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Track 2000
Problem 4 - Tracking the negatives
Daily Builds : micro-deliverable tracking. Microsoft, Open Software Associates and other innovative companies develop systems using advanced tools that enable the rapid and incremental building and testing of components on a daily cycle. This technique does go some way to avoiding many of the problems with tracking raised in this paper. However, these techniques cannot be used until detailed specifications and design are completed - so tracking still remains a problem for a large part of the development cycle.
Traditional tracking mechanisms focus almost exclusively on estimates and actual costs, effort and time. In effect, the negative side of the project "balance sheet".
As will be discussed later, by tending to concentrate mainly on costs and schedules, most project tracking and reporting methods miss the issues of benefits, risks and other key project management concerns.
In many organisations, the monthly reports to senior management tend to only show the variances between original estimates and current reality and the factors that caused the variation.
Put simply, most tracking reports have the same structure:
- Original Estimates/Costs
- Revised Estimates/Costs
- Excuses
This emphasis on costs and deadlines has placed many project groups such as information technology in a position where, at the end of the project, the only information retained on the development process is the costs and effort - the negatives.