Using Microsoft Project and fixed price task costs. Microsoft Project has a cost column to display the total cost of tasks. This cost is the sum of all task costs, plus any fixed costs. You can also display fixed costs in their own separate column. The sum of labor, material, and equipment costs in Microsoft […]
Leveraging Risk Management to Improve Investment Decision Making
The project management world is increasingly complex and so is investment decision making. Whether you are working on transformative change programs or investment projects, you are likely to be facing ever-increasing complexities within the work, the environment and the team. Uncertainty is everywhere, and at the heart of many change programs. Not knowing exactly how […]
Troubleshooting Your PMO’s Performance
Project Management Offices (PMO) might be the guardian of processes and best practice, but that doesn’t mean they always work smoothly themselves. Here’s a look at how to assess PMO performance with a view to troubleshooting the problems you find. What Does Good Performance Look Like? Before you can assess how well your PMO is […]
Microsoft Project Summary Tasks Dependencies
Yes, you can define summary tasks dependencies in Microsoft Project. It can also happen unintentionally when you promote tasks to summary tasks by indenting activities below them and fail to remove pre-existing links. However, links between summaries are generally not a good idea according to best practice guidelines. Let’s discuss. Microsoft Project has both detail […]
Sensitivity and Risk Path Analysis
This very interesting article “Sensitivity and Risk Path Analysis” was written and submitted by John Owen at Barbecana. Sensitivity Analysis is a very useful tool albeit, with some shortcomings. Here we explore Sensitivity Analysis and how Risk Path Analysis can overcome some of these shortcomings. Sensitivity Analysis Sensitivity Analysis shows us which tasks are creating […]
DCMA 14-Point Assessment and the Critical Path Length Index
The Defense Contract Management Agency’s (DCMA) Critical Path Length Index (CPLI) is a forward looking gauge of the efficiency required to complete a major milestone on-time, most likely the project deadline. Let’s take a closer look at this interesting metric. The DCMA missed tasks assessment discussed in a previous article is an early warning alert […]
Leveling Workloads Manually to Achieve the Tightest Schedule Possible
In resource constrained projects the end date of the schedule is driven by the availability and assignment of resources. Leveling workloads on resource constrained projects manually helps to achieve the tightest schedule possible. Here’s a look at a few different ways to achieve this. Microsoft Project has a ‘level all’ feature that will automatically level […]
How to Map Resource Assignments to a Specific Cost Class for Import into Deltek Cobra
Recently I was challenged to map specific resource assignments to a specific cost class in Deltek Cobra. The reason for this was that the same resource could be subject to multiple rates at the same time. In order to accommodate this we have to set up multiple budget classes in Cobra and multiple rate sets. […]
Addressing Microsoft Project Elapsed Time Lag Critical Path Issues
Microsoft Project elapsed time lag in days is a useful feature. This works great to model the 24-7 nature of material cure time. However, there are situations when the elapsed time lag causes the critical path to become discontinuous. Let’s explore this further. Lag is a helpful modifier that specifies waiting time between predecessor and […]
DCMA 14-Point Assessment and Resources
Is your schedule properly resourced according to the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA)? The DCMA resource assessment inspects how well your schedule is resource loaded. The DCMA resource assessment is somewhat variable. Resource loading a schedule is not always specifically required except in integrated earned value management systems and sometimes as a contractual stipulation. Schedules, […]