Project Management Performing Towards Excellence

As a project manager, I have to submit my feasibility study in 2 weeks. My project is about creating and writing a software that can enable the transfer of credit units from one mobile phone network to the other.  The three highly vital management modules of my IT project are cost, schedule and performance. In nowadays’ marketplace, where budgets are fixed and timelines are central, clients seek things executed economically, rapidly and properly. To help and support the IT project manager, there are methods and approaches that can be exploited to manage and supervise these three essential modules. In this brief paper, I will concentrate mainly on the significance of cost, schedule, and performance.
          Once the project finances have been accepted, it should be specified so that consequential dimensions are available on the financial implementation. From the baseline funds, the project manager must generate a diagram that showcases when (week 1- week 2- week 3…) and how (labor/ material,/travel…) the project funds will be exploited. This is usually referred to as a spend plan. Once the bottom-line spend plan is in shape and location, the project costs can be efficiently administered and handled. One of the most widespread and simplest methods for supervising this is the Cost Performance Indicator (CPI). The CPI is a purpose of planned cost in opposition to actual cost at a particular point in time. To compute CPI, consider the budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP) and segregate it by the actual cost of work performed (ACWP). For instance: On day 50 of a 5 month scheme, the spend plan manifests that the project should have spent $220,000 while the actual cost until today reveals that $500,000 has been depleted on the project. Employing the modus operandi, CPI = BCWP / ACWP ($220,000 / $500,000), results in a CPI of 0.44. Plainly acknowledged, this demonstrates that the project is overflowing its premeditated budget by 56%. The plan was to spend $220,000 by day 50, but a lot more was essentially spent. By deploying the formula, project cost is deviated off track.

Commonly for CPI, everything over 1.0 is fine and anything under 1.0 needs a good re-look. This is a suitable rule of thumb, however it is important to mention that a CPI greater than 1.0 might be a pointer of work that is not being accomplished and may entail further consideration. In taking over a project’s CPI, it is significant to lay down verges for setting off counteractive action. Something as undemanding as three successive cycles of CPI below 1.0 will ask for supplementary examination. Cost performance should be scrutinized and reviewed at least monthly (weekly in some occurrences where the scheme interval is less). The project manager ought to converse the CPI within the intermittent reviews that are carried out with senior management and the customer.
Cost is a critical facet of a project’s accomplishment. Executing and implementing a simple system such as monitoring CPI can assist recognize and determine any cost involved problems before they burst out of control. Communicate and link this with schedule and performance tracking and the probability of a successful project surges radically.