The two fundamental questions standard agile metrics cannot answer consistently are:
1. How far ahead or behind schedule are we currently?
2. When are we expected to finish?
Most of the tools and techniques used to manage Agile projects are good at defining the work (done, in-progress, or not started) and can indicate if the work is ahead or behind a nominated planned rate of production, but there is no direct calculation of the time the work is currently ahead or behind the required production rate, or what this is likely to mean for the completion of the project. A full discussion of this topic is in Calculating Completion. However, most project sponsors and clients need to know when the project they are funding will actually finish, they have other people that need to make use of the project’s outputs to achieve their objectives. At present all Agile can offer is an educated assessment based on the project teams understanding of the work.
Work Performance Management (WPM) has been designed to solve this challenge by providing answers to these questions based on consistent, repeatable, and defensible calculations.
WPM is a simple, practical tool that uses project metrics that are already being used for other purposes within the project, to assess progress and calculate a predicted completion date by comparing the amount of work achieved at a point in time with the amount of work needed to have been achieved. Based on this data WPM calculates the project status and the expected completion date assuming the rate of progress remains constant.
Our latest article, WPM for Agile Projects identifies the cause of this information gap in Agile project management, explains the inability of current tools to accurately predict completion and demonstrates how WPM will effectively close this critical information gap.
Download WPM for Agile Projects: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/Mag_Articles/AA040_-_WPM_for_Agile_Projects.pdf
For more on the practical use of WPM, free sample files, and access to the tool see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-041.php
Pat Weaver
Lynda Bourne
Aavssitedev's Blog