Categories of Reporting

• Reporting is broadly classified as formal and informal reporting.

• The basic types of reports associated with formal and informal
reporting includes regular and ad hoc types.
 Formal regular types can be oral or written.
• The standard oral communication of minutes are kept whereas written
type gets the structured report in written format.
Formal ad hoc are mostly received information of different levels
towards the end of the project and generate written reports.
• Informal, oral and ad hoc provides early warning to the system and
must be backed up by formal reporting procedures.
 REPORTING

FORMAL INFORMAL

REGULAR ADHOC ORAL ADHOC

(quickly made
Oral or as needed)
written
Difference between formal and
informal
Attribute
reports
Formal Report Informal Report
Tone Professional Casual
Follows a specific format with
sections like introduction, May not follow a specific format,
Structure
methodology, results, and can be more free-flowing
conclusion
Uses formal language and Uses everyday language and
Language
technical terms may include slang
Length Typically longer Typically shorter
Used for day-to-day
Prepared for significant operations and internal
Purpose and Audience situations & target higher- updates. Shared among
level management. team members or
colleagues.
Progress Assessment
• Based on the information collected from various levels at regular
intervals during the development of the project measures the
progress assessment.
• The information measure the project’s objectives in determining
whether the project can produce deliverables or not.
Every single activity will not yield a deliverable work product but a
group of activities can achieve the specified tangible(real) product.
• Usually, the assessment process is carried out by the team members
who are associated with the project activities.
• Checkpoints can be used to check the initial activity plan which may
govern specific events in generating report or a deliverable.
• Team leaders will have to assess the project daily while the project
leaders can do it on a weekly basis.
• Higher level members generate less reporting than their subordinates.
• Review points or control points can be set at different points in the
project life cycle to review the progress of the project.
Collection of data
• Collecting information of the project progress at regular instances
provides much control over the project.
• Managers will try to break down long activities into more controllable
tasks of one- or two-weeks’ duration
• However, gathering of partial completion of activities can be used to
calculate the remaining work needed to complete.
Partial Completion Reporting
• It refers to the process of documenting and communicating the
progress of a task, project, or process that has not yet been fully
completed.
• The staff time related to a specific project indicates the work that has
to be carried out by the particular staff in a specific time.
• Timesheets can be maintained on a weekly basis to measure the staff
involvement in the development process.
Key Points

1. Purpose:
1. To provide a snapshot(short description) of progress.
2. To inform stakeholders (clients, managers, team members) about how much work is completed
and what remains.
2. Includes:
 Percentage of task completed.
 Milestones achieved so far.
 Resources used versus planned.
 Challenges or delays faced.
 Estimated completion time.
3. Uses:
1. Helps in performance tracking and project monitoring.
2. Facilitates timely decision-making.
3. Enables corrective actions if a project is off track.
Reporting Risk
Risk reporting uses a traffic light method concept and consists of
the following steps:
1. Identify the first level elements for assessment
2. Break the first level elements into second level elements.
3. Assess the second level elements and mark the color as
Green – on target
Amber – not on target but recoverable
Red – not on target and difficult to recover
4. Review all the second level assessments to arrive at first level
assessments
5. Review first and second level assessments to produce an overall
assessment
This method only focuses on non-achievement factors and do not
mention about any delay in the development process.
Assessment forms can be used to evaluate the overall status of the
project.
 Critical activities denoted by red color must be reconsidered during
the revision of project schedule.
VISUALIZING PROGRESS
• A manager needs some way of presenting that data to the greatest
effect.
• It has to be shown visually so that everybody involved in the project
work is pleased about its progress.
• Presenting project effectively plays a vital role.
Categories of Visualizing
Progress
The techniques that are used in visualizing project progress are:
• Gantt chart
• Slip Chart
• Ball Chart
• Timeline Chart
1.The Gantt Chart
• Gantt chart is a type of a bar chart that is used for illustrating project
schedules.
• Gantt charts can be used in any projects that involve effort, resources,
milestones and deliveries.
• Through Gantt charts, the project manager can keep a track of the
individual tasks as well as of the overall project progression.
• The simplest kind of Gantt chart can be created using a software tool
such as Microsoft Excel.
Advantages

