Define project indicators
Project "indicators" are pieces of project information that give a picture of the health of the project's
progress against the software development plan. Typically a project manager will be concerned with
indicators that apply to the project's scope of work, budget, quality, and risks. As a project progresses,
the project manager will monitor these indicators and instigate corrective actions when they exceed
pre-defined trigger conditions (see Define procedure & thresholds for corrective action).
These project indicators may include the following:
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Total spending vs. budget
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Revised scope (work done + estimates to complete) vs. planned scope
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Defect density vs. quality objectives
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Risk indicators (situations that tell you a risk is being realized)
The definition of these indicators is driven by the project's budget, quality objectives and schedule
(detailed in the Software Development Plan) and is captured in the project's Measurement Plan and Risk
Management Plan.
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Define sources for project indicators
The projector indicators, in most cases, will be consolidated project measures calculated from more
granular primitive metrics. that are reported by the project team on a regular basis. How these primitive
metrics are to be captured, and the process for using them to calculate the project indicators is defined
in the project's Measurement Plan.
Other indicators (especially risk indicators) may be simply the status of whether a particular situation
has occurred or not. For these cases, the source of the information on the indicator status is all that
needs to be identified.
Section 4.4 Project Monitoring and Control of the Software Development Plan should include a brief
description of the project indicators that will be used on your project. Note that there are separate
sub-sections in this section of the SDP covering control of the project's schedule, budget, and quality.
Control of project requirements is dealt with separately in the Requirements Management Plan.
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Define procedure for team status reporting
Once the primitive metrics and project indicators have been defined, you should define the procedure and
reporting frequency for project team members to report their status. This procedure should describe the
process for booking time against activities, reporting the completion of tasks, achievement of project
milestones and reporting of issues. To ensure a consistent flow if information, it is typical for standard
templates to be defined for timesheets and team member status reports.
This procedure is documented in Section 4.4.5 Reporting Plan of the Software Development Plan.
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Define procedure thresholds for corrective action
In order to maintain effective control of the project, the project manager defines threshold (or trigger)
values/conditions for each of the defined project indicators. These threshold conditions are recorded in
the appropriate sections of Section 4.4 Project Monitoring and Control of the Software Development
Plan.
When these thresholds are exceeded, the project manager must take corrective action in order to bring the
project back on track. Depending on the severity of the condition, the project manager may be able to
resolve the situation within his authority (by issuing appropriate work orders). If the situation goes
beyond the project manager's authority he will need to issue a Change Request and activate the project's
change control process.
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Define procedure for project status reporting
Section 4.4.5 Reporting Plan of the Software Development Plan should also describe the frequency and
procedure for the project manager to report project progress to the Project Review Authority (by issuing a
Status Assessment). This procedure describes when and where scheduled and un-scheduled PRA Reviews will
occur, and what information is to be included in the Status Assessment. The project manager will use the
Issues List for continuous recording and tracking of problems (that are not the subject of some other
management control instrument, such as the Change Request or the Risk List) in the periods between the
production of Status Assessments.
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