4.9. Evaluate Project Status
💡 First Principle: Status evaluation is about maintaining an honest, continuously updated picture of reality against the plan — the enablers emphasize artifact accessibility and communication precisely because status information that exists but isn't seen or understood by the right people has no value.
Enablers: develop project metrics/analysis/reconciliation, identify and tailor needed artifacts, help ensure artifacts are created/reviewed/updated/documented, help ensure artifact accessibility, assess current progress, measure/analyze/update project metrics, communicate project status, and continually assess the effectiveness of artifact management.
"Tailor needed artifacts" matters: a status report format appropriate for an executive steering committee (high-level, outcome-focused) is the wrong artifact for a daily stand-up (granular, blocker-focused) — PMI tests whether you select the right artifact for the right audience, echoing the same tailoring principle from People-domain communication planning.
Choosing metrics that tell the truth
A metric earns its place by answering a real question. Lagging indicators measure what has already happened — sales after a release, schedule variance, completed work. Leading indicators warn early, such as disengaged stakeholders or a missing risk management process. A single output metric invites gaming: a team measured only on features shipped can post record numbers while customers grow unhappy, so balance output with outcome measures such as customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score and quality. When a product owner asks whether delivered features are having the desired effect, velocity and uptime cannot answer — customer outcome measures can.
For an agile baseline the customer can trust, the rate of features completed reflects delivered value better than internal velocity or cost variance.
Earned value in predictive work
| Metric | Formula | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Cost variance (CV) | EV − AC | Negative means over budget |
| Schedule variance (SV) | EV − PV | Negative means behind schedule |
| Cost performance index (CPI) | EV / AC | Below 1.0 means over budget |
| Schedule performance index (SPI) | EV / PV | Below 1.0 means behind schedule |
CPI and CV are cost metrics; SPI and SV are schedule metrics. With PV $400K, EV $270K and AC $360K, SPI is 0.675 and CPI is 0.75 — behind and over. The right report states both plainly and recommends root-cause analysis before corrective action, rather than simply asking for more money. Variance is the deviation from a baseline; trend analysis uses historical results to forecast where the project is heading.
Agile progress charts
A burndown chart shows work remaining against the plan for the iteration or release; a burnup shows work completed against total scope, which makes scope changes visible. A burndown that sits flat for half the sprint and then drops sharply signals batched work — often a Definition of Done whose integration testing can only happen once all development is finished. When a sponsor fears the project will miss its date, review velocity, the product burndown and other KPIs; with a stable velocity of 30 points and 150 points remaining, about five sprints remain. Average velocity across past iterations is the best predictor of future ones.
A cumulative flow diagram stacks the count of items in each workflow state over time. It is the chart for "how much is in design, development, testing and sign-off," and a band that keeps widening marks a bottleneck — items entering that stage faster than they leave.
⚠️ Exam Trap: Executives asking for a large EVM-style report every two weeks on an agile team. The better answer is to invite them to the sprint demonstration of working features and point them to a visible burndown — not to divert the team into manufacturing reports.
Flow metrics
- Lead time — from request to delivery; the customer's view, often tracked for whole features.
- Cycle time — from work starting to work finishing, often tracked per story card.
- Throughput — items finished per period.
- Flow efficiency — value-added time as a share of lead time, since lead time is value-added plus non-value-added (waiting) time.
- Flow load and flow distribution — how many items are in progress, and the mix of work types.
WIP limits make flow work. When Testing is at its limit, a developer who finishes coding does not push the item in or start something new; the item waits in a ready-for-testing buffer, or the developer helps clear work already in progress. Removing WIP limits to "go faster" adds task switching and slows everything. Rising cycle time usually means a hidden bottleneck or ignored WIP limits; if the limits are respected and nothing changed, look at whether incoming items have grown larger.
⚠️ Exam Trap: Pressuring the downstream stage to hurry, or breaching the WIP limit "just this once." Kanban answers keep the pull system intact and move people to the constraint.
Artifacts people can actually see
An information radiator — a task board, burndown or CFD posted where the team and stakeholders pass — makes status accessible without a meeting. Keeping artifacts created, reviewed and current is part of this task, and so is judging whether they are still used.
⚠️ Exam Trap: Producing one standard status artifact for every audience. If a scenario shows an executive disengaged from overly granular reporting, the fix is tailoring the artifact, not just increasing report frequency.
