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         Communication Aspects in Software Engineering

14 April 2014

How to prepare for a CSR system implementation

In this article, suggestions are presented to help organisations prepare for the implementation of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) system and to ensure that the investment produces maximum rewards in terms of streamlined processes, real-time reporting and ideally decreased costs.

Step 1 – How to prepare the Business Case?

A CSR system, what for? The vast majority of companies today make their critical CSR decisions based on spreadsheets, home-grown applications or somewhat limited desktop applications. However, the more advanced and successful companies tend to implement a full-blown Enterprise CSR system to manage their organisation’s end-to-end processes.

At the time of writing, the CSR business domain is fairly young and still maturing. They are different understandings about CSR and what it involves. However, the commonly accepted key CSR areas are:

  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Social Baseline
  • Social Investment
  • Land Access (compensation resettlement)
  • Local Employment
  • Local Business Development
  • Land Management
  • Environmental Monitoring
  • Biodiversity
  • Compliance Management
  • Land Rehabilitation and Site Closure
  • Performance Reporting
  • Carbon Footprint Management

In an Enterprise CSR solution, these processes are integrated together and they access the same data from a central database.

So what are the benefits of implementing a comprehensive CSR system?

A CSR system manages a lot of data, and the more a company integrates the data driven by CSR policies and programs, the more benefits there are to be derived. A CSR solution will help a company to meet its social and environmental performance targets. An Enterprise CSR Solution will contribute to a company’s sustainability by providing managers with reports and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that will help ensure and demonstrate transparency, and measure the efficiency and impact of their projects. CSR solutions also introduce “best practices”, which are practices that are found to be the best way to perform certain processes in the industry.

One of the first steps essential to the preparation for the implementation of a CSR system is the development and presentation of a strong business case.

When it comes to timing, companies need to make their move early. Managers need to read the signs that they are outgrowing their current systems and practices, and act before it is too late. Indeed, despite the cost of implementing an Enterprise CSR system, the cost of delaying it is likely to be higher. An Enterprise CSR system is often considered a strategic investment and the project may have tangible and intangible benefits.

Benefits

Risk Management:

  • Maintenance of a Social License to Operate – maximising production times and preventing loss of access to sites
  • Decreased penalties and project delays due to non-compliance
  • Avoid overpayments and corruption, through rigorous approval processes
  • Improved management of commitments and issues

Improved efficiency:

  • Improved and centralised access to information and integrity of information
  • Simplified and faster, while more rigorous, processes based on industry best practices
  • Corporate reporting with aggregated data and KPIs
  • Improved results from external audits and decreased corrective actions, through providing a high transparency process and ability to demonstrate undertaken actions
  • Decreased actions and cost to address grievances and incidents
  • More effective vehicle for communication and decision-making
  • Transition from reactive to pro-active organisation
  • Consolidate ability to raise funds by providing transparent and auditable processes

Human Resources:

  • Improved cost, workforce and time efficiency, along with recruitment and retention
  • Increased staff expertise

Brand differentiation:

  • Reputation for integrity and best practice, and potentially for environmental
    sustainability, community involvement and ethical marketing practices
  • Increased opportunity to become the business of choice, through support from communities
  • Improved supplier relations and management

Other cost savings may be derived from less rework, quality assurance, document printing, etc.

Statistics on the cost of these things are often readily available and can be used to put hard numbers into and consolidate a Business Case.

How to select a CSR solution?

The risk of selecting an unsuitable CSR solution is real. It is important to pay attention to the company’s processes and needs over the long-term, and to the features of the system. The decision must be based on what is known at the time and what can be predicted about the future. It is preferable to acquire the most optimal solution for the company’s need, rather than an inexpensive one. Money saved in the wrong areas, might later prove costly.

