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It Compares Performance Measurement Baseline to the actual schedule and cost performance. Performance Measurement Baseline integrates Scope Baseline, Schedule Baseline and Cost Baseline.

For each work package the following dimensions are calculated :

• Planned Value [PV]. Work that was planned to have been completed at a given point of time
• Budget At Completion [BAC]. Total planned value for the project. Also called Cost Baseline
• Earned Value [EV]. The measure of work performed at a given point of time
• Actual Cost [AC]. The total cost incurred to complete the work measured in EV

 Percentage Project Complete at a given point of time. Percentage of EV/BAC

Project Business Case

It documents the economic feasibility of the project. It is prepared before starting the project and can result in a go/no-go decision for the project. One of the criteria for determining project success. The input for Business Case is needs assessment.

Project Benefits Management Plan

It documents how and when the benefits of the project will be delivered — one of the criteria for determining project success. The inputs for Benefits Management Plan are needs assessment and Project Business Case.

Project Charter

Issued by Project Sponsor and formally authorises the project’s existence. The input for Project Charter is Business Case

These are the collection of Work Performance Information. These are distributed to aid decision making and increase awareness of project status. The reports are circulated to all relevant project stakeholders in communications processes.

These reports may contain one or more of following :

• Status updates
• Earned value graphs,
• Trends and forecasts
• Burndown charts
•  Risk Summaries

A contract is a mutually binding agreement. It obligates the seller to provide the deliverables and the buyer to make the payment on delivery. It is a legal document recognised in the court of law

The agreement includes the following : 

• Procurement statement of work
• Schedule of deliveries
• Pricing and Payment Terms
• Acceptance criteria
• Incentives and penalties
• Warranty support
• Standard contract clauses – Force Majeure, Liquidated Damages, Change handling, Termination
• Claims Administration and Alternative Dispute Resolution

 This method involves the following steps :

• Calculate the Duration for all activities on the Task Network Diagram.
• Calculate the early start [ES], early finish [EF], late start [LS] and Late Finish [LF] for all activities by using Forward pass and Backward pass techniques.
• Identify the number of paths on the Network Diagram.
• Calculate the total duration of each path.
• Identify the path with the longest duration. This path is called Critical Path.
• The Critical Path Duration will be the MINIMUM Project Duration.
• Calculate Total Float for all activities with the formula [LS-ES] or [LF-EF].
• Total Float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project finish date. The float is also called as Slack.
• Identify Activities on Critical Path. These will have zero float which means they HAVE to start and finish on time.

Number of work periods needed to complete the activity.
Duration of an activity is calculated using the Task Rule which is as follows :

             Work = Duration * Resource Units

i.Work is the Effort estimated for the activity. Various Estimation techniques discussed previously can be used. This is usually expressed in hours.

ii.Resource Units equals the number of resources that are assigned to the activity and the number of hours per day they are available for this activity.

iii.Duration calculated from above Rule is usually expressed in days.

Example :

An High Level Design Document is required to be prepared. It’s estimated effort is 40 hours. Two resources are assigned to it. Both of them can spare 4 hours each daily for this activity. What is the Duration of this Activity ?

What is baseline - The baseline in MSP (Microsoft project) management refers to the first version of the schduled project (after approval on draft version) timelines (duration), cost, resource and scope. Basline usaually store -

• Project Start and End Date
• Timelines (duration) of project
• Planned and Buddgested Cost

What is the use of baseline - Basline helps to track / monitore project with current project with timelines, duration, cost and resource. The baseline is nothing but a forzen picture of project (snapshot of project).

Set a baseline (Copied from Microsft website)

In MS Project, user may want to create a dependancy between tasks of multiple projects, which is also called as external dependancy. This video explains how to create external dependancy in MS Project 2016 Professional and explains usage of 'Links between Projects' command in Project Tab in MS Project 2016 Professional.