Managing uncompleted work in the past for multiple projects

[MaxFr1]

Each project manager needs to manage uncompleted work in the past. The question is whether that work still needs to be done. If so, they should reschedule it to the future. If not, I would think they should eliminate it, so that total Planned Cost is more accurate, since it would not contain work that is not longer needed. For the program manager, the task is to monitor how the project managers are doing on this task. So the program manager would want to see a view or report that had one line per project, and which showed Actuals to Date, Planned for Future Dates, and the sum. If we call this Forecast = (Actuals to Date) + (Planned for Future Dates) then Uncompleted work in the past = (Total Planned Cost) minus Forecast The program manager could then run this report, or see this view, and notice that some of the project managers need a gentle reminder to manage this uncompleted work in the past. As a user, I do not see how to get the time-phased data needed for (Planned cost for future dates). Am I missing something obvious? Thanks for any help you can give. Max Fritzler

[VicAl]

Hi Max, For future planned cost we use a Matrix report with the field called Total Planned Cost in the Project (Financial Data) table. The matrix allows you to depicts it in months (or whatever you wish). One trick you can use for the knowledge of whether they're rescheduling past dated incomplete tasks is the SPI number (which you can easily put on a single line Project report). The SPI is actually broken in WF because it doesn't use baselined dates, and they refuse to fix it, because I'm assuming it'd be a large effort to fix and not enough people use it. But because of this flaw, if you change your past dated incomplete tasks and update them to current dates, the SPI will read close to 1 – meaning you're in good shape. If you don't update those tasks the SPI reads more true (< 1). So it's an easy way to tell if they're updating their plans. Hope that makes sense.

[MaxFr1]

Thanks Vic, that helped a lot! I created a chart off the matrix report, and that worked very will with my business stakeholders. Of course, the immediately wanted a cumulative view of the data, which would produce a traditional S-curve chart. I haven't figured that out yet, without dumping the report to Excel and hacking on it there (yuk!) The SPI thing makes sense. I'll experiment a litte. If they don't use baseline for the calculation, but instead used Planned Cost, then as a PM removes or reschedules uncompleted work, the SV calc (SV = EV - PV). I presume EV is the planned cost for the completed work (as you say, not the baseline), and if uncompleted work in the past is eliminated or rescheduled, then we have PV approaching AC, so SV would approach zero and SPI would approach 100%. Thanks again, and let me know if there is some trick to get S-curves from workfront. Max Max Fritzler

[VicAl]

Yeah I think you'll be stuck exporting to Excel for the S curve. On the SPI I believe the problem is the Planned Value (PV) is being calculated on the current state of the task (as opposed to the baseline). So if you're task was supposed to start on Nov 1, and hasn't started yet, the SPI will register accurately for that task. However, if, like a good PM �� , you move the start date to today (because the task didn't actually start on Nov 1 and you're updating your plan), then the PV will register that your task is on time, because it's starting today. So the SPI will be 1.0 (or close). Extrapolate that for all the Tasks and the project SPI will appear close to 1.0 even though tasks have not started on time. WF ignores the Baseline in this case (or more accurately probably doesn't record it for each task at all, which is the problem and the reason I think they're reluctant to fix it – you have to save those baseline dates for every single task). Good luck with your S Curve ��