Selection Criteria

  • The vendor must have plenty of experience and good references
  • The solution addresses the functionality requirements and is easy to configure
  • Ability to provide versatile and comprehensive reports
  • Built-in best practices based on international norms and standards, such as IFC, Equator Principles, ISO, ICMM, IPIECA, GRI, etc.
  • Be aware of response times over slow networks, off-line capability and system scalability
  • Support multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-localisations and/or multi-time-zones
  • Integrated Mobile solution
  • Comprehensive and integrated / Enterprise solution
  • Compatibility with company’s Standard Operating Environment (SOE)
  • Carefully weigh the decision about the SaaS or cloud versus on-premises offering
  • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over a number of years, usually 5 years, and Return On Investment (ROI)
  • Whether the vendor provides CSR services in addition to the software, such as on-the-ground surveying and consulting.
  • Availability of warranty period, and support and maintenance packages

Some common mistakes in selecting a CSR system are:

  • Incomplete requirements
  • Over-reliance on vendor demos
  • Over-emphasis on system cost
  • Selection bias and failure to use objective professional services
  • Inability to understand the offering by the CSR solution vendor
  • A proper system selection methodology includes a list of selection criteria.

An organisation should have a clear vision of why it is embarking on such a project and what are the business objectives for it. The challenge is to smoothly change from the old way of doing things to the new system and practices.

Step 2 – How to prepare the Scope?

A high-level scope has most likely been established with the Business Case and now a scoping study may be performed in order to elicit the detailed scope for the project.

Alternatively, the scoping study could come prior and the results used for the Business Case.

In any case, a scoping study is strongly recommended to ensure the project delivers against the objectives and benefits, while maximising the strength of the selected solution.

Scoping Study

A detailed scope or high-level requirements will ideally be elicited up front in accordance with both the business objectives and end solution in mind. Implementing a CSR system is an opportunity to have a good hard look at the company’s CSR processes, and establish how they can be improved and supported by the system.

The scoping phase serves to anchor the project priorities, helping to define appropriate functionality and business process improvements, matching current business processes with provided best practices. Scoping will unearth information about the needs and motivations of stakeholders. It will consolidate the project boundaries and objectives, and allow the mapping of opportunities for improvement.

In this objective, scoping workshops will be held with primary and ideally secondary stakeholders. They will be reflected back in a scoping document, which will map the project objectives and recommendations, provide high level plans for content, delivery, timeframes and budget, and can include workflow maps and diagrams when appropriate.

Scoping workshops should form the foundation of an implementation project. They provide a structured framework for idea generation and dialogue, create a shared project vision and facilitate exploration of possibilities. It can also be a fantastic team building exercise.

Consultants will lead such workshops, in order to bring expertise of the CSR solutions, while facilitating the communication and gently directing discussions and ideas.

In preparation or as part of the scoping study, it is recommended to identify all the data sources. This will provide good information on where are some opportunities for improvement, and also to establish the data quality and the need for data cleansing.

Step 3 – How to prepare the budget?

The process to establish a CSR solution implementation project budget will require careful planning to ensure that the needed information has been gathered and buy-in from significant stakeholders is gained.

Very few companies can use a CSR solution right out-of-the-box. The system will most likely need to be tailored to company’s requirements, in order to adapt it to the company’s vocabulary and processes… While companies want to take on board the best practices built-in to the CSR solution, they also want to minimise the changes for themselves, as these changes can prove to be much more costly than adapting the software.

How will you know if you have been successful in creating an accurate budget for your project?

When preparing the budget, consideration needs to be given to the fact that the successful implementation of a CSR system without expertise is almost impossible. You will need to anticipate and prepare for the use of Consultants and Subject Matter Experts (SME) to facilitate a more effective implementation. Remember to be prepared for their arrival, so you can maximise their productivity while on-site. In this objective, things that are likely to be required are:

  • Internet access (maybe Wi-Fi) for access to files, environments, information, etc.
  • Meeting rooms with a projector or large screen and dry erase board for demonstrations and collaborative work
  • Appropriate working space, with desks and monitors for work on-site

Note that Consultants will usually bring their own laptop to perform their work.

