consistently. Sometimes when a project seems to get hectic then the project plan can be ignored altogether for a while until things stabilize. This seems to make sense because when a problem occurs in a project then there is often little time available to start problem solving. A project manager will surely consider how the problem might affect the scope, schedule, and budget but the metrics may not always be used. Therefore, it seems as if the project metrics are more oriented towards project maintenance rather than a crisis or change.

Many of the project managers that I have known personally do not necessarily understand how to use the project metrics appropriately; at least in terms of monitoring variances. For example, pretty much everyone will know how to compare an actual value to a planned value for an individual activity; however it seems less common for project managers to track this as a function of the entire project duration. Therefore the project information is readily available to the manager in real time and sometimes they do not know where the project actually stands until much later when they have had a chance to calculate all the different tasks that have been completed, or have been paid for. I think that learning to use the simple metrics in Microsoft Project would definitely make a project manager more effective based on having more tangible information in a timely manner that can be used in decision making.

Works Cited

Nah, F., & Delgado, S.… READ MORE

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