It’s one of those boring details that is frequently overlooked – but ignoring it can cause havoc in project reporting.  I’m talking about the importance of aligning project financial reporting to a specific point in time in order to have any chance at meaningful metrics on the state of the project.  Major projects are steeped in complexity, with a high pace of activity going on every day.  It’s tricky to measure and report on frenetic, in-flight projects like that because putting a halt to things simply isn’t an option, “Hey everyone, just stop what you’re doing so we can get a reading on what’s going on.” That’s just not going to happen.  So, you have to set regular, theoretical, lines-in-the-sand at incremental points, and measure the project at those increments so that you can produce reports, even though things will keep moving on.  It’s a bit like trying to measure the flow of a fast mountain river tumbling over rocks and cliffs – you have to just jump in and go for it while the river keeps pounding on past you.

With the hundreds of people entering data into the system every day, what are the chances that a day will ever go by when all the data is entered perfectly – without a single mistake?

Why the WIP Report is so Important

In addition to effectively managing the costs and schedule of your project, it’s critical to stay on top of your Work in Progress or WIP.  WIP is critical to monitor. You, your CFO and your investors need to know just how profitable your project is, how much of the project has been funded by your customer, and how much has been financed by you.  Combining WIP information with project profitability and performance metrics, will give you a complete picture of the financial health of your project or your program.

  Accelerate Your Cash Flow

You’ve spent considerable time and effort in running your projects well.  You make sure that your customer is kept very happy during project execution, and you’re expertly handling the multitude of challenges that come along with a complex project.  Your project is going well, your customer is happy. But you still can’t seem to get paid on time. Why is that?

Earned Value Management?

When asked about where their project stands against initial budget and schedule, most project managers will have a pretty good idea. They’d be able to tell you something like, “We’re running quite close to budget”, or “We’re almost half done”. However, without the tools and tracking to provide sufficient substance to those statements, gut-feel assertions like that are often dangerous guesses that can lead to cost overruns and delays. Earned Value Management provides the tools and techniques to tell a project manager where he or she really stands in their project. It can not only report on how much over/under budget or ahead/behind schedule a project is; it can also inform a PM as to how a project is trending, so as to better predict schedule and cost remaining to complete their project.  This provides the project manager a solid grounding on current status along with a good estimate of projected final results & timing.

Stop Avoiding Problems With the Hope they Just Go Away