These are items that you may need to consider for your budget or that will be included in the quote from your CSR system provider, in order to implement a CSR system:

  • Software licenses
  • Infrastructure or hosting services – different environments will be required, such as Development, Quality-Assurance, UAT, Training, Production, etc.
    With hardware and network, sometimes purchasing multiple years of maintenance and support will provide savings versus purchasing one year at a time. Ensure your networks are adequate for supporting your implementation and the long-term use of the product.
  • Consultancy time for a scoping study and then to elicit high-level and detailed requirements documentation and user documentation
  • System configuration and testing to company’s requirements if needed
  • Training and logistics – CSR systems are only effective if they are utilised properly. An Enterprise CSR system will require proper training to be utilised most effectively
  • Deployment and roll-out. There may be several sites involved, in which case it is sometimes recommended to roll the system out in stages
  • Project management
  • Change management, in order to manage the resistance that comes with the change inherent to the introduction of new processes and a new system, even when based on best practices

Business SMEs Involvement

Business SMEs will be required from the start, in order to help document the requirements, during the project in order to respond to questions, make decisions and validate the configuration as it progresses, and to the end in order to perform the User Acceptance Testing.

It is important that the configuration is validated along the way, so that discrepancies and defects are found early on, when there is still time and options to address them. Indeed, when problems are found towards the end of the project, the only option left is often to postpone go-live and find space in the budget in order to achieve the desired result, or alternatively to have a second phase.

It is usually a good idea to have Business SMEs on the project on a part-time basis, as they inevitably have their own day-to-day work to do. 50% of the time is usually a good ratio, in order to keep them motivated and to the point. You may want to consider backfilling Business SMEs, so the day-to-day work keeps being done, relieving the pressure to perform two jobs at once. The other reason is that if Business SMEs don’t have the time to put into the project, it is a recipe for failure, with no-one available to tell and check what is needed.

  • Don’t forget that company Business Subject Matter Experts (SME) will be required for the length of the project. The budget for this may need to come from the project budget.
  • Should you include a budget for Conferences?… Major CSR software vendors have conferences to help users learn about the product they purchased, to provide information and roadmap about new functionalities and to further people’s expertise in the business domain.
  • Contingency for changes posed by users or by changes in the political or economic environment

Step 4 – How to prepare for Project Management?

There is potentially a lot to say about project management, but the implementation of an enterprise CSR solution should not be different from any other significant or large software development project.

Here is an example of project processes and deliverables:

As a project Manager, you want to network as a salesman, in order to maximise your chances to get things done. Be an inspirational Leader: minimise management effort, maximise communication, take the time to think and tackle the real problems!

It is recommended to implement budget management and audits. Have a nominated Project Sponsor to approve expenditures. Have a Project Steering Committee, usually chaired by the Project Sponsor, in order to follow up on progress against the benefits and make the decisions to steer the project to completion.

As the requirements get written, it is very important to establish the traceability between the requirements and the scope. This is in order to monitor the progress against the scope and also to monitor scope creep.

During the project, you may want to control hours and rate changes. Determine if Consultants’ rates include travel. Be aware of the common practice of including an annual rate increase. You may want to cap the number of hours consultants can do per week… However this number may need to be revised as the project progresses and deadlines approach.

Here is a typical project team organisation:

About risk management, the 4 categories of risks to be considered for an Enterprise CSR system implementation are:

  • the technology risk – fit with current corporate infrastructure
  • the organisational risk – how much change to the organisation vs software
  • the people risk – about training, re-skilling and resistance to change
  • the project size risk – management control structure and communication

There would be a lot to say about Quality Assurance… It could be a white-paper on its own. In short, testing is extremely important, but is not the only thing to consider. The quality of the requirements is also paramount.

