From the course: Project Management Foundations: Schedules

Update progress in the schedule - Microsoft Project Tutorial

From the course: Project Management Foundations: Schedules

Update progress in the schedule

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- [Instructor] Projects never run completely according to plan, which is why you need to regularly update your schedule with the actual progress that's being made. There's no one way to obtain status info from teams. Let's examine best practices for updating progress. That way you can evaluate, and if necessary, adjust your organization's update processes. First, choose the right frequency for updates. Too often, and your team will waste too much time reporting progress. If updates aren't often enough, you won't respond to issues that arise in a timely way. The right frequency depends on several factors like project duration, complexity, and risk. One approach is to update your schedule more frequently than you report status to management. For example, if you report status every two weeks, you might update progress every week. That way you can proactively identify and resolve issues. Be sure to specify the status date for each update. That way everyone knows the dividing line between actual and remaining work. You have to decide whether you're going to use duration or work to record progress, and then stick to your decision. Remember, duration is easier to update than work, but doesn't provide as much accuracy. For each activity, you need the following. Activity name and/or ID. The actual start date if the activity is in progress. Otherwise get the estimated start date. If the activity is complete, get the actual finished date. You also need the actual duration or work that's complete. For a true picture of progress, be sure to obtain the estimated remaining duration or work. I have included a progress update file in the exercise file folder for you to use. After recording an update, verify the integrity of the schedule. Completed activities should have actual start and finish dates earlier than the status date. In progress activities should have actual start dates and actual duration or work all before the status date. Incomplete duration or work should be scheduled after the status date, that is, in the future. Unstarted activities should also be scheduled after the status date. In addition, you might need to add new activities to the schedule or eliminate duration or work for activities that are no longer needed. Review the schedule logic to make sure that all necessary dependencies are in place and reflect the current work sequence. For example, work may be performed in different order than originally planned, which would require revisions to dependencies. Review the schedule to determine the effects of the update. If necessary, develop plans for responding to issues. Finally, document the update. Explain changes to the schedule logic, important dates, and the critical path. To make updates easy to identify, assign a version number to the update and archive all the update data. Updating a schedule is crucial to knowing where things stand and what to do next, so it's important to do it right.

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