S curve and manpower histogram

Dear Vladimir,



Thank you very much, the instructions to navigate the site worked.



With kind regards,



Samer

Thank you Shareef,

this concept is practical and works in Spider Project for many years. Inform me if you will want any additional information.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Dear Samer,

I copied the link and pasted into the web address in my browser. It worked. But if the problem remains go to www.spiderproject.ru, select English, and the Publications.

The reference was made to the third from the top: Success Driven Project Management Methodology (PMI Great Lakes Chapter Conference).

There are other publications there that may be of interest to you. I will be glad to discuss any approach suggested in these publications.



Best Regards,

Vladimir

Thanx Vladimir for the Power Point Presentation.



The concept of RCP is really interesting.





Best Regards

Shareef A Azeez

Dear Vladimir,



Would you be so kind and assist in re-writing the link below without the % in it. Because the mentioned link might not be working.



With kind regards,



Samer

Hi Anoon,

S-curves and manpower histograms help to analyze project status and forecast.

Forecasted project finish delay, forecasted deviation of project cost also show project status.

It is necessary to analyze what happened with these forecasts during last performance period. It helps to estimate period performance. It is even better to have historical trends of these data for understanding what is happening with project execution. For considering corrective actions to know if forecasts became better or worse during the last performance period.

Earned Value analysis is also helpful but shall be used carefully.

But the best indicators are current success probabilities together with their trends. Current probabilities to meet targets show project status and their trends show project tendencies.



Best Regards,

Vladimir

Hi Vladimir,



"S-curves and manpower histograms do not show trends"



How do you best represents planned progress or planned percentage progress (may it be early or late)?



On what form or chart do you use?



cheers

S-curves and manpower histograms do not show trends.



Trend Charts show how some parameter changed during project life cycle.



Example: what happens with the project finish date forecast? If it moves to the right then we have problems with the project performance. Status analysis may show that everything is fine and we are on track but if trends are negative it means that the problem exists and we shall do something to overcome negative tendencies.

Trend Charts may be created for project (phase) duration, costs, material requirements, Earned Value parameters, etc.

Project managers shall analyze project trends for proper decision making. Trends give more information for this that project status.



The best indicators of project health are trends of probabilities to meet project targets (usually time and cost). These trends depend not only on what happens inside the project but also on project environment. It may happen that project is performed perfectly but new risks unknown earlier make the trends of probabilities to meet targets negative. So Success Probability Trends are integrated performance indicators.



Look at http://www.spiderproject.ru/library/eng/1/Success%20Driven%20Project%20… for more information on Success Driven Project Management.



Best Regards,

Vladimir

Hi Daniel / Rola,



The fundamental in Project Control is to know the Contract Scope of Work, the deliverables. From this information, a plan can be work out. At the early stage, it can be a road map. Then, a schedule can be developed. A Gantt Charts is used to represent the schedule.

The bars in the Gantt Charts that represents activities must be systematically and painstakingly analyst to arrive at duration estimates, resource allocation and weight allocation. This is the stage wherein the downstream products may have effective meaning because if these are done haphazardly, all efforts may end up GIGO rule (garbage in and garbage out) consequently, waste of time and money.

Anyway, for the sake of this thread in this forum, to continue…

Having arrived at duration estimates, resource allocation and weight allocation, the activities in the Gantt Charts must be logically linked. To achieve quality, only one activity will have no successors, and only one activity will have no predecessor. In this way there will be no open ended activities. Also minimize the used of constraints since constraints artificially interfere with the logic.

Then, this is now the climax of a good work done.

Run the schedule, press F9 in Primavera.

You have now planned periodic values and planned cumulative values.

These periodic values and cumulative values are used in generating Resource Histogram, S-curve, by transposing to MS Excel since the graphical capability of MS Excel is superior compared to other user friendly software.



Having said that, the next important activity of a project control professional is to monitor the actual, what really actually happen: Is it according to plan (mostly it is not)? How much is the differences? If your project has consumed 25% of the time, then, you have a database to used in predicting future events.

To be continued since I have lots of work to do…



GB, PTL, TY

Scarlett

Hello Vladimir,



In your post #11, I seem to be in agreement. Let me grasp and evaluate myself.



I did not mean that S curve is not useful. Ok, I agree and my philosophy S-curve are important and useful

.

S curves, like Gantt Charts, Time-Location Charts, Resource Histograms, Earned Value reports, Trend Charts - are powerful tools for project analysis.



S curves are powerful tools for project analysis – I agree and I use S-curve



Gantt Charts are powerful tools for project analysis – I agree and I use Gantt Charts



Time-Location Charts are powerful tools for project analysis – I agree and I use Time Location Charts



Resource histograms are powerful tools for project analysis – I agree and I use Resource Histograms



Earned Value reports are powerful tools for project analysis – I agree and I used earned value reports



Trend Charts are powerful tools for project analysis – I agree and I use Trend Charts



WOW, I am great since I agree with you 100 %.

I’m also the greatest planning engineer since I’m using the powerful tools for project analysis. And that will be 200% in agreement to Vladimir idea.



Thank you Vladimir since I benchmark my performance with your ideas and now, it give me confidence to look for another high paying job, maybe in the area of 300,000 GBP tax free.



Vlad, if ever we miss something, please let me know. I may raise the stake to 500,000 GBP tax free.



GB, PTL, TY

Scarlett

Hi Vladimir,



Can you please give some examples of "Trend Charts" or "Trend Analysis"? Aren’t S-curves or manpower histograms can be considered trend charts?



cheers

Daniel,



A few things…there are S-Curves for Manhours there are S-Curves for commodities and you are right that the S-Curve becomes useless if the Trended/Revised Budget are quite different to Original Budget.



A way around is to develop

1.S-curves based on % completion and not the manhours

2.Or we can generate the S-Curves on manhours/qty but if there is a change in qty add a revised S-curve and superimpose on the baseline S-Curve and measure the progress and variance from that.

In project controls we have to change our stance throughout the duration of the project. New reports are prepared older are scrapped…don’t you think it is similar to why we keep on deleting old links and adding new during a schedule update.



Thanks

Regards

Rashid

Interesting Subject.



I personally like progress curves or S-Curves as they call it and It basically tells me the status of a project at any one point in time. In other words, it tells me where I am and where I am going, it tells me, if I am behind or ahead of programme, so more or less it is like a compass or a management tool that we can use us a guide and a barometer to measure on how we are performing.



Of course, the accuracy of the project status depends a lot on how you derived your progress curve or the philosophy behind it. It also depends on what you consider actuals, and this is were a lot of Planners go wrong. For example, you have a structural project, which involves so many cubic meters of concrete say 100,000 m3, so you prepare a programme and the corresponding concrete progress curve. Where do you base your actuals? What if the volume of concrete estimated is wrong, How can you get a good indication of the project status even if the quantities estimated were wrong in the first place? There is a way around it and as I have said this is were a lot of planners go wrong. Something to ponder Planners!

Hi Scarlett,

I did not mean that S curve is not useful.

S curves, like Gantt Charts, Time-Location Charts, Resource Histograms, Earned Value reports, Trend Charts - are powerful tools for project analysis. But all of them are the results of your planning and monitoring, reports generated by your project model.

They are not planning but analysis tools.



As for progress analysis we pay most attention to trend analysis that provides project planners with early warnings of potential problems. Other reports give the information on project status.

To make informed decisions it is necessary to understand both - status and trends.



Best Regards,

Vladimir

Dear Rola,



Of course you can deduct a lot of information from the curve.



Rate of progress from the slope of the curve. And you can know the actual prgress of course vs time of the project.



If you are late at the start, you can conclude that you have to put a lot of effort at the end and your rate of progress will be very steep. Otherwise, you will not complete on time and you will be late.



With kind regards,



Samer

Rola,

The S Curve is merely a representation of all of your data.

I think it would be a brave person that attempts to achieve the "Perfect" S curve shape every time.



Fact of the matter is that for many of the activities within a schedule it is too hard to confirm the rate at which effort &/or resources will be expended over time. As Planners we simply use experience to determine the ’Most Likely’ outcome of each of our activities, and let this roll up.



I tend to worry less about the individual resource loading at the activity itself, and more about sequence, duration and budget assigned to the activity. At the end of the day when an activity starts you have no control over how the resources are expended, and the bigger the activity the less control you do have. The smaller the activity the more hours YOU will have to put into managing the schedule progress and change.



As with all things there is a balance. If the curve looks funny or just plain wrong, then there is a reason. Look for that reason using the various structures you have created, WBS, RBS, code fields etc etc. When you find a reason for it you will then need to determine the value of mitigating or changing the schedule to fix these anomalies.



Ensure you engage the PM and the various supervisors and leads that should have provided review and sign off of the activity list, durations, budgets and sequence for the schedule. They may be able to assist in the clarification of any and all things that concern you.



When it’s all said and done, all the planning effort in the world is of no help what-so-ever as soon as the first hour is booked to the project. All bets are off and you need to manage the job to completion from there. Of course without a well-defined plan that is understood and agreed to by the entire team then all the schedule management in the world won’t do you a bit of good as everyone will be working to their own plan and not care about the initial plan.



A schedule that is not supported by the project delivery team is basically going to end up a mystery within a riddle wrapped in an enigma.



Oh how I love a good conundrum.



Andy

Rola,



The theory of the S-Curve is base on the fundamentals that at the begining of the project there will be less resources and as it progress along the timeline a lot of parallel activities needs resources and slowly as the project will end the resource usage will become less.



The periodic graph will show a bell shape while the cumulative graph will show S-curve.



That is the fundamental of S-curve.



In reality, we theoritical practice, we generate S-curve using early dates and late dates. In both cases, the S-curve is not really a perfect S...



Knowing the idea behind the S-curve, it is important to know the planned resource allocation, the planned progress and compare this with the actuals.



from the comparisson, you can draw your conclusion.



How effective you are in the presentation of your conclusion and how your project management team will respond to your finding will make a lot of differences between success and failure.



If your project becomes a success story, then, you can go anywhere the world and get the biggest salary ever.



GB, PTL, TY,

Scarlett

Dear All,



When we plot the S Curve, we use numbers. These numbers are representing two criteria; say progress and time. Once we plot the numbers we have and connect the dots, we have a curve.



The laws of mathematics apply to the numbers and curves explanation. Management comes in to relate the actual situation to what is going on at site.



It is a tool to monitor what we are managing because evidently the numbers are important to complete the project.



With kind regards,



Samer

My Philisophy:



Historically, initially, Henry L. Gantt, an American engineer, developed a horizontal bar chart used in production control way back in 1917.

The evolutionary and revolutionary progression of Gantt chart is being used for planning and scheduling project. A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart that provides graphical illustration of a schedule to plan, coordinate and track activities. As a result, S-curves were generated to display cumulative matrix: percent weight, cost,



Somewhere along the project management timeline, someone got the idea to allocate manpower resources, progress weight, cost, etc. to activities in the Gantt chart to achieve a more robust planning, scheduling and tracking.



A manpower histogram can be generated to show how many people will be needed to get a job done over time.



S-curve can also be generated to display cumulative percent progress, cost, etc.



S-curve is an indicator used as a tool to compare actual against baseline with diverse matrix as progress, cost, manhours, quantities, etc.



GB, PTL, TY

Scarlett

Dear Scarllet,



A little bit of googling into S-curve:



http://www.icsb.org/wiki/index.php?title=S_curve



"The S curve is used to study a lot of natural processes and complex system. The logistic equation was published for the first time in 1838 by P. F. Verhulst, a belgian mathematician, than it was rediscovered in 1920 by Raymond Pearl and Lowell Reed. "



Its a nice reading.



But I keep woundering why we keep using 200 year old math! Imagine what can happen if we use the current capabilities of mathematicians in our construction!



With kind regards,



Samer

S-curve is just one of many reports that may be created, nothing else.

S shape is typical for cumulative charts for project costs and resource quantities.

If data are not cumulative the graphs have bell shape.

Hi Vladimir,



Refer to your statement:

S-curve is just one of many reports that may be created, nothing else. I beg to disagree

S shape is typical for cumulative charts for project costs and resource quantities. Agreed

If data are not cumulative the graphs have bell shape. Agreed



I beg to disagree because it is nothing else

There is more on what the S-curve tells us with regards to the present state of the project. Progress S-curve is one of the most important graphical representations of project status. I can also be used in CDR (claim dispute resolution). S-curve can be combined with project database and robust analysis will give us the trend on where the project is heading. This will help project management team to acts and intervene in case where slippage is not anymore within acceptable level. It will also give guidance on project turn around.



In conclusion, S-curve is not a “nothing else”. It is one of the most powerful tools in project management.



Of course since we are in a forum with the most intelligent planning engineers in this planet, perhaps, if you have the time, maybe you can elaborate on why you say S-curve is … “nothing else”. This may give you an opportunity to convey the power of Spider capability other than generating S-curve or there may be other more important component relative to progress reporting in project management other than S-curve.



GB, PTL, TY

Scarlett

Hello Samir,



Your wounder “But I keep woundering why we keep using 200 year old math! Imagine what can happen if we use the current capabilities of mathematicians in our construction!”



Have you ever use algebra, analytic geometry, calculus (differential and integral), differential equation or higher mathematics in you construction work. Well, I did and I’m still using those mathematical subjects in my analysis. I also used the principle in engineering economic subject in arriving at depreciation values, present values, etc. in doing feasibility studies.



The result is: it is just like in college, but, the exception is I’m away from classroom fantasy and instead it is now the real thing wherein money flows including my salary.



GB, PTL, TY

Scarlett