The roll-out of the system should not be done during the busiest season and it can be done step by step, for example one function at a time. Consider also the handover to support as part of the roll-out.

Step 5 – How to prepare for Benefits Realisation?

When the use is established and the system is being properly utilised, the original business objectives should be revised and the measurable objectives should be measured. Measurements may be performed at different time intervals, in order to record evolution over time. It is recommended to establish a baseline, before the system is implemented.

Measurements

    • A given team’s output measurably increased for using the system… They performed 50% more assessments in the 6 months after the system was rolled-out.
    • The number of grievances being raised or the number of non-compliances is decreasing systematically since using the system.
    • The users’ satisfaction or morale, measured through formal surveys, has increased by 50%.

Step 6 – How to prepare for the long-term?

Finally, don’t forget that the project may last for a few months only, but the system will likely be in place for 10 years or more. So you may want to build a long-term relationship with the vendor.

Some vendors are willing to establish a mutually beneficial partnership type relationship with your company, in order to help you maximise the return on your investment. This might involve attendance to regular meetings at different levels within the company, the establishment of user forums, or the contribution to the product roadmap for example.

27 March 2010

Earned Value and Tolerance, using critical path

Filed under: Project Management — Tags: — admin @ 09:09

When reporting on earned value, more often than not, the project is slightly behind the original plan and the earned value is below the planned value.
How does the project manager and the project stakeholders know if the variance is within the tolerance of the project or not? What is the bottom-line?…

The project critical path can be used, in order to represent the tolerance threshold, as in the example below.

Values for the chart can be automated using MS Project and MS Excel… See previous post on earned value calculation http://www.casoft.com.au/2009/04/calculate-earned-value-with-tfs.html

For more information contact us – jjacquet AT casoft.com.au

17 January 2010

Successful Project Management

Filed under: Project Management — Tags: , — admin @ 09:22

One may notice that everyone, in every area of life but more so in project management, claims to be successful and, more often than not, successful only…
How good someone really is, who has never experienced failure, I ask?

We all have strengths and weaknesses, and this means we perform better in some situations than others.

Have you ever noticed that when their is a problem (and there’s always one), most consider self as being outside of the problem, while everybody else considers you as being part of it?

Successful people take ownership of the problem at hand…

1 July 2009

Agile Project Management with Scrum

Filed under: Agile,Book Review — Tags: , — admin @ 21:04

About Scrum we like the philosophy and the following practices:

  • Feature prioritisation sessions
  • Undisturbed iterations (called Sprints)
  • Functionality presentation sessions
  • Self-organising teams

In a nutshell, SCRUM principles are as follows:

  • All management responsibilities are divided between 3 Scrum roles:
    • The Product Owner focus is focused on Return On Investment (ROI)
    • The Team is responsible for developing functionality. Teams are self-managing, self-organising, cross-functional and they are responsible for figuring out how to turn Product Backlog into an increment of functionality.
    • The Scrum Master fills the position normally occupied by the Project Manager. He is responsible for the Scrum process. Like a sheep-dog, he’s responsible for keeping the flock together (focused) and keeping the wolves away (undistracted).
  • Each Sprint is an iteration of 30 consecutive calendar days
    • A Sprint starts with a planning meeting, where the Product Owner presents the highest priority Product Backlog (4 hours) and the Team plans out the Sprint (another 4 hours).
    • A Sprint finishes with a Sprint review meeting (4 hours), where the team present what was developed. Then the Scrum Master holds a Scrum retrospective meeting with the team.
  • Artefacts:
    • A Product Backlog lists the features with estimates, associated Sprint and remaining work (days) – maintained by the Product Owner
    • A Sprint Backlog lists the tasks, which the team defines for turning the Product Backlog they selected into an increment of functionality, associated with the Originator, the person Responsible, the Status and the hours of work remaining – maintained by the Scrum Master -No Gantt-chart
  • Rules:

For more information, get the book form Ken Schwaber – Agile project Management with Scrum – click on the image below:

22 June 2009

TFS for Project Management

Filed under: Agile,Project Management — Tags: , , — admin @ 19:31

Team Foundation Server (TFS) is a Microsoft offering for source control, data collection, reporting, and project tracking, and is intended for collaborative software development projects.
It is not just a bug tracking tool.

