PM Best Practices for managing the project using MSP Contingency in Schedules How do you determine the appropriate contingency level? Contingency level is specified in the IAE under the field “Estimate Confidence Level Justification”. The recommendation is to discuss the contingency level in IA Review meeting tha t is help with the Pro jec t Tea m. In order to be more accura te the prod uct continge ncy level temp late should be used to asses mor e accu rate the number. TODO: Product Contingency Level Templates for each product. How should contingency tasks be added to the schedule? Con tingen cy shoul d be normally add ed at sta ge lev el – des ign , dev elopment, validation. One exception to that would be if multiple resources are involved to pr od uce pr oj ect deli vera bl e in the sa me stage it’s recommended to add the contingency at deliverable level. Figure 1 In the example from Fig.1, I’ve added contingency at stage level for Development and Validation. Development is all done by the same resource – Software Engineer - while in the Validation stage there are 2 resources involved – Test Engineer and Test Lead. Because the task on which the Test Lead is working is a closely related an d depen dent on the ta sk that th e Test En gi neers is do ing I di d not ad d contingency separately. In the same time for Design stage I’ve added 2 contingency tasks . • One is for the Design activities which are 2 separate activities but are done by the same resource in this case. If there were 2 resources involved on doi ng Hig h Level Des ign and Detail Des ign , I would recommend having separate contingency tasks.
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PM Best Practices for Managing the Project Using MSP
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8/3/2019 PM Best Practices for Managing the Project Using MSP
PM Best Practices for managing the project using MSP
Contingency in Schedules
How do you determine the appropriate contingency level?
Contingency level is specified in the IAE under the field “Estimate Confidence Level
Justification”. The recommendation is to discuss the contingency level in IA Review
meeting that is help with the Project Team. In order to be more accurate the
product contingency level template should be used to asses more accurate the
number.
TODO: Product Contingency Level Templates for each product.
How should contingency tasks be added to the schedule?
Contingency should be normally added at stage level – design, development,
validation. One exception to that would be if multiple resources are involved toproduce project deliverable in the same stage it’s recommended to add thecontingency at deliverable level.
Figure 1In the example from Fig.1, I’ve added contingency at stage level for Developmentand Validation. Development is all done by the same resource – Software Engineer -while in the Validation stage there are 2 resources involved – Test Engineer and
Test Lead. Because the task on which the Test Lead is working is a closely relatedand dependent on the task that the Test Engineers is doing I did not addcontingency separately.
In the same time for Design stage I’ve added 2 contingency tasks.
• One is for the Design activities which are 2 separate activities but are doneby the same resource in this case. If there were 2 resources involved ondoing High Level Design and Detail Design, I would recommend havingseparate contingency tasks.
8/3/2019 PM Best Practices for Managing the Project Using MSP
• The second is for Test Plan task as another resource is involved in doing thisproject deliverable
Baseline the schedule
When should the baseline be done?
Schedule should be baselined before the activities on the schedule start even if notall resources are allocated. When the resource gaps are filled in and start dates andallocations are committed the baseline should be updated to reflect them.
How do you baseline?
Go to Tools->Tracking->Save Baseline.
Figure 2Multiple baselines can be saved for later use and the level of granularity can beselected as well: Entire Project or only Selected Tasks.
8/3/2019 PM Best Practices for Managing the Project Using MSP
Once you have a baseline you can start tracking and monitoring of schedule andcost variances. If you select Tracking Gant for a view you will be able to view theoriginal baseline (the bottom bar of each task) tracked against actual progress (thetop bar of each task).
The red bar tasks are part of the critical path for this project
Figure 4
8/3/2019 PM Best Practices for Managing the Project Using MSP
Tracking Progress to asses Estimates vs Actuals/Earned Value
Analysis
Prerequisites• A schedule with baseline is needed in order to be able to track estimates vs
actuals.
• Actual time spent on each task
• Remaining task time estimated by the resource working on the task
How do you track progress using MSP
The easiest way to track progress is to select View->Table->Work.
Figure 5 The default work view will be selected with columns Work, Baseline, Variance,
Actual, Remaining and % Work Complete displayed. For each task the actual spentand remaining hours should be updated based on the information collectedpreviously. As information is entered you will be able to see in Tracking Gant theimpact of the tasks that have overrun on the final delivery date. See Figure 6.
8/3/2019 PM Best Practices for Managing the Project Using MSP
In case a task has an overrun (actual work is bigger than the baseline) the
contingency should be updated by subtracting the difference.
Eg: Task Baseline hours: 20 hours Total contingency for the activities in the stage: 15 hours Task Actual Time: 25 hoursOverrun: 5 hoursContingency remaining hours should be reduced to:20 hours
Once contingency is down to 0 there is big chance the task will impact the end
delivery date if the task is on critical path.
8/3/2019 PM Best Practices for Managing the Project Using MSP