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I would use earned value measurement matrix as a measure of success in a project. By performing earned value analysis, actual schedule and cost could be compared to baseline schedule and cost. Earned value measurement analysis includes planned value, earned value and actual cost.
Planned value is the authorized budget allocated for performing a project task or phase. Planned value is usually assigned during the project planning phase. Planed value defines baseline work that should have accomplished.
Earned Value is the amount of work performed in terms of budget authorized for that work. Tracking earned value as a fraction of planned value would lead to understand the progress of the project. Earned value could be monitored fractionally to determine project performance (Gasparotti et al., 2017).
Actual cost is the amount incurred while performing the work. Actual cost is the total cost incurred while performing a project task in each schedule. Actual cost could be higher or lower than the planned value. Comparing earned value with actual cost will determine if the project is overbudget or underbudget (Gupta, 2014).
By adding milestones to a project and comparing earned value, planned value and actual cost after reaching each milestone, a project progress can be monitored. Thus, earned value management could be used as a measure of success in a project.
While monitoring for project progress and success, scope, schedule, and cost are monitored. Tracking project milestones could help a project manager, identify the project phase. However, project costs, scope and schedule cannot be tracked by identifying project milestones.
Projects often could have a scope creep or a major change in scope. Changes in scope could result in project schedule changes and would affect the overall project cost. Tracking project milestones would not be useful in monitoring small project scope creeps within a particular project phase.
Project costs is an important parameter which guides the project manager to understand the budget requirements of the project. Projects running over budget could seriously affect organizational performance. Thus, tracking project costs is extremely crucial to understand project success. Overall, projects could have a schedule change or an unforeseen delay resulting in increase in project budget. Monitoring project milestones would not be useful in determining changes in project schedule. This could lead to project delays.
Project quality management includes the process of incorporating the organizations quality policy regarding planning, managing, and controlling project and product quality requirements in order to meet stakeholder’s requirements. Quality management should be planned during the initial planning phase of the project (Muchelule et al., 2017). Planning quality management process includes identifying specifications and standards for quality requirements to be maintained during the course of the project. Managing quality process includes maintaining the project deliverables within organizational quality policies. Control quality is the process of monitoring and recording project tasks to meet stakeholder requirements.
Tool: Histogram
Histogram is a graph displaying number of non-conformance according to their ranking. Histogram is often used in conjunction with normal distribution to identify maximum number of defects and their mean (Eirgash, 2020). Histogram could be used to identify patterns within a variation, or it could be used to determine the highest cause of a defect. Typically, defects are plotted along X-axis and number of defects is plotted along Y axis. The width of each bar in histogram denotes a sample size. Histogram could be used to track project budget and identify causes for project running over budget. In such a histogram, project activities would be plotted along x axis and difference between actual project cost and earned value could be plotted along y-axis. Such a histogram could be easily used to identify major causes of projects running over cost.
Reference
Eirgash, M, A. (2020). Resource Allocation and Leveling in Construction Management Projects with Resource Histogram. American Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 5(6), 91 – 95
Gasparotti, C., Raileanu, A, B., & Rusu, E. (2017). The Earned Value Management – A Measurement Technique of the Performance of the Costs and Labor in the Project
Gupta, R. (2014). Earned Value Management System. International Journal of Emerging Engineering Research and Technology, 2(4), 160- 165
Muchelule, Y., Iravo, M, A., Odhiambo, R., & Shalle, N, I. (2017). Effect of Monitoring Techniques on Project Performance of Kenyan State Corporations. European Scientific Journal, 13(19?
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