2 management - School of International Business and ...

Wolfgang Cronenbroeck
Expected project results (see Chapter 1.2, Procedural Models in Project Management) are described
in these milestones. When these milestones are reached, the client and the decision-making commit-
tee expect that the results that were reached were also the ones that were expected. The project man-
ager organizes a milestone meeting with the decision-making committee, and explains the milestone
results achieved with his milestone report. The decision-making committee is now responsible for
accepting the milestone result, or for requesting improvement. If little or no improvement is requested,
the milestone is accepted. The project manager documents this in milestone notes.
The project manager can always demonstrate with these accepted milestones on the way to the
project's goal that the project has been completed according to the project contract.
Cost trend analysis
Cost trend analyses can be carried out in a similar fashion to milestone trend analyses. In this
case, however, the expected costs for the entire project, project segments or work packets are
estimated, rather than specific milestone estimates. In the example (see Fig. 31), three work
packets are estimated. Work packet 1 has adhered to the costs as compared to the original plan;
work packet 2 has exceeded budget, and work packet 3 is under budget. The total costs of the
project result from the sum of the work packet costs, and can be followed in a trend analysis.
Figure 31 | Cost trend analysis
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