Post Project Analysis

[Shahriar Nour Khondokar]

Can someone please help me know/learn what features are available in MS
Project 2007 to perform 'Post Project Analysis'?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Can someone please help me know/learn what features are available in MS
Project 2007 to perform 'Post Project Analysis'?

Thanks in advance.

Simplistically, if Project was used initially to compute the schedule,
store the initial and subsequent baselines, and then also used to track
and report progress--you would have a very rich and complete set of data
to review and analyze the completed project. Without that data in
Project or equivalent, your post project analysis would be much more
complicated if not impossible.

 

[Shahriar Nour Khondokar]

Here is what has been done:
- We created the schedule using MS Project; Resources were assigned, tasks
were linked etc.
- Then we set a baseline
- As tasks were completed, Actual Work was recorded along with Actual Start
and Actual Finish date

So, what i would like to know now is that what features are available in MS
Project 2007 that support project management best practices for post project
analysis.

(This probably is as much about Project Management concepts as it is about
MS Project. So, if someone can point me in the right direction or to the
right resource, it will be greatly appreciated)

 

[JulieS]

Hello~

If you have created the baseline and applied tracking to the tasks,
project has calculated several data points to assist in the review.
For example, for every task there are the following:

Start Variance - difference between Actual Start and Baseline start
Finish Variance - difference between Actual Finish and Baseline
finish
Duration Variance - difference between Baseline and Actual Duration
Work Variance - difference between Baseline and Actual Work
Cost Variance - difference between Baseline and actual cost.

In addition, Project 2007 also calculates standard Earned Value
analysis data.

See the help topic "Review schedule differences" for some additional
information.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

"Shahriar Nour Khondokar"

 

[Shahriar Nour Khondokar]

Hi
I would like to know what features in MS Project can help me identify if the
dependencies set at the time of creating the project plan have actually been
maintained/followed. Or to rephrase, at the end of the project I want to
identify the order in which the tasks were actually executed/implemented.

Here is the scenario:
my projects are IT projects. At the start of the project we create the
project plan/schedule by linking the tasks to indicate the dependencies
between them.

During execution phase we are entering actual values of Work, Start and
Finish dates.

Currently we are seeing that the dependencies are not strictly followed.

So, post project we need to identify the real order in which the tasks were
carried out which in turn will be an indication of the dependencies between
the tasks.

An additional piece of information that may be useful is that usually
multiple resources are working in a project and and resources may start
working on different tasks simultaneously.

So, to summarize, given this scenario, please help me the identify the
real/actual dependencies between the tasks.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Not sure I completely understand the gap here. If you stored the
baseline (so you know what should happen), and you record actual
progress (especially the actual start date) you have a record of what
was reported as being done ... doesn't this work? Show all these bars
on a custom Gantt chart view and you have the full picture of what was
planed and what was done.

Begs the questions from a PM perspective that if dependencies are not
strictly followed, then:
: is strict to plan required?
: if yes, then why not done?
: if no, then why were dependencies called out as such? and does it
matter?

 

[JulieS]

Hello,

The best I can suggest is again to compare baseline start and finish
with Actual Start and Actual Finish. The dependency relationships
you set during the planning phase remain in the plan, but the Actual
Start and Actual Finish can give you the order in which the tasks
were begun and finished.

However, I'm not sure that I would go so far as to say that the
order the tasks were actually completed is indicative of a true task
relationship. It may be that a particular task was more appealing
to a resource than another task which could have been started at the
same time.

To your question of when did a resource on a particular assignment
start, you'll need to get further detailed information such as the
information available through the Task Usage or Resource Usage view.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project


"Shahriar Nour Khondokar"