A project management plan is merely a document that can be used to guide the execution of a project. Unless the actual performance of the execution is tracked against the plan, the plan has limited value. And for project tracking, the value of certain key parameters must be measured during the project. Tracking is a difficult task, and, as with other tasks, if you want to perform it properly you must plan for it. During planning, you must decide on issues such as how the tasks, the effort, and the defects will be tracked, what tools will be used, what reporting structure and frequency will be followed, and so on.
This chapter discusses how measurements are made in projects at Infosys. It also describes project tracking planning and the selection of thresholds for performance variation, which are used to trigger management actions. Actual project tracking is discussed in Chapters 10 and 11.