How to Manage IT Services › Create and Update Baselines to Measure Progress

Create and Update Baselines to Measure Progress

Often used with projects, baselines are also available to capture snapshots of total planned effort and estimated costs for a service. A baseline is static. The changes that you make to a service after you create a baseline do not automatically appear in the current baseline. However, you can update a baseline to include new information.

Note: Incident actuals represent unplanned work and are not part of the total effort for baselines.

Create an initial baseline before you enter any resource time. Create more baselines at intervals including mid-way through the service, when different phases are complete, and when the service is complete. The initial baseline lets you compare estimates to actuals when the service is underway.

Follow these steps:

1. Open a service.
2. Open the Properties menu, and click Baseline.

   The baselines page appears.

3. To edit a service baseline, click the name of a baseline revision on the page.
4. To create a baseline, click New.

   The properties page appears.

5. Complete the following fields:

   Revision Name

   Defines the name of the baseline revision.

   Example:

   Initial Baseline, Mid-Term Baseline, or Final Baseline.

   Required: Yes

   Revision ID

   Defines the unique identifier for the baseline revision.

   Example:

   The baseline version number, such as v1 or v5.

   Required: Yes

   Description

   Defines the description for the baseline revision.

   Required: No

   Current Revision

   Defines a baseline revision as the current baseline. The field is display only if a baseline revision exists. By default, the baseline you create last becomes the current project baseline. If you have defined only one baseline, that becomes the current baseline.

   Default: Selected

6. Save the changes.
7. View the following work effort and cost information for a baseline. The information is taken from the columns on the baseline revisions page of service properties:
   • Usage. The total effort (actuals plus remaining ETC) at the time the baseline was taken. The actuals are posted against the assignments of the service.
   • BCWP. Budgeted cost of work performed at the time the baseline is taken. The cost is the BAC value times the summary level percent complete.
8. (Optional) Use baselines to perform an Earned Value Analysis (EVA) on service performance. An EVA shows how much you have spent on your service and the completed work to date.

   Note: Define rates for the service staff and run the Rate Matrix Extraction job before baselining to get cost baseline values. Complete the percent values on summary tasks before baselining to get BCWP baseline values.

9. To update a baseline, open the Properties menu, and click Baseline.

   The service baseline page appears.

10. Select the check box next to the baseline.
11. Click Update Baseline.

    The confirmation page appears.

12. Click Yes.

    The most recently created baseline becomes the service current baseline by default. If you delete the current revision baseline and more than one baseline exists, then the most recent baseline becomes the current revision.

    When an investment has one baseline, that baseline is marked as the Current baseline. The baseline displays in the list with a yellow checkmark in the Current column. Open a baseline to make it the current baseline, select the Current Revision field, and save the baseline revision.