It is available either as stand-alone software, or as the server side back end platform for Visual Studio Team System (VSTS).

TFS Architecture:


When creating a project, there are 2 project templates to choose from:

  1. MSF Agile:
    • Provide Work items and Processes that support Agile programming approach
  2. MSF CMMI
    • Based on MSF Agile, it stretches the Agile approach to comply with CMMI Maturity level 3.
    • It is 150% larger than MSF Agile, for example MSF Agile has 25 work product artefacts, MSF CMMI has 59.

TFS manages pretty much everything as Work Items:
The recommended links organisation is as follows:

Queries and reports can be developed in order to retreive any data from TFS. There are existing reports, such as Bugs rate and Remaining work.SharePoint Web Access allows web access to all the information in TFS: Work items, Queires, Reports, Documents, Source Control, Builds and also Timesheets. SharePoint can be used by project Stakeholders, including the Customer if you wish.

SharePoint Project Portal provides documents repositories for projects and Wiki features.

The Integration of TFS and Excel allows to extract any data from TFS into Excel, using queries. The data is copied in the spreadsheet and can be refreshed from TFS at the press of a button. The data can also be edited in Excel and be published in TFS. Charts can then be developed in Excel.

It is also possible to develop pivot-table that access the TFS database directly (instead of running a TFS query).

There are also plug-ins to TFS, such as:

  • Calibre VSTS Add-in, which allows synchronisation of requirements with the tool from Borland
  • Test Director Synchronisation Engine, which allows synchronisation of bugs with the Quality Centre.

Also TFS Power Tools, to be downloaded, offer very interesting features, such as:

  • Process Template Editor
  • Work Item Editor
  • Custom check-in policies
  • TFS Server Manager
  • TFS Client Tool
  • Alert Editor

Finally TFS 2010 will offer the following additional features:

  • Architecture Explorer, which is a graphical visualisation of code
  • 7 diagrams UML supported, for design and share diagrams
  • Tools for test cases management, such as tooling for better documentation & test
  • Test Impact View, which allows to run tests impacted by a code change only
  • Enhanced Vision Control, with gated check-in, branch visualisation & build workflow

5 June 2009

Code Quality – Preventive vs Corrective actions

Filed under: Project Management — Tags: , — admin @ 15:27

When it comes to quality in general and code quality in particular, I very much believe in prevention prior to correction.
When asked about code quality, people tend to offer corrective type solutions. Corrective type solutions are good and necessary, but they are more costly and are worth being minimised by implementing a number of preventive solutions up-stream. Example of preventive actions:

  • Ensure quality of requirements – implement a continous requirements development and recording
  • Ensure quality of architecture and design – implement methodologies for concept and documentation, such as UML and RUP
  • Ensure quality of staff – implement relevant and continuous training programs and recognition programs – manage pressure intelligently
  • Ensure quality of project processes – implement methodologies for project management and software engineering, such as PMBoK, CMMI, RUP and/or a recognised Agile approach.

I have worked for companies which spend a lot of time on the preventive side of things, and other which spend none whatsoever. Experience shows that when time is spent imlementing preventive solutions, the overall time of developing software is no significantly shorter nor longer…
The time normally spent fixing bugs at the end, is instead spent up-front insuring quality. But then dividends pay in the maintenance phase, where things get much easier. One case study demonstrated that 50% less staff were required in the first 5 years of maintaining a software solution re-engineered using proper design and UML approach.
In my point of view, the frequency of total re-engineering needed is also significantly decreased.

