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How to Determine When and What to Analyze

Project analysis minimizes or eliminates surprises by providing early warnings of trends and situations in a project. In a sense, periodic evaluations of your project serve as checks of your project's health. The frequency and extent of your analysis is up to you. Analyze too frequently, and you quickly find you have little time for anything else. Analyze too infrequently, and problems may not be noticed early enough to avoid an impact on the overall project success.

Project analysis is a means of answering business questions regarding the project. The following questions serve as a guideline for producing useful project health checks:

• Have you defined enough information for each task?

  Ask this question during initial project planning. Use the Gantt Chart view to perform the analysis.

• Who are the key resources?

  Ask this question while scheduling (or rescheduling). Use the Resource Assignment view to perform the analysis.

• On which tasks are these resources working?

  Ask this question while scheduling (or rescheduling). Use the Resource Assignment view to perform the analysis.

• Is everything on schedule?

  Ask this question periodically during the project life cycle. Use the Variance Analysis view to perform the analysis.

• How did actual effort compare with the project plan?

  Ask this question periodically throughout the project and when the project is finished. Use the Variance Analysis view to perform the analysis.

More information:

Validate Project Plan Data

Analyze Projects with Earned Value Variances

About Analyzing Projects with Current Baseline