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Intermediate Performance Measures in Engineering Projects
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Conventional methods for measuring progress during an engineering project include use of supervisors and milestones,and a variety of scheduling and cost procedures. This exploratory survey draws upon the literature and inputs from
engineering managers to identify other measures employed to provide a comparison of planned with actual progress.
A review of texts on project management indicates that little attention is given to methods of measuring intermediate project performance. Control in engineering projects is usually described as a three step process: create a plan; measure
actual progress, from time-to-time, and compare it with the plan; take corrective action. Plans are usually presented in three interrelated dimensions: time, cost, and performance.
The literature, if not also practice, provides extensive guidance in preparing plans in all three dimensions, provides formats and procedures for comparing actual progress with plan, and provides extensive guidance on methods of taking corrective action.
The measuring of actual progress in the cost dimension is often a matter of bookkeeping discipline. Similarly, the time dimension is presented in calendar units, the present status of which is easy to identify. It seems clear that measuring how
much time has elapsed, or how much money has been expended, tells little about progress on a project if we don't know how much technical progress we have made towards completing the project.
The performance dimension is often presented in terms of specifications and standards, work breakdown structures, linear responsibility charts, Gantt charts, or other descriptions. It is the "measuring" which is treated more summarily; the few explicit mentions include use of supervision, milestones, tests, design reviews, outside experts, and timelcost combinations.
Drawing upon direct involvement in project management, ideas developed teaching project management for over twentyfive years, and information growing out of assignments directed to finding literature references and examples of practices in industry,a number of other, less conventional measures have been identified, including the following: status of related documentation;status of resource utilization; tell tale tasks; downstream tasks (internal to engineering); downstream functions (external to engineering); benchmarking or baselining; "bugs" and rework;reevaluating estimates to completion.
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