As a conclusion, in my experience people implementing Agile approaches often tend to dismiss or minimise the preventive activities in the name of agility, while this is not an Agile requirement and it is undesirable for high quality outcomes.

9 May 2009

Risk Analysis 101

Filed under: Project Management,RUP — Tags: — admin @ 09:33

In my experience, Risk Analysis is primarily about communication. If the communication going around the project is not open and efficient, no risk analysis approach will save it.
On the other hand, if there is good communication going, a simple risk analysis methodology will do wonders.

The objective of a risk analysis is to identify, quantify and as much as possible mitigate the effects of events that have the potential to prevent a project from reaching its objectives. A risk analysis is not about identifying dysfunctions or people to blame.

The goals of a risk analysis is to:

  • give confidence to the Project Manager that all the contingencies have been considered
  • help working teams to focus on the key issues
  • mitigate the potiential impact of certain risks
  • help to prepare for the unexpected
  • improve the control over the development life-cycle and increase the capability to achieve the project objectives

A common method consists in brainstorming sessions, which allow to establish a list of risks. Each risk has an assignee, who will have the responsibility to help analysing the risk, usually the subject matter expert.
Let’s remind ourselves now one fundamental principle of risk analysis: “No idea is too stupide to be mentionned”. This is why small risks and very important risks will be listed side by side.
Then each risk is the object of a detailled analysis, which will allow to determine the value of a number of attributes. In particular, risks are classified by category.

The following categories may be considered for Software Development projects:

  • Requirements
  • Analysis and Design
  • Coding
  • Test
  • Deployment
  • Training and Documentation
  • Maintenance and Support
  • General

Each risk is also allocated a value for importance. The calculation of the importance is realised by using a Probability-Impact matrix. In the following example the matrix give more importance to the impact over the probability:

 

 

 

 

Probability \ Severity Low Medium High
Low 1 3 5
Medium 2 6 8
High 4 7 9

Still in the context of the calculation of the importance, it is recommended to undertake a ponderation of the severities in relation to cost, quality and planning, in order to take into account the imperatives of the project.

A risk analysis will allow to highlight a number of solutions susceptible to mitigate the risks. Solutions will translate into actions. Some of these actions will need to be undertaken rapidely, in order to prevent the apparition of risks. They are preventive actions. Some will rely on the risk being triggered. They are curative actions.
Each action is allocated a value for importance too, which is calculated with the importance of risks it is mitigating.

Risks may later be managed using Risk Management Plan type document, or project traking type document, such as Status Assessment.

The source of information should also be documented, as context for the risk analysis. For example, list the brainstorming sessions that have happened and the attendees.

When documenting the results of the risk analysis, it is recommended to provide first the catalog of risks as a summary, sorted by importance. Then describe the risks in details by category.
The following attributes are to be documented for each risk:

  • Description – what it is about
  • Indicator – how do we find out
  • Impact (source part, impacted part, probability, impact severity on cost, quality and planning)
  • Possible solutions – refering to actions

The risk repartition may be documented using charts as for example:

  • Severity repartition for planning, quality and/or cost
  • Risks repartition by category (risks number and % importance)
  • Risks control repartition (risks per person, team, group and/or organisation)

Proposed actions are listed with a reference, a description, an undertaking mechanism and associated risks (which are mitigated by the action).

In conclusion, most of the proposed actions should be preventive and therefore undertaken as soon as possible, as a fundamental principle of risks analysis consists in anticipating problems. Indeed risk analysis is not supposed to provide solutions to existing problems, as it is considered to be late.
It is recommended to undertake a process analyse, as per the RUP methodology for example, in order to describe actions in details and to anchor them within a well known methodology.

Finally the risks analysis identifies New risks. The risks management consists in turning risks from New to Open when they are triggered, and turning them from Open to Closed when they have been treated.

Existing problems, at the time of the risks analysis, aren’t identified as risks, since no probability can associated, but they may be managed as open risks during risk management.

