Baseline change problems

[Peters]

I am doing the first baseline change in a project and I am facing some
challenges.

I have a baseline set. Lets say I should build a wall with 100 bricks in 10
days. My cost for this project is $1000.

Timewise and counting the number of bricks, I am halfway through the project
when my customer tells me he wants another 20 bricks. The problem is, my
project has spent more resources than expected, so even though I am halfway,
the cost is 60% of the total.

My problem is that when I add the necessary work to the work field needed to
complete the project with the new specification and set a new baseline, my
own cost overrun will be included in the baseline making the project looking
less overrun than it is.

If this was a larger project, with 100+ tasks, I would also like to be able
to point out maybe the 10 or 15 activities that was affected by the scope
change and to what degree, perhaps with information on baselin cost, duration
and start/finish.

I have tried to figure out some steps to go through using formulas and
filters to get everything to show, but have not succeded. Does anyone have
some good steps to follow to achive this?

Thanks in advance,
Peter

 

[davegb]

I am doing the first baseline change in a project and I am facing some
challenges.

I have a baseline set. Lets say I should build a wall with 100 bricks in 10
days. My cost for this project is $1000.

Timewise and counting the number of bricks, I am halfway through the project
when my customer tells me he wants another 20 bricks. The problem is, my
project has spent more resources than expected, so even though I am halfway,
the cost is 60% of the total.

My problem is that when I add the necessary work to the work field needed to
complete the project with the new specification and set a new baseline, my
own cost overrun will be included in the baseline making the project looking
less overrun than it is.

If this was a larger project, with 100+ tasks, I would also like to be able
to point out maybe the 10 or 15 activities that was affected by the scope
change and to what degree, perhaps with information on baselin cost, duration
and start/finish.

I have tried to figure out some steps to go through using formulas and
filters to get everything to show, but have not succeded. Does anyone have
some good steps to follow to achive this?

Thanks in advance,
Peter

From your posting, I'm guessing you're not using Earned Value, which

sounds like it would solve your problem. It' rather complex to
describe here, but Project has that capability, you just need to do a
little research. Make sure you switch from using %Complete to using
Physical %Complete if you do it.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Peters]

As a matter of fact, I do use earned value on this project. But I don't see
how it would help me. The baseline is saved, the work field that will be the
new baseline displays the work including the overrun, thus the new baseline
is corrected for the overrun so far, basically creating a gap between the
last status date - pv curve intersection and the new pv curve that would
start where the ac curve was. Am I right?

Peter

 

[davegb]

As a matter of fact, I do use earned value on this project. But I don't see
how it would help me. The baseline is saved, the work field that will be the
new baseline displays the work including the overrun, thus the new baseline
is corrected for the overrun so far, basically creating a gap between the
last status date - pv curve intersection and the new pv curve that would
start where the ac curve was. Am I right?

Peter

I'm not clear what your "pv" curve is. PV has always meant Present
Value (economic evaluation tool) to me. EV involves CV (Cost Variance)
and SV (Schedule Variance), CPI and SPI, among others. What do you
mean by "the work field that will be the new baseline". If you want EV
to work, you can't rebaseline your project. It sounds like we are
using very different terminology and probably a very different
approach for EV. Maybe someone else who uses the same terms and the
same methodology could help you better than I. If you have a task that
cost more and took longer than planned, you'll see it in your CV and
SV, as long as you don't rebaseline. If you rebaseline for the current
situation, your CV and SV should be one. That would defeat the purpose
of doing EV.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[davegb]

As a matter of fact, I do use earned value on this project. But I don't see
how it would help me. The baseline is saved, the work field that will be the
new baseline displays the work including the overrun, thus the new baseline
is corrected for the overrun so far, basically creating a gap between the
last status date - pv curve intersection and the new pv curve that would
start where the ac curve was. Am I right?

Peter

There seems to be some confusion about both terminology and method. I
don't know of any "pv" in EV. The only PV I can remember is Present
Value, which is used in ecomonic evaluation and has no relationship to
EV.

Also, if you rebaseline a project to current conditions, your CV (Cost
Variance) and SV (Schedule Variance) will both go to 0. SPI and CPI
will both be one, negating the purpose of EV in the first place. I'm
confused as to what you're doing and what you're trying to get from
it. Can you elucidate, both on what you're doing and on you're terms?

