A performance measurement baseline for the project MS Project

Earned Value Management

A performance measurement baseline for the project MS Project

A performance measurement baseline is one of the most valued time-phased tools used in project management. Its set standard application enables the evaluation of project performance to determine whether variances exist based on the original plan of the project (Taylor, 2008). The baseline is to incorporate different significant elements categorized into schedule, scope, and cost baselines. The baseline also incorporates operational and financial activities in the project. For the project, the PMB will be the time-phased schedule involving all the tasks to be accomplished, the task budgeted cost and the organizational elements to produce the assigned deliverables (Taylor, 2008).

The performance measurement baseline to be used in the project will be a schedule and cost baseline with a core element. As a collection of the project packages, the baseline will define the deliverables set to fulfill the required business capabilities. This will also include an estimated duration and project effort for every task package and the resources necessary for producing the deliverables. The deliverables will contain the business value of the project. Connection of the deliverables with the necessary capabilities forms the basis of the project execution procedure credibility. Establishing a baseline for the project involves six steps with each performed as priority (Taylor, 2008). They include:

• Building a time-phased schedule network of activities to describe the project tasks to be executed. This also involves a budget for the project cost. The schedule covers organizational elements meant to produce the deliverables and the performance measures to indicate whether the project progress correlate to the plan layout.
• Decomposing the scope of the project into a product based structure, then further into task package breakdown to describe the deliverable production which is traceable to the project requirements.
• Assigning responsibility to the task packages for the project manager accountable for resource allocation and management, technical delivery and cost baseline.
• Arranging the task packages in a well designed network through defined deliverables, inner and outer dependencies, milestones, cost margin and the appropriate schedules
• Developing a timeline budget cost for the project task scheduled, including the material cost in every package and the entire project. Assurance in the proper allocation of resources is met, and the budget profile should match the project sponsor expectations.
• Assigning object performance measures and measures of effectiveness for the project work package and making an overall summary of the entire project. This will also involve establishing of a baseline to be used in forecasting task package and the progress of the project including schedule metrics and the completion cost.

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Type: Essay || Words: 933 Rating || Excellent

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