Phân lượng thời gian

Phân lượng thời gian

TIME GATHERING AND REPORTING

In tracking a project, no function is more important than gathering

and analyzing the amount of time spent on it Unfortunately, few

functions are as poorly regarded by those who must complete their

(expletive) time sheets It is rare to find a company with a time

reporting system that is appropriate for project management, and it

is common to find companies that do not ask their employees to

record their time in any form

In this section, we will review the purpose of time gathering and the

ideal method for doing so Since the ideal is rarely realized, we will

then look at alternatives

Companies that collect employee time have a number of reasons for doing

so, including payroll calculations, determining vacation and sick leave

entitlements, and calculating overtime benefits such as time banking or

additional pay While these functions are crucial for the financial operations

of the organization, they are irrelevant for project managers These people

need to collect time in order to measure actual performance on specific

activities against the activity estimates and, in the best of all conditions, to

gather revised estimates for the completion of each activity This

requirement means that time is to be gathered by activity, not simply on the

project as a whole Since the estimates are prepared by activity and the

schedule is presented by activity, activities are the only reasonable way to

track progress Since daily hours are not relevant to project tracking, a time

sheet need not specify days of the week except as a tool to help team

members track their hours each day

Tracking by activities has another benefit at the end of the project It is

usually revealing to examine the variation between the estimate and the time

actually spent on each activity By determining where the estimates varied

the most in either direction, the project can build up a base of experience

that will improve estimating and, ultimately, the ability of its project

managers to create plans that are more realistic and more likely to be met

The ideal time sheet also asks each employee to estimate the amount of time

remaining for each activity This is called the "estimate to complete" or ETC

Each week, the time sheets are processed by a time system, which can be as

simple as a spreadsheet The time system produces a report listing each

activity on the project, giving the total hours spent to date and the ETC

Adding the hours spent to date and the ETC gives the "estimate at

completion" or EAC, which is the number of hours of effort that the activity is

expected to have taken when it is complete For example, if a project activity

has an estimate of four weeks, two weeks of which have been spent, and the

team member responsible for the activity estimates that it will take three

weeks of effort to finish, the EAC is five weeks The variance between the

four-week estimate and the five-week EAC alerts the project manager two

weeks ahead of the scheduled completion that there is a problem, allowing

time to respond The process of gathering weekly ETCs also serves as an

ongoing commitment by the team members to the completion of their

activities

The ideal time sheet system also allows the project manager to control the

activities to which various people can post time The advantages of this are

twofold: The project manager can ensure that the people charging time to an

activity, and by extension to the entire project, are authorized to do so, and

when an activity is reported as complete, it can be closed with no more time

permitted to be charged against it

The ability to restrict the charging of time gives the project manager a

method of controlling the hours charged to a project rather than having to

review and correct time that has been improperly posted

The ideal time system, therefore, has these characteristics:

- It gathers time each week by activity

- It gathers estimates of time remaining for each activity

- It enables the project manager to restrict who can record time to each activity

- It provides weekly reports by activity indicating potential overruns