Percentage of Completion – Is It Meaningful? (# 2)

Part - 1 of Percentage Of Completion - Is it Meaningful?

Remedies:

Option - 1:

Ask the team member how many days it is going to take for completion, in place of % age of completion. If it is going to take 20 person days and 12 person days are already gone, it means that 60% of work should be done.

It is easier said than done as software development never works in linear ways. Rather it is unpredictable. And perhaps that it what makes it worrying and exciting at the same time. It may be due to other constraints, assumptions for which it could not be completed.

Hence, ask the developer that how long it will take to complete, like: will it be come 10 more days in place of 8 or will it be 5 person weeks in place of 3 person weeks? Get that information and also ensure that you get a commitment for new dates.

If those dates are put in the project report, it makes sense. A sample can be like below:



Option - 2:

For certain kind of projects, micro-managing is important. Then, one can have them segregated by individual modules for each important deliverable: like document completion, coding, unit testing etc. It must be noted that in reality, developers also do all these work simultaneously in place of doing them one after another. Hence, it should be helpful to them.

The above table can be expanded to include sub activities with certain main activities.

Option - 3:

However, percentage of completion also works, if you are using EVM technique.

To know the status of the project, just a couple of question needs to be asked:

- What is the SPI (Schedule Performance Index) for the project?
- What is the CPI (Cost Performance Index) for the project?

If SPI and CPI are below 1.0, then the project is not in good health, i.e., not performing well. The calculation for these is also known as EVM, i.e, Earned Value Measurement.

Also from a schedule perspective, if the SPI is below 1.0 (let us assume it is 0.9), then it means the deliverable is actually 90% complete and it is behind schedule.

Conclusion:

If your project is using Enterprise Project Management Software and Methodologies, the best way to report on status of completion is to use EVM Technique. Otherwise, in place of reporting percentage of completion, the proper way to know the completion status can be Option -1 or Option -2.

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