All project progress is measured independent of resources expended - Mr. Gary Bliss, Director Performance Assessment and Root Cause Analysis (PARCA), US Department of Defense
The phrases used here are the results of research conducted on behalf of PARCA. No matter the domain, the engineering development process, these concepts are applicable
- Budget control is mandatory for any credible management of other peoples money
- Call me when you find a customer who thinks it is cheaper to not plan and forecast the short, medium, and long term expected performance in exchange for a planned cost, delivered at the needed date to fulfill the business mission.
- How can I know how much money I am going to need to complete this project to delivery a known capability?
- Requirements may emerge
- If capabilities are not stable, we’ll never know what done looks like before we run out of time and money.
- Measuring progress must be in units meaningful to the decision maker
- For any system, estimates of future life-cycle costs are subject to varying degrees of uncertainty. The overall uncertainty is not only due to uncertainty in cost estimating methods, but also due to uncertainties in program or system definition or in technical performance.
- Although these uncertainties cannot be eliminated, it is useful to identify associated risk issues and to attempt to quantify the degree of uncertainty as much as possible.
- This bounding of the cost estimate may be attempted through sensitivity analyses or through a formal quantitative risk analysis.
- Measuring and tracking the increasing maturity of the products of the program is based in technical performance – not the passage of time and consumption of resources.
- Objectively assessing accomplishments take place at the work performance level.
- You can’t claim cost and schedule credit for your work if it does not produce a technically compliant outcome, assessed with tangible evidence.
- Am I getting...
- What was planned from a technical perspective?
- For the planned cost?
- When it was planned to be delivered?
- All of these must be shown in a way that makes visible the risk of achieving the desired goal
- A Technical Performance Measure is described through ...
- Name – states the Technical Performance Measures
- Gist – statement of intent of the Technical Performance Measure
- Scale – the cardinal scale of the Technical Performance Measure
- Metric – how do we measure the Technical Performance Measures
- Target Range – the range of cardinal values acceptable (or unacceptable)
