How do I Remove section from baseline

[Joe]

What’s the best way to handle reduced scope in terms of baselined project
plan? I have a plan that is baselined and after a few months of tracking
actuals and reporting EVA to mgmt, it was decided to defer a specific
functionality for another release sometime next year (This deferred scope
with be another project plan later on).

What’s the best way to remove the deferred portion without re-baselining the
entire plan? I don’t want the SPI and CPI to go back to 1.0; I just want to
delete the one section from the baseline and continue with the rest of the
project.

Any ideas or thoughts?

 

[John]

What’s the best way to handle reduced scope in terms of baselined project
plan? I have a plan that is baselined and after a few months of tracking
actuals and reporting EVA to mgmt, it was decided to defer a specific
functionality for another release sometime next year (This deferred scope
with be another project plan later on).

What’s the best way to remove the deferred portion without re-baselining the
entire plan? I don’t want the SPI and CPI to go back to 1.0; I just want to
delete the one section from the baseline and continue with the rest of the
project.

Any ideas or thoughts?

Joe,
I assume the budget associated with the work scope reduction is also
being pulled from the project (as opposed to now being available for
ongoing/future tasks in the current project).

There are a few issues that must be addressed when tasks are being
deferred. Has any work been performed on them to date? If so, you need
to capture the actuals and leave that in the current file because it is
sunk cost. If no effort has been expended on any task to be deferred the
tasks can be deleted (see caution in next paragraph). This will of
course remove the baseline data at the task level but it will not
re-adjust baseline values for Summary lines. Summary line baseline data
can either be adjusted manually, with a formula in a custom field (and
then copy the rolled up custom field Summary data to the normal baseline
field), or via VBA.

Another issue with deleting tasks. The project network logic will most
likely change and this must be carefully reviewed before deleting any
tasks. It could be as simple as reconnecting some link paths or it could
be as complex as re-structuring the file.

It is very likely that EV performance indices (CPI/SPI) will change, and
they should because the scope of the whole project is changed. Whether
or not they go back to 1.0 depends on the current value and how the
change in scope affects ACWP, BCWP and BCWS.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP