Performance Reporting

Performance reporting "involves the collection of all baseline data, and distribution of performance information to stakeholders" (PMBOK). The inputs into performance reporting according to the PMBOK include performance information, performance measurements, forecasted completion, QC measurements, the project management plan, approved change requests, and deliverables. All of these have been discussed earlier in this book.

Project records are a special type of performance reporting that will include important communication on the execution of the project. They must be permanent, so they will be either electronic in form or on paper. You may want to record important verbal interchanges, but for the most part, the project records must be in some form that can be put under version control. The important point is that the project records should be organized so that you can refer to the various records separately. This means, for instance, that all emails should be kept unless they had nothing to do with the project itself. You can order emails by date or topic, but it is always surprising how many times in a project you will refer to some document or communication that at first did not seem very important, so keep them.

Project reports are the various status reports or issues reports. For the most part, these should be kept chronologically. These will show the progress of the project as it was presented in various project status meetings.

Q.	Project records must be ________.
		A.	Lengthy
		B.	Detailed
		C.	Permanent
		D.	Tactical

The answer is C. The records must be permanent so that they can be referred to after they have been sent and received. This means that you will not use verbal communications as project records unless someone wrote down the conversation. In that case, the notes of the conversation or meeting should be circulated to get agreement that what was captured is what was actually said.

Performance reporting involves reporting how resources are being used to execute the project and reporting the project's status. There are three distinct parts to performance reporting. The first is status reporting. This type of reporting gives information about where the project is currently. Cost (or budget) and schedule compliance are the two main pieces of information in status reports.

Q.	The part of performance reporting that is an estimate of the future is ________.
		A.	Progress reporting
		B.	Schedule
		C.	WBS
		D.	Forecasting

The answer is D. Forecasting is a form of estimate that describes the potential needs of a project.

Q.	If performance reporting shows a completion percentage, you are doing ____________.
		A.	Forecasting
		B.	Scheduling
		C.	Progress reporting
		D.	Status reporting

The answer is C. When completion percentage is used in performance reporting, you are doing progress reporting.

Q.	The report that explains the current condition of the project is _____________.
		A.	Progress reporting
		B.	Status reporting
		C.	Forecasting
		D.	Schedule analysis

The answer is B. Status reporting shows the current condition of the project, usually using at least the schedule conformance and the budget conformance as two main pieces of information.

Other project records include any of the other project documents that contain information about how the project is being executed. They can be from any of the knowledge areas, such as quality, risk, cost, or time.

The tools and techniques for performance reporting include information presentation tools, performance information gathering, status review meetings, and time and cost reporting systems.

Project presentations are simply any reports that were made formally to stakeholders of the project. These may be on paper, but PowerPoint presentations are becoming the most common method of presentation. Either way, these presentations will present ideas and concepts that were important enough to show the stakeholders in a formal presentation.

Performance reviews are done in meetings to assess how the project is progressing and the current status of the project. Variance analysis is one of the techniques used to describe the current status. Because you will begin the execution of the project with a baseline, you will be able to see how the estimated baseline compares to the actual performance. In variance analysis, you are trying to find the amount of variance from the plan and the causes of the variance. As with most project reporting, time and cost will be key parts of variance analysis. You can also do variance analysis on any of the knowledge area reports, such as scope, quality, and risk. If there is any type of plan with a baseline, you can do variance analysis on it.

The output from performance reporting is the performance reports themselves. Performance reports are used to explain the performance of the project. The level of detail and information in the report will depend on the people who are going to see and use the report. Stakeholders will have varied needs for information, and the reports they receive should reflect this. In other words, "one report fits all" is not the case. The reports, in any form, will often discuss the variances between what was expected and what happened. The typical report of this type will be the earned value analysis that was discussed in Chapter 11, "Project Cost Management."

Change requests as an output are those requests that are the result of communicating a specific report to a stakeholder. As analysis is done on the project, it shows there may be some need for a change to be made. The potential changes come in the form of a change request, which will be handled through the use of various change control processes, such as cost change control and schedule change control.

Q.	Performance reports usually discuss ________ between estimated and actual performance on the project.
		A.	Variances
		B.	Differences
		C.	Relationships
		D.	Connections

The answer is A. Variance management consists of comparing the actual performance of the project to the baseline. The project manager manages variances and looks for the reasons why the variances occurred.