Tham khảo tài liệu 'fundamentals of project management body of knowledge_7', kinh doanh - tiếp thị, quản trị kinh doanh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | I Project Control Using Earned Value Analysis 143 monitor the road signs and see whether they agree with your planned route. In well-defined jobs such as construction projects it is generally fairly easy to tell where you are. You can measure the height of a brick wall or see whether all the conduit is installed and so on. That is you can tell where you are when a part of the work is actually finished. When work is poorly defined and it is only partially complete however you have to estimate where you are. This is especially true of knowledge work work done with one s head rather than one s hands. If you are writing software code designing something or writing a book it can be very hard to judge how far along you are and how much you have left to do. Naturally if you can t tell where you are you can t exercise control. And note that use of the word estimate in measuring progress. What exactly is an estimate It s a guess. And so we are guessing about where we are. Yes. We ll know where we are when we get there. Until we actually arrive we re guessing. Does this not sound like something from Alice in Wonderland Heavens. What was that definition of control again Let s see compare where you are . . . How do you know where you are . . . We re guessing. . . . against where you are supposed to be. . . . How do you know where you re supposed to be Oh that s much easier. The plan tells us. But where did the plan come from It was an estimate too. Oh. So if one guess doesn t agree with the other guess we re supposed to take corrective action to make the two of them agree is that it That s what this guy says in his book. Must be a book on witchcraft and magic. Well since it is impossible to know for sure where we are American Management Association 144 Fundamentals of Project Management then perhaps we should just give up on the whole thing and keep running projects by the seat of the pants. Right Wrong. The fact that measures of progress are not very accurate .