4 April 2009

Calculate Earned Value with TFS

Filed under: Project Management — Tags: — admin @ 20:16

Calculate the Earned Value of a project on a weekly basis, using TFS, MSProject and MSExcel.
In this article we’ll explain how to calculate an Earned Value in days. It can be calculated in $ in a similar way… It is just a little more complicated.
It will work with TFS 2008, Office 2003 and Windows XP.
At the time of writing, it won’t work with Office 2007 and Windows Vista.

1- Define the tasks in TFS

First, the tasks from the work-breakdown-structure are entered in TFS, and assigned to team members as required.
A query will be needed to list all the tasks for your project, including the closed ones, so tasks don’t desappear as they get closed.

2- Use MSProject for the schedule

Though it is possible, it is unlikely that all the tasks of a project will be entered in TFS; typically Project Management or certain tasks performed by Consultants, for example.
Anyway, I like to have a semi-detailed schedule in MSProject, which will cover for all the tasks in the project. The tasks in TFS may be imported in MSProject automatically, using the TFS client tools, but I personally prefer to do this manually.
This is because I might have to prepare a project report as per Friday night on Friday afternoon, and TFS might not always be up-to-date. We have also experienced some problems with this interface.
I do however tend to group TFS tasks into a smaller number of tasks in MSProject, especially when there are hundreds or thousands of tasks, in order to make thinks easier. In this objective, the TFS tasks can be imported automatically in an MSExcel sheet (which works much better), using the query we mentioned earlier.
Then some calculations can be performed, in order to get Remaining time and %Complete values by group of tasks.

3- Export the schedule baseline into MSExcel

For the Earned Value chart, we need the Planned Effort values.
In this objective, we save the schedule baseline using the Resource Usage view in MSProject. Make sure that the values displayed go every 7 days (one week) and then copy and paste them in an MSExcel sheet, and replace the ‘d’ that comes with the numbers by nothing, so they are interpreted as numbers by MSExcel.
Now for each column, we need to add the week number, so it can be reference in the Earned Value table, in order to get the Planned Effort for each week. I personally like to use the format “2009w8” for the 8th week of 2009 for example.
We also need to calculate the sum of each column and the cumul of the sum for each column.

4- Get TFS Tasks updated

The Developers / Team menbers need to update the tasks that are assigned to them in TFS at least once a week. It is usually convenient to get them to do that at the same time they enter their timesheet. They need to update the Remaining Time and the status of the tasks they’ve been working on.

5- Update the schedule

The list of tasks in MSExcel can now be refreshed automatically with the latest values in TFS, and the schedule can be updated (manually), in order to reflect the progress on the project.

6- Update the Actuals from TFS Timesheet

In theory, TFS Timesheet can update the TFS Tasks Completed Time automatically, but at the time of writting we haven’t been able to get this to work properly.

So in order to obtain the actuals, we’ve been able to setup a pivot-table in MSExcel; Setup an external Data-Source pointing to a view, which is refering to the tfstimesheet table in SQL Server on the TFS Server.

We just needed the Work Item Id on the left, the sum of hours from timesheet entries in the middle and nothing on top, in order to get only one column with hours. Then a SUMIF formula allowed us to update the Completed time in the tasks listed in a different MSExcel sheet and to publish these values back in TFS.

7- Update the Earned Value data from MSProject

The Estimate At Completion (or EAC) for the project will be provided by the value in the Work column in MSProject.

The Earned Value is calculated from the %Complete of the project multiplicated by the baseline budget (in days) or Total Budget in the figure below.

The Total Budget is saved every week, because it can change over time, as the project needs to be re-baselined when significant changes happen. In this case if the history of Total Budget was not saved the values of the Earned Value would be impacted.

8- Draw the Earned Value Chart

See also an approach on how to calculate the tolerance for earned value on this post http://www.casoft.com.au/2010/03/earned-value-and-tolerance-using-critical-path.html

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