Variance At Completion (VAC) is the difference between what the project was originally expected (baselined) to cost, versus what it is now expected to cost.

Every month, our vendor is required to report this total on the project as a whole and on key deliverables.  I’m used to seeing the numbers reported and how to calculate them.  I’m not asking for the Cost Performance Index (CPI).  I want to know how far over or under we’re going to be compared to the budget.

The formula I memorized for the PMP exam and the same formula I use to calculate VAC today is: Variance At Completion = Budget At Completion – Estimate At Completion
(VAC = BAC – EAC)

So, I ask myself, [1] why is there no VAC definition and [2] VAC formula in the PMBoK?

Back in March, I wrote a post about helpful tips for running a meeting.  With it was a free copy of my meeting minutes template.  Here is a brief refresher when hosting a meeting:

[1] Write out the purpose of the meeting with actionable events in mind. e.g. “Provide an updated status, identifying risks and opportunities, and identify new action items.”

[2] Identify your attendee list but only keep those you can map to the actionable events listed in step 1.  There is a difference between an attendee list and a communications distribution list.

[3] Create an agenda.  Do not ever arrange a meeting without a written agenda.  Your meeting will suffer scope creep in the worst possible way.

[4] Identify who will run the meeting and who will take notes.  It should not be the same person.

[5] Ensure discussion points align to the agenda.  If they don’t, recommend taking the topic to another forum.

[6] End the meeting by having the note taker read back the discussion points and the understood action items.

[7] Send out the meeting minutes within one to two days.

Please note I don’t recommend using this for a Daily Scrum or Stand Up Meeting.

Twitter allows us to share the time and prevents us from trying to explain how to build the clock.

This morning, Dave Garrett, CEO of Gantthead.com and I were attempting to communicate via Twitter on the topic of PMI and Agile Scrum.

We were both finding it difficult to compress everything we wanted to say into 140 character posts.  I highly doubt Twitter is going to replace the telephone or email as a central method of communications.  It is, however, a great tool to capture the timeline and get your thoughts out quickly to like-minded people.  Regardless of the constraints, it’s always good to read Dave’s viewpoint or see what he’ll post next.  If you want to find an excellent Project Management resource, I recommend you check out and join Gantthead.com.  If you want to see the world from Dave’s perspective, minute by minute, I recommend you follow him on Twitter.

140 characters aside, we were able to get our points across to one another.

(Image courtesy of Twitter)

PERT – Program Evaluation and Review Technique.
If you’re going to take the PMP exam, you MUST remember this formula.  I’ve used it countless times in the real world and it works with surprising accuracy.

Formula: (P+4M+O)/6

Optimistic time (O): the minimum possible time required to accomplish a task, assuming everything proceeds better than is normally expected.
Pessimistic time (P): the maximum possible time required to accomplish a task, assuming everything goes wrong (excluding major catastrophes).
Most likely time (M): the best estimate of the time required to accomplish a task, assuming everything proceeds as normal.

How does it work?

Obtain three time estimates (optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely) for every activity along the critical path.  Plug your numbers into the formula and then sum the totals.  Though people will challenge you, you WILL have a more accurate critical path estimate.

I will speak to “Standard Deviation of an Activity” and “Variance of an Activity” at a later time.   They both leverage the same values but in different formulas.

Image from Wikipedia

Critical Path Method includes determining the longest path in a network diagram and the earliest and latest an activity can start and the earliest and the latest that activity can be completed.  Here are a few basic things you need to think about.

• It is the longest duration path through a network diagram and determines the shortest time to complete the project
• It helps prove how long the project will take
• It helps the project manager determine where best to focus his or her efforts
• It provides a method to compress the schedule during the project planning phase and whenever there are changes
• It provides a method to determine which activities have float and can be delayed without delaying the overall project.

The easiest way to find the critical path is to identify all paths through the network and add the activity durations along each path.  The path with the longest duration is the critical path.