Friday, April 27, 2012

Percentage of completion - An Innovative Approach

As we have earlier discussed, it is meaningless to ask how much percentage of work is complete in your project deliverables to team members, in my earlier piece. Here is one more technique to handle it more effectively. 

1. 30-70 Rule:
It means when someone starts the work, it is 30% complete, already! Yes, when s/he starts it is 30% complete. 

The remaining 70% weight-age will be given when it is fully complete. It means if the person has done more work than 30% or less work than 30%, it is actually 30%, unless s/he completes the work. 

2. 50-50 Rule:
It means when the work is started it is 50% complete. And when it is completed, then rest 50% will be added to it. It will work with many of the employees. However, please ensure that you have mandate of your customer, senior management etc. 

3. 0-100 rule:
No weight-age will be given till it the work 100% complete. Whatever you have done, it will still be 0%, if the work is not fully complete. It will NOT work with most. However, in fixed price projects, you need a staff of performers. And I am sure they will accept it. 

Bottom line: You need to have a template for your progress reports or status reports within your company and get it verified by the major stakeholders. As I know, if the sponsors/customers are serious, they will never accept %-age of completion. The above few rules may help you in place going around and getting responses like 96% complete or 99.8% complete. It normally drives a genuine project manager crazy.