• The ability to grasp the overall status of a project and its tasks at
once is the key advantage
• Informed decisions can be made just by looking at it.
• The software-based Gantt charts are able to show the task
dependencies in a project schedule. This helps to identify and
maintain the critical path of a project schedule.
Disadvantage
• For large projects, the Gantt chart tool should be supported by other
means of documentation.
• The information displayed in Gantt charts may not be sufficient for
decision making.
Timeline Chart

• Timeline usually records and displays the target changes during the
project life cycle.
• The chart represents the planned time along the horizontal axis and
the actual time along the vertical axis.
• A line down the horizontal axis represents the scheduled activity
completion dates and the slip in the line indicates a delay in the
respective activities.
• This timeline chart is used to calculate the duration of execution of
the project as a part of post-implementation review.
Cost Monitoring

• An important component of project control is cost monitoring.

• Cost monitoring provides an indication of the effort that has been
given to the project.
• Sometimes, more cost is incurred to complete the activities to keep
the project on schedule.
Cost Monitoring depends upon
various parameters:
1. Project Management
2. Project Planning
3. Project Execution
4. Project Control
5. Project Completion
6. Project Cost Control
7. Project Budget
8. Cost Tracking
9. Time Management
10. Project Change Control
11. Collecting Project Cost Control Data
A cumulative cost chart
• The chart does a comparison between the actual and the planned
expenditure.
• These charts become more useful for estimating future costs.
• When revision of estimated cost and completion date are done, the
same can also be expressed in the revised cumulative chart.
Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
• It is a technique used to measure project performance and progress in a very
structured way. It combines three things:
• Scope (what work should be done)
• Time (when it should be done)
• Cost (how much it should cost)
In simple words, Earned Value Analysis tells you:
• How much work you have actually completed compared to how much you
planned.
• Whether you're spending more or less money than you should have at this point.
• Whether you're ahead or behind schedule.
Common methods used in assigning an earned value
are:

1. 0/100 technique: Task value is assigned zero till completion and the
budgeted value is 100%.
2. 50/50 technique : Task value is assigned 50% and then increased to
100% once it completes.
3. Milestone technique : Task is assigned a value based on the
achievement of milestones as part of original plan.
 Out of all these method, the 0/100 technique is used because the
other techniques are not suitable for longer duration cost
estimation.
Baseline Budgets

• For earned value analysis, the first step is to create a baseline budget.
• It shows the forecast growth of the project plan in earned value with
respect to time.
• Common ways of measuring earned value in software development
process is persons- hours or work-days.
• The figure depicts the scheduled completion of all activities involved
in the development of the project.
Monitoring earned value
• EVM consists of the following three basic elements:
1. Planned Value
2. Actual Cost
3. Earned Value
All the three elements are captured on a regular basis as of a reporting
date.
Indicators for earned value analysis
1. Planned value (PV): denotes the assigned value is the original budgeted cost
for the item. It is known as budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS).
2. Earned value (EV): denotes the total value credited to a project at any
point. It is known as budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP).
3. Actual cost (AC): The total cost taken to complete the work as of a reporting
date.
4. Schedule variance (SV): indicates the degree to which the value of
completed work differs from that planned.
Schedule variance (SV) = EV - PV
• A negative schedule variance (SV) calculated at a given point in time means
the project is behind schedule
5. Cost variance (CV):- important factor to measure project
performance. CV indicates how much over or under-budget the project
is .
Cost variance (CV) = EV - AC
• A negative cost variance (CV) means the project is over budget
6. Performance ratios:- Two ratios are commonly tracked:
a) Cost performance index (CPl =EV/AC)
b) Schedule performance index (SPl = EV/PV).
7. For Forecasting EAC (Estimated Time at completion)=BAC/CPI.
Prioritizing Monitoring
The list of priorities defined in the level of monitoring are:
1. Critical path activities: denote those activities in the critical path that are delayed in
project completion date.
2. Activities with no free float: These delayed activities will have a delay in subsequent
ones but still stick on target. These activities can have a serious effect on the
resource schedule because the subsequent activities have to wait for its completion.
3. Activities with less than a specified float: If there is a very little float in the activity
say less than one week, these activities must be monitored very closely.
4. High risk activities: These high risks are identified in the risk management plan itself
and results in over spending.
5. Activities using critical resources: Critical activities are very expensive and are
available only for a limited period and hence require high level of monitoring.