 

[Scott S]

PV is Planned Value, the "new" term for BCWS. BCWP now gets called EV
(Earned Value) and ACWP became AC - that one should be easy to follow.

In some other packages, such as Open Plan Professional, you can add new
tasks to baseline without affecting existing baseline tasks. To do similar
in MS Project requires use of VBA to roll up costs correctly (from memory...)
- I read a blog (by Brian K?) about it a little while ago, complete with
sample VBA code which wasn't guaranteed to work.

Good luck,

Scott

 

[davegb]

PV is Planned Value, the "new" term for BCWS. BCWP now gets called EV
(Earned Value) and ACWP became AC - that one should be easy to follow.

In some other packages, such as Open Plan Professional, you can add new
tasks to baseline without affecting existing baseline tasks. To do similar
in MS Project requires use of VBA to roll up costs correctly (from memory...)
- I read a blog (by Brian K?) about it a little while ago, complete with
sample VBA code which wasn't guaranteed to work.

Good luck,

Scott

Thanks for the clarification, Scott. I've always thought that the
alphabet soup involved with EV was the evil plot of a disturbed
scheduler who wanted to leave a legacy of confusion for generations to
come! He succeeded! And I started teaching it some years ago using EV,
Actual Cost & Baseline Cost. After I explain the concepts, then I tell
my students that there's a much more difficult terminology for it that
they need to learn if they're going to take the PMI exam. But then,
why "Planned Value"?Whatever! It's definitely bettter than what it
was!

I'm still not clear on "adding new tasks to baseline without affecting
existing baseline tasks". Does that mean without affecting their
scheduled dates? Costs? All that depends on linking and myriad
factors. Either way, if you re-basline your project to bring your
baseline to the current schedule, your CV and SV go to zero. You're
back on schedule (the new one) and what you've spent is now the
correct amount, based on the new schedule. Is there something I'm
missing here?

 

[Scott S]

I'm still not clear on "adding new tasks to baseline without affecting
existing baseline tasks". Does that mean without affecting their
scheduled dates? Costs? All that depends on linking and myriad
factors. Either way, if you re-basline your project to bring your
baseline to the current schedule, your CV and SV go to zero. You're
back on schedule (the new one) and what you've spent is now the
correct amount, based on the new schedule. Is there something I'm
missing here?

It's not re-baselining - it's adding work to the existing baseline.

In Open Plan Professional it is possible to add new tasks to an existing
baseline without affecting baseline dates or costs for any of the existing
tasks in that baseline. New (approved!?!) work can be added to the schedule
and the associated PV is "slotted in" to the baseline without re-baselining
existing activities. BAC, ETC, EAC et cetera at "higher levels" are all
increased to reflect the additional costs of the additional work, but CV and
SV for other activities remain unaltered.

Whether new work is "on time" or "late" also depends on whether it's
baselined as "early dates" or "scheduled dates" - but that's another topic.

 

[davegb]

It's not re-baselining - it's adding work to the existing baseline.

In Open Plan Professional it is possible to add new tasks to an existing
baseline without affecting baseline dates or costs for any of the existing
tasks in that baseline. New (approved!?!) work can be added to the schedule
and the associated PV is "slotted in" to the baseline without re-baselining
existing activities. BAC, ETC, EAC et cetera at "higher levels" are all
increased to reflect the additional costs of the additional work, but CV and
SV for other activities remain unaltered.

Whether new work is "on time" or "late" also depends on whether it's
baselined as "early dates" or "scheduled dates" - but that's another topic.
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Ok. You can certainly add tasks to a Project schedule without
affecting the baseline. I'd have to play with it some to see if/how it
effects EV. But I don't see it as a problem. Seems to me you should be
able to do that with any scheduling software.

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

You may be talking about how updates to the baseline don't update the resource
baseline cost fields. They do roll up on the task side of things.

If Bob has a baseline cost of $5000, and you add a task for Bob, then rebaseline,
it won't change that baseline cost of $5000.

EVMS should still work on the task side, but probably would get a bit wacky
if applied to individual resources.

-A