A project baseline is an overview of the project that was obtained at a specific point in time. For example, when the project’s planning stage is finished, the project’s initial baseline is created. The goal of the project baseline is to determine the degree to which the actual outcomes differed from the expectations. With this, the project baseline and those plans will be compared. It’s important to predict as accurately as possible the baseline, but as changes are expected new baselines will be established throughout the project should change requests be approved, where the consequences on the budget, schedule, and more are analyzed, organized and amended in the event said modification request is authorized. PMP training courses explain the many types of baselines that may be used within a project, how they are created and the best way to organize and control them. Earn the education hours prerequisite for your CAPM or PMP exam while learning core project management skills and knowledge.
Project Performance And Finding A Baseline
The performance assessment baseline is made up of three separate baselines: the Scope Baseline, the Schedule Baseline, and the Cost Baseline. It’s important for a Project Manager to understand each of these and how to properly utilize them.
The Scope Baseline is made up of three components, they are:
- Statement of the project’s scope that outlines the tasks that are going to be performed during the project, and their needs.
- The Work Breakdown Structure, which demonstrates the hierarchical relationship between the tasks, elements, as well as the work packages that are necessary to finish the entire project. Take the project to manufacture airplanes, for instance. The entertainment system, also referred to as a work package, includes things like audio and multimedia systems. The culmination of the plane manufacturing project includes additional systems including avionic systems and communication system work packages.
- The elements in the Work Breakdown Structure are covered in depth by the WBS dictionary.
Schedule Baseline: The project’s agreed-upon schedule is described in the schedule baseline. The start and finish dates of every activity are included in the baseline schedule. It also includes all of the milestones. The schedule baseline may be used to assess the project’s length and finish date.
Costs Baseline: It offers a time-phased budget. The dates all of the payments will be made and the amount that is going to be paid is shown together with the total amount that is going to be spent on the whole project. The business makes the appropriate financial arrangements for the project depending on this baseline.
If you sign up for a PMP certification class, you may learn more specifics regarding baselines.
How Project Managers Can Take Care Of The Project Baseline
When tasks are performed, the project manager should investigate any general departures from the project baseline. Since everyone involved has approved this plan during the planning process, everyone anticipates that the final outcome is going to be exactly as they planned. The project manager’s responsibility is to monitor any deviations from the cost, time, or scope baselines while the project is being carried out. Corrective and preventative measures that will have an effect on the project need to be performed if there’s a possibility that the original budget for the project will end up being exceeded or that the project will be delayed.
Making Changes To The Project Baseline
Although the baseline may be altered, it shouldn’t be so simple, since each baseline is used to assess your ability to achieve your goals. Deviations or variations from the original plan will be misleading if a baseline shifts too much. Therefore, when it comes to an actual, real-life situation, a project’s baseline is often updated only in response to an accepted change request that comes from a project sponsor, or with their proper acknowledgment.
During the project monitoring & control process group or the executing process one, official requests for any changes to be made to the baseline are allowed to be processed. Once they have been related to and approved by all of the stakeholders, project baseline updates are difficult to complete, since a baseline’s goal is to serve as the standard by which to measure project success. Therefore, altering this benchmark will result in inaccurate performance measurements. As a result, a baseline can only be updated after receiving a formal request, as well as the project sponsor’s or customer’s consent.
During the project integration, project managers may have to follow the procedures and perform the integrated change control stage, where these changes for the baseline are assessed and authorized by the appropriate team members and project managers. The change control board assesses changes together with their effects on the overall project. If there is a change that is accepted by the complete change control board, its effects are first changed in the plans for the project before the change will be put into effect. If you want to learn more about this, courses about CAPM also include lectures on change management.
Uncompleted risk management and risk identification are frequently the cause of deviations and variations from the project’s baseline, causing delays, budgetary issues, and complications across the project. There may have been unforeseen work or an effect if there is a lot of variation from the baseline, such as when the overall cost of one particular activity or item exceeds the projected values, or when a work package takes longer than expected. This is mostly the result of poor risk identification and management.
Understanding the information in this article is an essential part of project management and a vital part of the PMP exam. Improve your project management skills or prepare for the PMP Certification exam by taking a quality online PMP exam prep course.